“
What is a letter? — The keeper of history. What is a word? — The betrayer of the mind. What produces words? — The tongue. What is the tongue? — The scourge of the air. What is air? — The preserver of life. What is life? — The gladness of the blessed; the sorrow of the wretched; the expectation of death. What is death? — The inevitable event; the uncertain pilgrimage; the tears of the living; the confirmation of our testament; the thief of man. What is man? — The slave of death; a transient traveller; a local guest. What is man like? — An apple. How is man placed? — As a lamp in the wind. Where is he placed? — Between six walls. What? — Above, below, before, behind, on the right, and on the left. How many companions has he? — Four. Whom? — Heat, cold, dryness, wet. In how many ways is he changeable? -— Six. Which are they? — Hunger, fulness; rest, labour; watchings and sleep. What is sleep? — The image of death. What is man's liberty? — Innocence. What is the head? — The crown of the body. What is the body? — The home of the mind. What are the hairs? — The garments of the head. What is the beard? — The discrimination of sex; the honour of age. What is the brain? — The preserver of the memory. What are the eyes? — The leaders of the body; vessels of light; the index of the mind. What are the ears? — The collators of sounds. What is the forehead? — The image of the mind. What is the mouth? — The nourisher of the body. What are the teeth? — The millstones of our food. What are the lips? — The doors of the mouth. What is the throat? — The devourer of the food. What are the hands? — The workmen of the body. What is the heart? — The receptacle of life. What is the liver? — The keeper of our heat. What is the spleen? — The source of laughter and mirth. What are the bones? — The strength of the body. What are the thighs? — The capitals of our pillars. What are the legs? — The pillars of the body. What are the feet? — Our moveable foundation. What is the blood? The moisture of the veins; the aliment of life. What are the veins? — The fountains of flesh. What is heaven? — A rotatory sphere. What is light? — The face of all things. What is day? — The incitement of labour. What is the sun? — The splendour of the world; the beauty of heaven; the grace of nature; the honour of day; the distributor of the hours. What is the moon? — The eye of night; the giver of dew; the prophetess of the weather. What are the stars? — The paintings of the summit of nature; the seaman's pilots; the ornaments of night. What is rain? — The earth's conception; the mother of corn. What is a cloud? — The night of day; the labour of the eyes. What is wind? — The perturbation of air; the moving principle of water; the dryer of earth. What is the earth? — The mother of the growing; the nurse of the living; the storehouse of life; the devourer of all things. What is the sea? — The path of audacity; the boundary of the earth; the divider of regions; the receptacle of the rivers; the fountain of showers; the refuge in danger; the favourer of pleasures. What are rivers? — Motion never-ceasing; the refection of the sun; the irrigators of the earth. What is water? — The ally of life; the washer of filth. What is fire? — Excess of heat; the nourisher of the new-born; the maturer of fruits. What is cold? — The ague of the limbs. What is frost? — The persecutor of herbs; the destroyer of leaves; the fetter of the earth; the source of the waters. What is snow? — Dry water. What is winter? — The banishment of summer. What is spring? — The painter of the earth. What is summer? — The re-clothing of earth; the ripener of corn. What is autumn? — The granary of the year. What is the year? — The chariot of the world. What does it carry? — Night and day; cold and heat. Who are its drivers? — The sun and moon. How many are its palaces? — Twelve. What is a ship? — A wandering house; a perpetual inn; a traveller without footsteps; the neighbour of the sands. What is the sand? — The wall of the earth. What makes bitter things sweet? — Hunger. What makes men never weary? — Gain. What gives sleep to the watching? — Hope. What is a wonder? — I saw a man standing; a dead man walking who never existed. How could this be? — An image in water. An unknown person, without tongue or voice, spoke to me, who never existed before, nor has existed since, nor ever will be again; and whom I neither heard nor knew? — It was your dream. I saw the dead produce the living, and by the breath of the living the dead were consumed? — From the friction of trees fire was produced which consumed. I saw fire pause in the water unextinguished? — From flint. Who is that whom you cannot see unless you shut your eyes? — He who sneezes will show him to you. I saw a man with eight in his hand, he took away seven, and six remained? — School-boys know this. Who is he that will rise higher if you take away his head? — Look at your bed and you will find him there. I saw a flying woman with an iron beak, a wooden body, and a feathered tail, carrying death? — She is a companion of soldiers. What is that which is, and is not? — Nothing. How can a thing be, yet not exist? — In name and not in fact. What is a silent messenger? — That which I hold in my hand. What is that? — My letter.
— ALCUIN