One’s phallus might satisfy, yet I can see some misses.

It’s a baby

A siren, from greek mythology?

Oh, I like that.

A sperm

Sperm?

I hope you’re not just ejaculating at the mouth when you say that.

Thank you for coming by.

An opinion or idea… “I can only keep going by holding my breath” And women were seen as great gossipers back in the day. It’s not “of” nature. And when you speak an unpopular opinion “light [can be] it’s death”
I mean, this was coming from a man who was starting to lose a battle with knowledge…

Line-by-Line Justification

“Sweetest of sounds in Orchestra heard, / Yet in Orchestra never was seen.”
Silence — the pause, the rest — is essential to music’s beauty, yet it is invisible.

“I’m a bird of gay plumage, yet less like a bird …”
Plumage suggests a plume, a quill pen. Silence is what one turns to when words are not spoken — they are written with a plume. A quill has feathers but is no bird.

“Touch the earth I expire, in water I die …”
Perfect silence is impossible on earth (nature always makes noise). Underwater, internal pressure and noise destroy silence.

“In air I lose breath, yet can swim and can fly;”
Breath breaks silence. Yet silence can “fly” (spread through an auditorium) or “swim” (fill a space).

“Darkness destroys me, and light is my death …”
Here’s the tricky couplet. Silence is the absence of vibration, yet in darkness vibrations are amplified — heartbeats, creaks, whispers intrude. Light, on the other hand, brings activity and noise. Thus, both extremes destroy silence.

“I only keep going by holding my breath.”
Literal: silence survives only when breath — the seed of sound — is withheld.

“If my name can’t be guessed by a boy or a man, / By a woman or girl it certainly can.”
If the man cannot answer, what follows is silence. The woman or girl hears that silence — the riddle answers itself.

⸻

Why Silence Works
   •   It fits the opening perfectly.
   •   It makes sense of “plumage” through the quill.
   •   It incorporates breath, vibration, and absence.
   •   The final couplet becomes self-referential — silence appears when no answer is spoken.

Oh, this is very well done, Ms. Holman. Very well-done indeed.

Your solution is as persuasively reasoned as it is persuasively presented. You make your case in a way that’s impossible for the reader to ignore — a way that simply states — in a voice that doesn’t lecture, in a tone that doesn’t preach: a non-sanctimonious style, closely reasoned all the while.

Yet it’s the clarity of your writing that draws the reader most of all and ultimately captivates.

Your proposed solution even without your justification has aesthetic appeal: silence.

Silence as the ultimate solution here is deeply appealing to me, and all the more so now, these several years after originally publishing this piece — after all the whale songs and whale cries and lonely pipers whistling by, the symphony of whispers, the chorus of murmurs, the rebate, rebate, rebate of echoes growing fainter and fainter with each reverberative pass, and then the great orgasmic flood which for a brief but all-consuming span — a four month period of time — inexplicably swept in and all but drowned out everything else and overwhelmed my spam. This was followed by dead-silence which lasted longer than months, until, in the end, the soul’s trouble set in like post-coital blues but worse, and with the soul’s trouble, the reswelling began, and then the inevitable bursting of the bubble, again. In brief, all the guesses I’ve watched time and again hammered in — attempt after attempt to make them fit — solutions by brute force, as I’ve come to think of it, like so many square pegs pounded into so many round holes — or do I have it backwards? Is it round pegs into square holes?

What on earth am I on about here, and how could any of it possibly matter now, after everything?

