Riddles—These are from the story of Oedipus, the plays of Shakespeare and many other sources. How many of these can you solve?
1) What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the day and three legs at night?
2) Who builds stronger than the
mason, the shipwright or the carpenter?
3) This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountain down.
4) What has roots nobody sees,
Is taller than trees
Up, up it goes,
And yet never grows?
5) Alive without breath,
As cold as death;
Never thirsty, ever drinking,
All in mail never clinking
6) A box without hinges, key or lid,
Yet golden treasure inside is hid.
7) This is greater than God,
More evil than the devil.
The rich want it.
The poor have it.
If you eat it, you will die.
8) What is the beginning of eternity, the end of time and space; the beginning of every end, and the end of every race?
9) Forward I'm heavy, backwards I'm not
Riddles—These are from Oedipus, Shakespeare and many other sources. How many of these can you solve?
8) What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the day and three legs at night?
Man
9) Who builds stronger than the
mason, the shipwright or the carpenter?
**We’ll find this answer in Hamlet.
10) This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountain down.
Time
11) What has roots nobody sees,
Is taller than trees
Up, up it goes,
And yet never grows?
Mountain
12) Alive without breath,
As cold as death;
Never thirsty, ever drinking,
All in mail never clinking
Fish
13) A box without hinges, key or lid,
Yet golden treasure inside is hid.
Egg
14) This is greater than God,
More evil than the devil.
The rich want it.
The poor have it.
If you eat it, you will die.
Nothing
Write this in your notes:
New word to know—equivocation.
It means ______.
Hamlet used equivocation when
______.
In Act 5, scene 1 ______uses equivocation when he says ______