Kennings and Riddles

Abstract

This chapter discusses a number of riddling expressions in the Works and Days, often referred to in scholarship as kennings. These represent another facet of Hesiod’s ambiguous language in the final part of the Works and Days. Here, the poet goes beyond the difficulties posed by the ‘split’ abstract concepts discussed earlier and actually suggests a tendency for opacity and obscurity. The kennings are riddles that introduce the idea that language may not only explain and reveal, but also cause confusion and conceal. They are semata whose interpretation requires a certain hermeneutic effort and thus their primary function is to add a further layer of complexity that mirrors the condicio humana.