I’m saying this to you: silence as solution to this riddle is the most perfect solution I can imagine — almost cosmically appropriate, for reasons I won’t go into here.Yet it’s how I really feel. It’s true that silence for some becomes a shield, for others a sickness unfortunately caught — this latter thing exclusively when anger is the driving force behind it, in which case silence then becomes a weapon that the seething silent wield. Silence as a sickness is much more corrupting for the wielder than the wieldee. Why? Because silence of this sort feeds on itself and in most cases cannot stop. It self-perpetuates, habituates — habit-forming in the extreme — and as the habit takes hold, it escalates proportionally, often with such celerity that witnessing it might take away your breath. I’m not speaking hyperbolically. Silence of this sort is entirely capable of cannibalizing itself to death. It’s not at all uncommon, in fact. Ambivalence is the mark of this particular beast, resentment the meat it’s made of and on which it also feasts. In the blink of an eye and often before any awareness exists that anything has taken place, silence as sickness finds itself too far in to turn back now, to extract oneself out of, to retrogress away from, for all that would need to be said to fill the voids it’s left. In this way, silence as sickness carves out one and only one way for itself to move — a one-way path that narrows incrementally yet inexorably, a path constructed by default, eyes to the ground, steadfastly fixed, with no regard for the path itself but only the ambivalence he feels within, the silent resentful wrath. For everything else, including all those options once open to it, nothing but apathy remains. When there’s only one way left to move — the first and final way — he’s given momentary pause and is puzzled how this came to pass. He even asks himself: How did this all come to pass? Not that he really cares. Only one thing matters now, and so it goes and so goes he: deeper within the constricting keeps — the progressively constricting, crypt-like, cryptic keeps — which are filling soundlessly now not with air but gas.

Silence as sickness isn’t quite the norm, but it’s also by no means rare. According to recent reports, a particular expression of it “represents a growing [trend] among all age-groups and demographics, including seniors.” The specific thing that’s being referred to here is what was once known as the silent treatment, which in recent years has undergone a name change and had a full makeover. Officially, this took place in 2014, but it wasn’t popularized until a year later, by its PR team: specifically, an embarrassing yet instantly famous New York Times article, which was the Times’s attempt to make the shabbiness of it look shabby-chic, nonchalant, even somewhat cool and reputable — i.e. an attempt to give the veneer of social acceptability to the silent treatment by making it over and renaming it. Thus in 2015 “ghosting” officially became a thing — by that name, I mean. From here it was only one short step to the even trendier thing: to ghost.

Not quite everyone by now knows it doesn’t matter what it’s called — the silent treatment, the silence game, the calculated ignore, rudeness, or the ghost — though nearly everyone knows this by now, almost.

Less well-known is the fact that repressed anger and the resentment the repressed nature of it breeds is the fruit by which you can infallibly know it. More fundamentally still, the root of silence as sickness is an atavistic human impulse, which has been observed in children as young as three. This atavistic impulse is in turn rooted in an even more fundamental atavism: namely, aggression. Aggression, which is the handmaiden of anger and resentment, its physical expression, and which by age three gives rise to passive-aggression, when it learns it can partially cloak itself by being less active in how it acts. Passive-aggressive action is aggression by means of inaction, the expression of anger through inertia, the initiation of a forceful will purely by passive or comparatively passive means — e.g. non-communication rather than communication or indirect communication rather than direct, an inflammatory remark disguised as an innocuous observation, staring at someone in silence or standing a little too close, all while feigning obliviousness, instead of, for instance, physically pushing or hitting or lashing out, and this all done in order to provoke a reaction.

One reason for the silent treatment’s perennial popularity, year in year out, all across the globe, is the same reason passive-aggressive behavior is always a trending thing: it has a built-in defense mechanism, which functions exactly like the principle of plausible deniability in law — i.e. a built in escape hatch and ready made defense against charges of incitement, provocation, or instigation, an answer to the charge of initiating aggression or force, since its acts are passive, inactive, and in this sense of a negative sort: i.e. the person has refrained from communication, rather than uttered threats or spoken ugly words, though in the act of non-communication or indirect communication there must always exist the motive and intent to wound, sting, hurt, confuse, instigate, or otherwise provoke. If this motive isn’t in some form present, it isn’t a passive-aggressive act but something else. There must be an ulterior intent.

“I didn’t do anything” is the passive-aggressor’s built-in defense, the one you’ll most often hear, followed by nescience, a pretense of ignorance, feigned innocence, feigned oblivion and surprise, and words to this effect: “I don’t have any idea what you’re referring to. I don’t know what you mean or meant.”

