Proistoria » Middle Ages » 718 - 843 » Disputation between Pepin, the most noble and royal youth, and Albinus the Scholastic
Disputation between Pepin, the most noble and royal youth, and Albinus the Scholastic
- Pippin: What is a document?
- – Alcuin: The preserver of history.
- Pippin: What is a word?
- – Alcuin: The revealer of the mind.
- Pippin: What generates the word?
- – Alcuin: The tongue.
- Pippin: What is the tongue?
- – Alcuin: The winnower of the breath.
- Pippin: What is breath?
- – Alcuin: The preserver of life.
- Pippin: What is life?
- – Alcuin: A delight to the blessed, a grief to the unhappy, an experience of waiting for death.
- Pippin: What is death?
- – Alcuin: An inevitable happening, an unpredictable journey, the tears of the living, the coming into force of a testament, the robber of human beings.
- Pippin: What is a human being?
- – Alcuin: A slave to death, a traveller passing through, a stranger in the place.
- Pippin: To what is a human being similar?
- – Alcuin: To a fruit tree. [1]
- Pippin: What is his or her situation?
- – Alcuin: Like that of a candle in the wind.
- Pippin: Where is he or she situated?
- – Alcuin: Between six directions.
- Pippin: Which?
- – Alcuin: Above, below; before, behind; to the right and to the left.
- Pippin: How many partners has he or she?
- – Alcuin: Four.
- Pippin: Which?
- – Alcuin: Heat, cold, dryness, moisture.
- Pippin: In how many ways is he or she liable to change?
- – Alcuin: Six.
- Pippin: Which?
- – Alcuin: From hunger and from fulness, from rest and from work, from wakefulness and from sleep.
- Pippin: What is sleep?
- – Alcuin: The image of death.
- Pippin: What is freedom for a human being?
- – Alcuin: Integrity.
- Pippin: What is the head?
- – Alcuin: The highest point of the body.
- Pippin: What is the body?
- – Alcuin: The home of the mind.
- Pippin: What is hair?
- – Alcuin: The head’s clothing.
- Pippin: What is a beard?
- – Alcuin: A distinguishing mark of sex, an ornament of age.
- Pippin: What is the brain?
- – Alcuin: The servant of the memory.
- Pippin: What are the eyes?
- – Alcuin: The leaders of the body, a vessel of light, the disclosers of the soul.
- Pippin: What are the nostrils?
- – Alcuin: The conductor of smells.
- Pippin: What is the face?
- – Alcuin: An image of the soul.
- Pippin: What is the mouth?
- – Alcuin: The body’s nourisher.
- Pippin: What are teeth?
- – Alcuin: The mills that grind what has been bitten.
- Pippin: What are the lips?
- – Alcuin: The door-leaves of the mouth.
- Pippin: What is the throat?
- – Alcuin: A devourer of food.
- Pippin: What are the hands?
- – Alcuin: The body’s workmen.
- Pippin: What are fingers?
- – Alcuin: The pluckers of the strings.
- Pippin: What is a lung?
- – Alcuin: The keeper of breath.
- Pippin: What is the heart?
- – Alcuin: The container of life.
- Pippin: What is the liver?
- – Alcuin: The preserver of heat.
- Pippin: What is the gall-bladder?
- – Alcuin: The awakener of rage.
- Pippin: What is the spleen?
- – Alcuin: A capacious holder of laughter and happiness.
- Pippin: What is the stomach?
- – Alcuin: The digester of food.
- Pippin: What is the belly?
- – Alcuin: The guardian of fragments.
- Pippin: What are the bones?
- – Alcuin: The body’s strength.
- Pippin: What are the hips?
- – Alcuin: The architrave of the columns.
- Pippin: What are the legs?
- – Alcuin: The columns of the body.
- Pippin: What are the feet?
- – Alcuin: A mobile foundation.
- Pippin: What is blood?
- – Alcuin: A fluid of the veins, the nourishment of life.
- Pippin: What are the veins?
- – Alcuin: The fountains of the flesh.
- Pippin: What is the sky?
- – Alcuin: A revolving sphere, a vast height.
- Pippin: What is light?
- – Alcuin: The visibility of everything.
- Pippin: What is day?
