The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again.—Thomas Paine.
LORD BYRON'S RIDDLE.
A Curious Poetic Creation That Has Puzzled Many Readers, and a
Solution of the Mystery.
In the earlier history of man the riddle was an important intellectual test. To be able to guess hard riddles was supposed to indicate wisdom, and often a great deal was made to depend upon the issue of a guessing contest. The most famous riddle of antiquity was the one which the Sphinx is said to have proposed to Oedipus: "What is that which has four feet in the morning, two at noon, and three at night?" And it has been asserted that Homer died of vexation because he could not find an answer to the riddle: "What we caught we threw away, what we could not catch we kept."
The riddle is the result of the perception of analogies. Note your analogy and put it in the form of a question, and you have your riddle. The conundrum, which has largely replaced the riddle, is a pun concerning which a question is asked. The conundrum may be witty; the riddle may be broadly humorous—and, indeed, it is probably the earliest form of humor.
Among modern riddles, this of Lord Byron's once puzzled many people. The appended "solution" appeared years ago in the Essex (Massachusetts) Register.