I recently read about a nine-year-old girl who, in a bout of bad conscience and guilt, confessed to her mother that for the last three years she’d been intentionally trying to influence her mother by means of the silent treatment, her sole intention to make her mother feel as though she’d done something wrong or had been “a bad mother,” unfair, neglectful. Thus through calculated withdrawal and silence, the child sought to gain not merely her mother’s attention but also to exert a measure of control over how her mother felt and acted. According to the article, the reason the child broke down and confessed was because of how thoroughly she’d succeeded: the mother, a still-young and once optimistic and happy woman, for over two years and counting existed more and more in a state of seemingly sourcesless pessimism, tears, low confidence, growing depression, and the child, who’d completely gotten inside her mother’s head (much more than the child realized, the mother said) missed her mother’s happy side and was less and less able to get it back. The child felt that she alone knew the reason for her mother’s change. She was right, the article said.

Silence, of course, is most often neither sickness nor weapon nor habit-of-vice but the opposite.

Silence as a virtue is eloquent, inspired, inspiring, dignified, iron-like, requiring great strength of will — in many instances the ultimate in self-discipline and self-control, among the hardest of all possible human tasks to master, because “the tongue no person can control.”

Silence of this sort isn’t a seething furious thing but calming in how it makes you feel.

Whatever its form, silence is universal — more universal than mathematics, as universal as air. That’s a large part of the reason for your answer’s deep appeal.

But there’s more to it than this: as proposed solutions to this riddle go, silence also has an inherent logic, a brilliance in its paradox, as well as a coherence. “Seed of sound” in particular stood out to me at once. In collaboration with how you justify the silent solution you advance, it almost, at times, feels to me like a clear-cut case, open-and-shut, a finished affair — but only at first glance. It’s also a response which, curiously enough, I’ve not ever heard or come across before. This one fact alone makes me like it even more. What I’m saying is that as a solution to this riddle I like silence — no: I love it. I love it in part for its specificity and the fact that it’s non-abstract, in part for its eloquence, in part for its logic and its sense, in part for the elegant hush in connotes. Aesthetically, silence is the best solution I’ve yet come across — and it’s not even close. When combined with a case such as the one you build for it here, it goes beyond aesthetic appeal. The fact of the matter is this: I think I’ve begun to like silence a little too much — meaning, I’ve numerous times caught myself thinking that if silence isn’t the answer which Soapy Sam intended, it should have been. Goddammit, it should have been.

But for all that I’ve just said — and I meant every word of it — I’m still not fully convinced that silence is what Soapy Sam meant. I’m still deliberating, still weighing it in my mind. Persuade me. Give me more reasons to say By all that’s pure and unadulterated, I think she figured this cocksucker out.

I can be persuaded. I make it a rule to read and listen with a disposition to be persuaded, and — my goodness — I’ve certainly deliberated about this, ever since reading and rereading your reply. My hesitation has nothing to do with aesthetics or cleverness or wit. It’s in the interpretation you give to one line in particular. This is what’s hanging me up a little bit. The more I reread your comment, the more I hesitate. The interpretation I’m uncertain about is this:

“I’m a bird of gay plumage, yet less like a bird …”

Plumage suggests a plume, a quill pen. Silence is what one turns to when words are not spoken — they are written with a plume.

The equation of quill with perfect silence seems increasingly iffy to me — perfect silence, I mean, since that’s what we’re talking about with the solution you propose, isn’t it? We’re talking about silence so pure and absolute that for its duration the entire universe seems struck mute. You captured this silence well in what you wrote … except, in my opinion, for the quill stroke. The quill versus the tongue and the comparative silence we find in this, I’m good with. Writing versus speaking — i.e. writing the words that make up our thoughts versus speaking the words that make up our thoughts — I’m good with this too. And in this qualified sense of the word “silence,” I love your interpretation:

“Silence is what one turns to when words are not spoken — they are written with a plume.”

But we’re not dealing with the pure, absolute silence of your eloquent solution when we hear the scrawling of the quill, are we? All I can hear is the skirl-skirl-skirl of the quill that moves across the page.

My issue, then, is this: comparative silence, such as we find when distinguishing speaking from writing, or unadulterated silence, perfect stillness, where no vibrations of any kind exist — a profound cathedral hush.

Feather = quill ✅
Quill = the written word ✅
The written word = comparative silence ✅
The written word = absolute perfect silence ❌

Syllogistically, I’m not quite prepared to call it conclusive. It feels a little over-interpreted to me right now.