- – Alcuin: An encouragement to labour.
- Pippin: What is the sun?
- – Alcuin: The splendour of the world, a beauty in the sky, a grace of nature, the ornament of the day, the divider of the hours.
- Pippin: What is the moon?
- – Alcuin: The eye of night, liberally shedding dew, the foreteller of tempests.
- Pippin: What are the stars?
- – Alcuin: A painting in the height, the guides of sailors, night’s adornment.
- Pippin: What is the rain?
- – Alcuin: The earth’s fertilizer, engenderer of fruits.
- Pippin: What is mist?
- – Alcuin: Night in the daytime, hard work for the eyes.
- Pippin: What is the wind?
- – Alcuin: A troubling of the air, a moving of the waters, a drying up of the earth.
- Pippin: What is the earth?
- – Alcuin: The mother of growing things, the nurturer of living things, the storehouse of life, the devourer of everything.
- Pippin: What is the sea?
- – Alcuin: The path of daring, the boundary of the earth, the separator of territories, the resting-place of rivers, the source of showers, a refuge in dangers, a grace among delights.
- Pippin: What are rivers?
- – Alcuin: An unfailing motion, the refreshment of the sun, the watering of the earth.
- Pippin: What is water?
- – Alcuin: The support of life, the cleanser of dirt.
- Pippin: What is fire?
- – Alcuin: An excessive heat, the warming of that which grows, the ripening of fruit.
- Pippin: What is cold?
- – Alcuin: A trembling of the limbs.
- Pippin: What is ice?
- – Alcuin: The persecution of plants, destroyer of leaves, the earth’s fetter, a bridge over water.
- Pippin: What is snow?
- – Alcuin: Dry water.
- Pippin: What is winter?
- – Alcuin: Summer’s exile.
- Pippin: What is spring?
- – Alcuin: The earth’s painter.
- Pippin: What is summer?
- – Alcuin: The earth’s reclothing, the ripening of fruits.
- Pippin: What is autumn?
- – Alcuin: The granary of the year.
- Pippin: What is the year?
- – Alcuin: The chariot of the world.
- Pippin: Who draws it?
- – Alcuin: Night and day, cold and heat.
- Pippin: Who is its charioteer?
- – Alcuin: Sun and moon.
- Pippin: How many palaces have they?
- – Alcuin: Twelve.
- Pippin: Who are the governors of the palaces?
- – Alcuin: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius, Pisces.
- Pippin: How many days do they stay in each palace?
- – Alcuin: Sun 30 days and ten half-hours. Moon two days and eight hours and two-thirds of an hour.
- Pippin: Master, I am afraid to go into the height.
- – Alcuin: What draws you into the height?
- Pippin: Curiosity.
- – Alcuin: If you are afraid, let us come down. I shall follow you wherever you go.
- Pippin: If I knew what a ship was, I should have provided one so that you would be able to come to me.
- – Alcuin: A ship is a wandering home, a lodging-house in any place, a traveller without footprints, a neighbour to the shore.
- Pippin: What is the shore?
- – Alcuin: The wall of the earth.
- Pippin: What is grass?
- – Alcuin: The earth’s clothing.
- Pippin: What are herbs?
- – Alcuin: The friends of physicians, the praise of cooks.
- Pippin: What is it that makes bitter things sweet?
- – Alcuin: Hunger.
- Pippin: What is it that a tired man does not make?
- – Alcuin: Wealth.
- Pippin: What is sleep to the vigilant?
- – Alcuin: Hope.
- Pippin: What is hope?
- – Alcuin: A relief from labour, an uncertainty about the outcome.
- Pippin: What is friendship?
- – Alcuin: Minds meeting in equality.
- Pippin: What is faith?
- – Alcuin: A certitude of something that is both unknown and wonderful.
- Pippin: What is a wonder?
- – Alcuin: Not long ago, I saw a man who never was, who stood, moved and walked.
- Pippin: How can this happen? Explain it to me.
- – Alcuin: It is an image in water.
- Pippin: Why did I not understand this of my own accord?
- – Alcuin: Since you are a young man of good ability and natural intelligence, I shall propound to you some other wonders; see if you are able to interpret them of your own accord.
