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wizemanbob — Inle's Riddle
#riddle #worldwanderer
Published: 2009-06-18 07:30:56 +0000 UTC; Views: 114; Favourites: 0; Downloads: 1
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There is a troupe of four spiritsThat always run together.
One is calm;
Another is vexed;
The third weeps;
And the last is sanguine.
Two are flaxen capped;
One sable; one scarlet.
Three can keep a secret,
But the last will always tell.
Comments: 18
Maybe the seasons? Spring, winter, summer and fall? It seemed like you were telling a progression- a cycle- so that was my best guess. Sorry
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It's a good guess, but no. The four do circulate, but not necessarily in regular cycles.
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If I make enough incorrect guesses, will you eventually tell the answer?
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Well theoretically, the more times you fire, the more likely you are to hit, right? I have complete confidence in your ability to figure it out.
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Are they kind of similar to four moods or reactions to a situation? Meaning that the first three signs could be kept hidden, but the last reveals everything. Maybe this is the lack of sleep speaking, but somehow the scarlet, the one that always tells, reminded me of blushing, which is a bit of a give away. Or blood which has a less cheerful implication(s). At the same time, I see far to many holes in this theory for it to be even close to accurate. Once I look back to the the line that speaks of the two that are "flaxen capped," this makes me think of something or someone wearing the fabric made of the plants, but then again, it might be even more literate still. Either way, the emotion theory is completely out of the window at this point. It seems I've talked myself in a circle and am now back where I started. Wonderful. I'll have more inaccurate guesses in a bit.
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Actually, you're pretty well on here. I'd say around 20-28% accurate.
The capped line's supposed to imply hair, so think colors.
And moods are indeed important, but only in a roundabout way.
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One is calm; Purple or blue?
Another is vexed; The color Red
The third weeps; Blue for sadness
And the last is sanguine. Maybe Yellow?
Two are flaxen capped; brownish hair
One sable; Black
one scarlet. Red
So, sable could be mourning, a death or something. That's something obvious, so it would tell. The vexed one could be the red one too, so we can clearly see the anger, meaning that one is out the window. Maybe the two that are flaxen capped are somehow related. I mean, sorry, the whole riddle ties into itself, but within its own little scenario, are those two especially close? I'm sorry, I don't even know what I'm solving for anymore. Sorry, I feel like it's a sequence of events being told, and I'm just not sure where I'm supposed to go with that. The one that tells...I'm not really sure where to begin.
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The emotions tie with the colors in order.
Flaxen hair's yellowish, so the color's yellow.
Sable's black and scarlet's red, you're right there.
The real clincher's the last pair of lines. It's a double joke, using two old sayings.
If you can find the quote for the last line, it should tie it together.
It's sanguine, scarlet, and will always tell.
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Thanks to Google I now know Benjamin Franklin said, three can keep a secret if one is dead. Now, where to go with that. I was thinking that the two yellow ones are calm, the third one, sable is mourning and the last is dead? Red implies blood or anger, maybe anger over death? If that were the case, then maybe the red one is still alive and the one who is sable is dead.
"The one who could tell." It's driving me crazy, it sounds so familiar and yet I can't place it. I know that people say eyes always tell, so maybe if the eyes were black, without that little bit of reflected light that tells us that things are living, that would be the tell. Or another version is that the eyes takes one final snapshot of what happened to it, and that image, the ghost image of death, is forever there. Well...at least I'm trying...
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"Three can keep a secret if two are dead." That is what was being referenced, but only to play out the second part better: The last will always tell.
Again, it's always in order. Calm and vexed are flaxen, sable weeps, and scarlet is sanguine.
Following that, scarlet's the one who'll tell, since the first three can keep the secret.
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I respectfully risign from this riddle. My logic isn't right for it, I can tell right now. I'm sorry, thanks for bearing with me for this long. It's a very nice piece.
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lol
It's probably too dated for you. Really, it should probably be dated for me too. But I enjoy stuff like sixteenth century science and developments of language over time.
The answer is the four bodily humors from medieval medicine: phlegm, choler(yellow bile), melancholy(black bile), and blood.
The humors are also called spirits, which is where we get the phrase 'to raise one's spirits' meaning, of course, to cheer a person up. And they flow(run) throughout the body.
Each humor was considered 'ruler' of a certain emotion. Phlegm ruled calmness, with an imbalance causing apathy. Choler, when imbalanced, caused irritation and peevishness. Melancholy made you sad. Blood generated a confident optimism when properly balanced.
Phlegm and choler are both yellow, melancholy is black(which is probably why mood rings mark depression as black), and I'm sure you know the color blood is.
In the last line, 'three can keep a secret' was just a prelude to 'but the last will always tell'. The phrase was intended to point to the old saying 'blood will always tell', meaning that you can tell who shares blood with whom by looking at similarities. The same idea as in 'the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree'.
Sorry I wrangled you around so much. I just really enjoyed seeing how you were thinking. You may not have gotten the answer, but your methods of analysis were spot-on. And you did get to blood at one point. You were just aiming it in the wrong direction.
Thanks for taking all this time.
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I feel so dense now! I learned about these three years ago when we were reading Shakespear. I...am an idiot. Sorry, I should have gotten that one, I'm sorry. Thanks for letting me know the answer anyway. Nice riddle!
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Don't feel bad. You at least tried. And it's not like it's exactly in everyday use.
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I don't really know anything about this kinda thing xD
But is it love, hate, life and death?
xoxo
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It's a good guess, but no. They're not opposites, but they do have a balance amongst themselves.
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Ahhhh right.
I'm stumped then
It was just a stab in the dark tbh xD
xoxo
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You know the trick to solving riddles, right? You separate the truth from the exaggerations, then find the only thing the truth perfectly addresses.
Besides, shots in the dark still have the same chance to hit something. It's just less likely you hit what you thought you would.
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