I mean no offense. On the contrary. I’m already a fan of yours — for your thoughtfulness, the originality of your answer, the logic in your reasoning, the clarity of your writing. And I certainly don’t presume to know Soapy Sam’s intent. Yet it seems to me now that one step too many may be required here — one stretch too far, one contortion too awkward to make it all fit. Perhaps not. I hope not. I want your answer to be the answer that Soapy Sam meant.

Before you tell me to fuck off and to go get bent, I should add that there’s an equal or even greater chance that I’m the one over-interpolating here. What, after all, do I of anyone know about riddles — I mean, if we’re being realistic? I’ll tell you: precious little. Games, puzzles, riddles, cards, cryptograms, and the like — these things have never really been my speed. They’ve never been my thing, my bag, my cup of tea, never represented who I am. It’s true that there was a five or so year span of time when I grew monomaniacally obsessed with chess: dreaming about it every night; conjuring up chess problems in my sleep to be solved during my waking time, any spare moment I could find; in waking life, seeing everything — whatever neighborhood I happened to be driving through, or the open highway and all the cars, or whatever department or grocery store I was in, or the soccer field or basketball court on television, or the swimming pool I was about to dive into so that I might grind out a one mile swim — seeing everything in terms of chess pieces laid out strategically upon the tessellated squares; day and night thinking up new lines of defense I might deploy; or coming upon an original insight which, one week or one year later, while deeply immersed in the annals of chess literature, I’d learn was not original at all, an insight discovered long ago by Laskar or the most elegant, effortless player who ever lived: José Raúl Capablanca, the end moves he’d patiently employ….

I’ll leave it at this: there’s a reason that was long ago, a reason I ceased playing chess altogether, overnight.

Games aren’t me.

They don’t accurately reflect who I am, or who I’d ever wish to be.

Furthermore, what do I know about a putatively eloquent but unctuous, oleaginous religious mystic — a spongious master-debater with a flair for clever wordplay and other things linguistic or pseudo-linguistic, the one history remembers, if it remembers him at all, as Bishop Soapy Sam? I mean, if we’re being realistic? Precious little.

The truth is that my interests lean much more toward the physical than the noetic. I’m a physical being, after all, a man, flesh-and-blood, with PhD’s in Cocktology and Inebriology, as well as a black-belt in Keeping-It-Real. What do I care about sterile pastimes, non-applicable mental exercises, riddles combined with things literary or poetic? What could I possibly know about any of it? Solving posthumous riddles written rhythmically by a religious orator renowned for his sophistry and wit? Please. Wake me when he’s through with it. I prefer a woman’s cheekbones, her zygomatic arch — a billion out of a billion times, I choose this over and above Wilberforce and his wits. If we absolutely must have slick and soapy, give me a woman’s slick and soapy shoulders.

Not to come off as a buzz-kill. Not to harsh anyone’s mellow. Not to be the boorish brutish fuck who finds fun in nothing except raining on parades. Most certainly not to sound cynical or pessimistic. My point in writing all this is only the following:

You had me at the cunningly linguistic.

Full stop.

Thank you for dropping by and not subjecting us to AI slop.

I think the most sensible answer is a whale.

Melody

I’ve heard theories it’s a whistle. The sound, not the action or object.

I’d not heard that. Thank you, Jes.

And thank you for dropping by.

I think he is talking about mother nature

Its the heart.Sweetest sound in orchestra heard but never been is a heartbeat.Bird in light plumage is the heart filling w/ all kinds of feelings, nothing on earth has ever been seen means there is nothing like it, on earth i expire is every1 dies in water i die mean the heart can be drowned in tears,Yet i run,swim,fly, is it the beat of your heart when you truly feel,If I cant b guessed by a boy or man A girl or woman I certainly can is Men think w/ there heads women think w/ their heart.So the answer is the heart!

Not bad, Krista! Not bad at all.

Thank you for dropping by.

Its a lie.

It is an intriguing answer, David McDonald.

Thank you for dropping that lie.

ENIGMA.

I am loudest of voices in orchestra heard,
And yet in an orchestra never have been;
I’m a bird of bright plumage, and less like a bird
Nothing in nature has ever been seen.

