Time Riddles and Our Fascination with the Passing Hours

One of the first recorded riddles in human history comes out of the Oedipus legend. At the gates of the city of Thebes, Oedipus is confronted by a gigantic sphinx, which stops him from entering and poses the following riddle to him, warning him that if he fails to answer correctly he will die instantly at its hands:

What creature moves around on four limbs at dawn, on two at midday, and three at twilight?

The fearless and astute Oedipus answers: “Humans, who crawl on all fours as babies, then walk on two legs as grown-ups, and finally need a cane in old age to get around.” Upon hearing the correct answer, the astonished sphinx kills itself, and Oedipus enters Thebes as a hero for having gotten rid of the monster that had kept the city in captivity. The story, as you might recall, is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The riddle is a testament to our fascination with time, encompassing an entire philosophy in a capsule—namely that life’s three phases of infancy, adulthood, and old age unfold (analogously) like the three phases of a day (morning, noon, and night), thus connecting human life to the dictates of time. Virtually identical riddles exist across the ancient world. This suggests that the riddle is an archetype that surfaces in different languages with the same underlying question: What is time? And why is everything governed by it, including human life?

Across time (pun intended), people have been fascinated by the idea of time and have attempted to make sense of it in various ways, one being the riddle format, which allows people to contemplate various facets of the passage of time, including its inevitability and its cyclical nature. The riddles below are classics, reflecting a cross-cultural tendency to associate aspects of time with its segmentation into units (days, years, and so on). Remember that each riddle deals metaphorically, or through analogies, with time—like the Riddle of the Sphinx. Without adopting this mind frame, the riddles might seem to be impenetrable.

1. According to various historical accounts, there was actually a second riddle uttered by the Sphinx: There are two women: one gives birth to the other and she then gives birth to the first. Can you figure it out?

The next five riddles come from various traditions, including the ancient Sanskrit, from which some have been paraphrased.

2. There is a 12-spoked wheel, on which stand 730 sons of one birth. What is this about?

3. It never was, but always will be. And yet it exists and will come to be. What is it?

4. It is on its way here, but, when it arrives, is no longer itself. What is it?

5. What never rests, but always moves forward?

6. It is occurring now, yet it is an illusion since it evanes as we speak. What is it?

7. Even if it has occurred, and is no longer there, it continues on in everyone’s life.

8. The English politician and writer Horace Walpole came up with the following ingenious riddle: "Before my birth I had a name, but soon as born I chang’d the same; and when I’m laid within the tomb, I shall my father’s name assume. I change my name three days together, yet live but one in any weather." What is Walpole referring to?

9. The next riddle is from Voltaire: What of all things in the world is the longest, the shortest, the swiftest, the slowest, the most divisible and most extended, most regretted, most neglected, without which nothing can be done, and with which many do nothing, which destroys all that is little and ennobles all that is great?

10. The final riddle is attributed to the Greek poet Cleobolus, who lived in the sixth century BCE.There is one father and twelve children; of these, each has thirty daughters of different appearances. Some are white to look at and the others are black in turn. They are immortal and yet they all fade away.

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Scroll down for answers.

1. Answer: day and night. Metaphorically, day can be imagined as giving birth to night and vice versa night to day. This riddle is based on the legend that the Sphinx was sent by Hera, the sister and wife of Zeus, from Ethiopia to Thebes.

2. Answer: the year. The riddle alludes to the twelve months of the year (“a twelve-spoked wheel”), on which stand “730 sons of one birth,” that is, 365 days and 365 nights.

3. Answer: the future, or tomorrow. The future is something that will always be, and never was, but it will come to be just the same.

4. Answer: tomorrow, again. Tomorrow is always on its way; but when it arrives it is not tomorrow any more; it is today.

5. Answer: time itself, of course, which never rests (stops), but is always marching on, as the expression goes.

6. Answer: the present. The concept of the present as a static moment in time is illusory, since time is always moving forward, with no stoppage.

7. Answer: the past. The past is part of our sense of selfhood and intrinsic to our own stories.

8. Answer: today. Before its “birth,” today does indeed have a different name: tomorrow. And when it is “laid within the tomb,” that is, when it is over, it takes a new name—yesterday. Finally, though it lasts only one day, it changed its name three days in a row (“three days together”): from tomorrow, to today, to yesterday.

9. Answer: time, again. Describing time as long, swift, slow, divisible, extended, etc. is so common that we might forget that these tell us virtually nothing about the physical nature of time. They constitute, instead, strategies for envisioning time concretely as a physical entity.

10. Answer: the year, with its months, days, and nights. Here are the analogies: “father” = the year; “twelve children” = the months; “thirty daughters” = days in a typical month; “white” = days; “black” = nights.