B. The Thistle’s Beard; for this at first sticks fast
To the green seed, which, ripe and dry, falls off
Upon the cradling breeze, or, upwards puffed
By playful urchins, sails along the air.
Antiphanes, in his Sappho, introduces a very ingenious riddle, partly for the purpose of offering a sarcastic explanation directed against the orators:
There is a female which within her bosom
Carries her young, that, mute, in fact, yet speak,
And make their voice heard on the howling waves,
Or wildest continent. They will converse
Even with the absent, and inform the deaf.[[863]]