Touching earth, I expire; and in water I die;
In air I lose breath, yet can swim and can fly;
Darkness destroys me, and light is my death,
Yet I can’t keep alive without stopping my breath;
If my name can’t be guessed by a boy or a man,
By a girl or a woman it certainly can.

The answer, as such, was provided two months later (this time signed off by “E.B.K.”), also presented in rhyme:

‘TIME.’

I’m beaten, I’m counted, until deadened the sound
Of violin, trombone,
Flute, psaltery, and drum;
Yet in propria personâ I am not there found.
Some talk of my wings, brightly tinted with gold—
For so quickly I fly,
Bringing pleasure and joy.
Yet I’m not a bright bird—I’m shrivelled and old:
I carry a scythe,
And painfully writhe.
Man, woman, and child,
The grave, and the wild,
All lie pale, without motion, and cold.

But if I thus kill, I myself suffer loss;
When the earth’s years are o’er,
Then shall I be no more,
And all that is good will be cleansed from its dross.
I’m engulfed, I am past,
No thought on me is cast
When each gentle breeze vibrates; when rough winds roar,
I’m exhausted, I perish,
And like a ghost vanish;
Though I swim and I fly,
Yet in these I must die,
No pang of remorse can bring me back more.

The earth in its daily course turns from the sun:
Man much needeth the night;
But, oh! sad is my plight,
For extinction to me has certainly come.
The daylight returns to gladden man’s heart.
I’ve been born and have died,
Death is still at my side,
Though in man’s joy and pain I must bear my part.
Time must constantly die,
With swift wings from us fly;
Then his forelock pray seize,
In sloth think not there’s ease,
Forget not that you too must depart.

Right. So the answer given was TIME. By 1886 this answer was apparently forgotten, because a correspondent wrote to Notes & Queries in that year to ask for the answer to the riddle, which was now attributed to “Dr. Wilberforce, late Bishop of Oxford”… and it’s been treated as unsolved ever since, far as I can tell.

Copy pasted from website

Wow!

Thank you, Sarah. Your comment is eye-opening and unexpected.

I know it has been a while and sorry for my bad english, its not my mother tongue.

What about ‘Hope’ as an answer?

Hope can be triggered by a orchestra and kind of expressed by sounds.
But still cannnot be seen. Same for the nature part, also hope doesnt seem like something rooted in nature but rather something higher than that. The gay plummage could refer to all the different shapes hope can take. When you are realistic (it touches earth) it will die, because the definition of hope is to be irrational. Everyday it looses breath in air, meaning it becomes weaker and weaker if it isnt influenced by something. In water I die, could refer to the term of drowning hope. And yet it can go over the top and fly. When its almost gone it still can swim. Darkness destroys me: true. Light is my death: hope will die after it is fullfilled. Hope cannot stay alive without just being hold on for some time, because it takes time to potentially be fullfilled. The last part could refer to the name “hope” for girls.

Whale doesnt feel like an answer at all, due to the line “Nothing in nature has ever been seen. ”
And Time still doesnt really add up with all lines in my opinion, but is way better than whale anyways.

Bad English? Robin, my dear, your English is brilliant and beautiful, and I love your reply. I mean that seriously.

Thank you for all the work of writing down your thoughtful response.

And thank you as well for dropping by.

I think the answer are “the stars” (in particular the known “constellations”). The idea came to me when i realized that the stars are the only thing both vanished through darkness AND light: darkness doesn’t let us see them, and when light comes (day time) that too makes them disappear.
There are constellations fitting all the parts of the riddle. “I’m a bird of gay plumage” could be the Pheonix, the Swan or even Tucana (an exotic amazonian bird). “I’m the sweetest of sounds in orchestra heard” could be Lyra (the harp) which according to the legend was the instrument played by one of the sons of Zeus who used to claim sounded musically perfect. The riddle also makes several mentions to “breath”, in special “in air i lose breath”, which most likely reffers to the constellation Antlia (the air pump machine).
The only thing i can’t understand is why should women get the riddle better than men (?)

Very creative answer, friend.

Thank you for dropping by.