- Pippin: Let us do this, so long as you correct me if I make a mistake.
- – Alcuin: I shall do as you wish. Some unknown person spoke with me without tongue and voice, one who never was before, nor shall be again, and whom I was not used to hearing, and did not know.
- Pippin: Perhaps a dream disturbed you, master?
- – Alcuin: Just so, son. And hear another: I saw dead things engender life, and the dead were consumed by the breath of life.
- Pippin: From the friction of trees is born fire, that devours the trees.
- – Alcuin: It is the truth. I heard the dead speaking many things.
- Pippin: Never a good thing, unless they are suspended in the air. [2]
- – Alcuin: True. I saw inextinguishable fire resting in water.
- Pippin: You wish to convey by this a flint stone in water, I believe.
- – Alcuin: It is as you believe. I saw a dead thing sitting above that which is of the living, and in the laughter of the dead the living is dying.
- Pippin: Our cooks had a knowledge of this. [3]
- – Alcuin: They had knowledge of it. But place your finger on your lips, so that the boys may not hear what this is. I was out with others at a hunt, in which if we caught anything we carried nothing with us; what we carried home with us is what we were unable to catch.
- Pippin: This is a hunt for something that belongs among peasants. [4]
- – Alcuin: It is. I saw someone born before he was conceived.
- Pippin: You saw this, and perhaps you ate it.
- – Alcuin: I ate it. [5] Who is it who does not exist, who has a name, and makes a response to the one who is calling him?
- Pippin: Ask the papyrus-rushes in the wood. [6]
- – Alcuin: I saw a stranger running with his home, and he was silent, while his home was making a noise.
- Pippin: Provide me with a net, and I shall show it to you. [7].
- – Alcuin: What is it that you are not able to see except with your eyes closed?
- Pippin: He who is snoring demonstrates it to you. [8]
- – Alcuin: I saw a man holding eight in his hand, and from eight he took away seven, and six remained.
- Pippin: The boys in school know this. [9]
- – Alcuin: What is it that rises again higher if the head has been taken away?
- Pippin: Look at your bed, and you shall find it there. [10]
- – Alcuin: Three there have been: one never born and once dead; another once born, never dead; the third once born and twice dead.
- Pippin: The first is called by the same name as the earth, the second as my God, the third as a poor man. [11]
- – Alcuin: I saw a female flying, having an iron beak, a wooden body, and a feathery tail, carrying death.
- Pippin: It is the soldiers’ ally. [12]
- – Alcuin: What is a soldier?
- Pippin: The wall of the empire, the terror of foes, a glorious servitude.
- – Alcuin: What is it that is and is not?
- Pippin: Nothing.
- – Alcuin: How can it be and not be?
- Pippin: It exists in name and not in actuality.
- – Alcuin: What is it that is a silent messenger?
- Pippin: That which I hold in my hand.
- – Alcuin: What do you hold in your hand?
- Pippin: Your letter, master.
- – Alcuin: Enjoy reading it, son.
- [1] "To a fruit tree": see Matthew chapter 7 verses 16–20.
- [2] "suspended in the air": bells.
- [3] "Our cooks had a knowledge of this": explained as "a burning wick in a lump of lard".
- [4] "something that belongs among peasants": lice or fleas.
- [5] "I ate it": an egg.
- [6] "Ask the papyrus-rushes in the wood": the answer is an echo. Pippin's response is puzzling, unless it is an obscure reference to Ovid's story of Echo and Narcissus..
- [7] "Provide me with a net": a fish.
- [8] "He who is snoring demonstrates it": sleep.
- [9] "The boys in school know this": puzzling. Perhaps a piece of finger-play? The fingers of the hand can be read as a Roman eight (VIII); fold down the first four and you take away seven (VII), leaving one and the fingers of the other hand": six digits. I am indebted to Mog Singer for this suggestion..
- [10] "Look at your bed, and you shall find it there": answer unknown. If you think you have guessed it, let me know!.
- [11] "the same name as the earth": Adam (Hebrew, 'earth'); "as my God": Elijah (Hebrew, 'God is the Lord'); "a poor man": Lazarus.
- [12] "the soldiers" ally": an arrow (Latin sagitta, feminine gender).
Sources