Thanks! There are many more possible answers, of course. One other solution that i never discarded, taking in consideration what i’ve researched on Wilberforce’s mindset (his creationist worldview, his typical subjects of interest, etc) is LIFE.
We find life everywhere, from deep in the sea to up in the sky [i can swim and can fly]…
It was believed back then, especially within creationist circles, that life existed due to an ethereal property of it called The Breath of Life, therefore it was normal to think that life could only keep going by “holding on to its breath” (the breath of life).
Also, it’s more common for the subject of “life” to be associated to women, rather than men, since women are the bearers of life from its start (and that probably explains the last part of the riddle).
When life “meets the earth” (burial) it’s the end of it, although life can just as well meet its end inside water. And no living creature can breathe above a certain altitude [in air i lose breath].
I have yet to understand what the “darkness” and “light” part means, but it most likely speaks through symbolism (the experience of death was often described as a light at the end of a tunel, so maybe that’s what the riddle speaks about).

“Life” was the first answer I thought of, actually, when I first came across this riddle, back in 2014. And I like what you say about it.

Sound. Wavelengths

In other words. Vibration.

I like that, Steve. It makes me positively hum, and like that very much.

A harsh wind

I like that one very much too! I like most of all the specific way you phrase it here, Sean. I think it’s poetic and authentically so, and for this one fact alone — forget for a moment all the other beautiful things I could name — I can’t thank you enough for dropping by.

Me and my mom were thinking this over, and we believe it’s an unborn baby.

My thanks to you and your mother both, Destiny! I believe I can see a brilliant and bright and beaming future light in your wonderful reply to me here.

the answer is death.

answer death.

Death, where is thy sting?

i know

You know nothing!

Except, perhaps, that if you keep saying it, maybe it will come true.

It’s the scream of a mother while giving birth sweetest sound of orchestra heard….it’s a bit like music to the ears of those listening that this woman is fighting to bring out her baby but you’ll definitely never hear such sound in real orchestra. No such pain exist in nature like that…..and obviously in water she will drown….even in oxygen she’s holding her breath to push she can swim in her tears and the feeling is like soaring …..darkness….closing your eyes is giving up and that is like a death and as you die you see the light …and all you have to do is keep pushing and holding your breath only a woman can know such name …the scream while giving birth….I might not be making sense but seriously what else could it be.What else do only women experience..

The answer is a whistle

its obviously a flying fish

its obviously a flying fish, it fits everything

The answer is LIFE.
I’m going to break it down on each new line.
“I’m the sweetest of sounds in Orchestra heard,” Life is the sweetest sound because if there was no life on earth then there would be no sound.
“Yet in Orchestra never was seen.” Life is never seen because it is something that we are made of. The “Orchestra” is actually all the sounds of life that sounds like music.
“I’m a bird of gay plumage, yet less like a bird,” A bird of gay plumage can be any bird made out of life and it is less like a bird because LIFE is what makes the bird, it isn’t what the bird is.
“Nothing ever in Nature was seen.” Parmenides of Elea(Greek philosopher) wrote a poem, “ On Nature.” It is about Life.
“Touch the earth I expire, in water I die,” When a lifeform touches Earth it expires because we all have a day of death which would be our expiration date. It dies in water because there are lifeforms that live in water that eventually die and humans can drown and die in water taking their life.
“In air I lose breath, yet can swim and can fly;” Life loses breath in air because the pressure gets higher the higher you go in the air taking your breath. Life can swim and fly because life is found in lifeforms that fly and swim.
“Darkness destroys me, and light is my death,” Darkness destroys life because after you die it is said that you fall in the darkness. Light is the death because when life is first made it is born in the light of the earth.
“And I only keep going by holding my breath.” Life keeps going because lifeforms take in breaths of air and keep it inside of them by “holding in the breath.”
“If my name can’t be guessed by a boy or a man,” A boy and man can’t get pregnant and have a lifeform inside of them.
“By a woman or girl it certainly can.” A woman or girl can get pregnant and give birth to a new life.

Pretty damned good, Levi!

Thank you for dropping by.

I agree with this Levi guy. It’s life. I THINK HE MIGHT HAVE ACTUALLY SOLVED IT!!!!!!!! YA TO GO!! WHAT DOES EVERYONE ELSE THINK???? I THINK HE ACTUALLY SOLVED IT!!!!

Vitamine A

“A spirit “

ANGEL/FISH

It’s a reed fish/rope fish

Hey! I like those answers! I like them a lot.

Thank you for dropping by and taking the time to comment.

the message is dolphin because bird of prey but not a bird it hunts for fish also it says it hunts in a heard like a pod holding its breath in water and when leaping in the air and it cant walk because it doesn’t say anything about walking so the answer is simply dolphin

Flying fish

When I hear this riddle, I think of snow, or snowflakes

I like that, Eric. Thank you. It has a poetic beauty which sets it apart.

Thank you for dropping by.

It’s a bubble.
The first verse relates to the sound it makes when popping. This is replicated by the conductor tapping his baton, meaning the orchestra is about to start (and they loved their music back then!)
The second relates to the pretty colours, but bubbles are man made and don’t naturally occur.
The third is popping when hitting the floor, a bubble can’t survive pressure IN the water and it gradually disperses and pops in the air. But, it can float on the surface of the water and float through the air, hence the swim and fly.
Fourth verse. In darkness, it cannot be seen (it could mean that because it can’t be seen it doesn’t exist or that it’ll be popped more easily) and the light may refer to candlelight, where heat will pop it. As long as the surface remains intact and it has air in it, it can keep existing, hence the holding its breath.
The last verse relates to the girls and women doing the washing, so they’ll be more likely to come across bubbles!

A careful and closely reasoned answer, Sarah, whether correct or incorrect is to me, at this point, largely irrelevant.

Originally, I wanted to answer Curtain, Security curtain or stage light.

I find myself still revisiting some of those, but at this point – I think the answer is “INTERMISSION “ or “INTERVAL” as used in British and Indian English.

So original, Lynn, and plausible. Thank you.

It’s a great pleasure indeed for me to read these ideas and responses, and I marvel at the thought and creativity that you and others like you have given this cryptic Soapy Smith riddle.

It’s a nightin gale!!!!

Florence nightingale, ” lady with the lamp”

Clever, Derek! Thank you for dropping by.

Shade

Shade.

Shade?

Shade!

You cranked it out, sir. Thank you for reading and thank you for dropping by.

[…] Thought you guys might enjoy this — an unsolved riddle from the 1800s. Story and contents of puzzle have been copy pasted from here: […]

The only answer is..
Dawn

The only answer is … Dawn.

May I tell you something, TY?

You may be the rightest one yet.

THe answer is high pitch

What!? I can’t hear you, friend. I think you may be pitched a little too high.

All the same, I thank you for — you know — dropping by.

“Mixed race fetus/baby mothered by a white woman” is my answer.

Some research I did in the 1800’s it was said that it was excepted if a white man father a mixed race child in which the child was just considered a slave unless the father wanted to educate. While a white woman who gave birth to a mix child was abandoned, which would resulted in death unless saved by the church in theory.

With him being a man of the church and a abolitionist he may have seen a lot of abandonment of these babies.

Wow! Thank you for that, Lester.

And thank you for dropping by.

The answer is “timbre and pitch.” You are all wrong.
“I’m the sweetest of sounds in Orchestra heard, yet in orchestra never was seen.”
You can hear musical sounds in the Orchestra, but they can’t be seen.
“I’m a bird of gay plumage, yet less like a bird,” refers to the color and tone quality.
“Nothing ever in nature was seen.” Referring to the musical sounds in nature that can be heard as well, but once again cannot be seen. “Touch the earth I expire, in water I die.” The timbre of a tuning fork will die when touching the earth or water.
“In air I lose breath, yet can swim and can fly.” Refers to the timbre and pitch that cause one to run out of breath, and the musical notes give the feeling of swimming or flying.
“Darkness destroys me, and light is my death, and I only keep going by holding my breath.” Referring to the color and tone of timbre and the holding of breath when singing or playing wind instruments and letting your breath out slowly.
If my name can’t be guessed by a boy or a man, by a woman or girl it certainly can. “Referring to the pitch in timbre mainly while describing women and girls singing abilities over men.

You, Amy Horner, win.

Yes. Yes, I mean this.

You have solved this riddle, and that is all there is to it.

Your answer is not merely plausible: you’ve fully supported it, backed it up, and I am convinced.

May I buy you a Cadillac?

actually a very long fart

baba, your answer stinks. I mean, it completely blows. It’s without any doubt the shittiest answer so far — totally deflating, and I’m in no way blowing smoke up your ass when I say that — not least because everybody knows that darkness does not destroy even the lengthiest of farts. It’s my sincere opinion that you, baba, have been hoisted by your own petard.

Thank you for dropping by and taking the wind out of my sails, I guess.

KEY: Whistler

See full write-up on Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/puzzles/comments/1gbph2/this_riddle_has_never_been_solved_since_being/i14ez0n/?context=3

Please, Mr. Zolinski. Please. I am at this point very seriously considering cutting that answer open and counting its rings — that’s how bloody old it is.

This is easy.. Is there reward fir the answer ??

An evergreen and, I dare say, coniferous response, Mr. Joseph Key — with or without your two question marks.

In answer to your question(s??), yes, there is a very handsome reward fir the answer.

Now let us hear it, Joseph Key. Wow us with your puzzle prowess. Amaze us with your deductive acumen. Dazzle us and daze us. Hit us directly in the middle and stupefy us with your unraveling of this rhythmic riddle.

I know I speak for all my good readers — strike that: I know I speak fir all my good, bad, ugly, and indifferent readers when I say that we await with fir-bated breath your award-winning response.

P.S. Thank you fir dropping by!

It a “Bubble” for he is soapy sam ,bubble works in all of them ,that was too easy.

I have a riddle I came up with ,let’s see who gets it,…..I Am the first,last,beggining and end! What Am I ???

I disagree with you, Jesse James, no matter how lathered up you’ve gotten, no matter how slick this Soapy Sam connection appears, no matter how clean and neat the solution may seem to you, it’s over-sanitized to me, past the point of sterilization: “Bubble,” which has been posited before (here and elsewhere) isn’t, at first blush, too bad of an answer. But only superficially. Upon closer scrutiny — upon deeper prodding — the bubble bursts before our eyes, right at the outset:

“I’m the sweetest of sounds in Orchestra heard”

I really don’t think this is a bubble, sir. I do, however, think you may be existing in a bubble.

Jesse James wrote:

“I have a riddle I came up with ,let’s see who gets it,…..I Am the first,last,beggining and end! What Am I ???”

You, Jesse James, are the alpha and the omega, the mini and the mega, the Vincent and the Vega, the Juan and the Ortega.

In short, you’re a bubble.

Now what the fuck do I win, bubble boy?

The female orgasm.

An answer as original as it is penetrating, Joan, as slick as cum on a gold tooth.

Thank you for dropping by! Clearly you’re a formidable riddler and cryptological sleuth.

The answer to the riddle is “a fire.”

“I’m the sweetest of sounds in orchestra heard” refers to the sound of a fire crackling.

“yet in orchestra never was seen” means that a fire is not a part of an orchestra.

“I’m a bird of gay plumage” refers to the flames of a fire, which can look like colorful plumage.

“yet less like a bird, nothing ever in nature was seen” means that a fire is not a natural bird.

“Touch the earth I expire” means that a fire goes out if it touches the ground.

“in water I die” means that a fire goes out if it is submerged in water.

“in air I lose breath” means that a fire goes out if it does not have enough oxygen.

“yet can swim and can fly” means that a fire can spread through water or air.

“Darkness destroys me, and light is my death” means that a fire goes out in darkness or if it is exposed to too much light.

“and I only keep going by holding my breath” means that a fire needs oxygen to continue burning.

“If my name can’t be guessed by a boy or a man, by a woman or girl it certainly can” means that the answer to the riddle is something that is easy for anyone to guess.

I like your answer, Sterling Merritt (and your name!), as well as the reasons you provide.

I apologize for not seeing your comment until now. WordPress used to notify me whenever a comment was left for any of my posts, but no longer. This almost certainly has something to do with the Journal Pulp being attacked, blacklisted, buried, and burned by Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckGoGo, and the United States government — including the CIA and FBI.

Thank you for what you wrote. Thank you for dropping by.

I asked chat GPT to solve this: This is what it said.

The answer to the riddle is Echo. Echo is a sound that is heard, but not seen in an Orchestra. Echo is not a bird, but it is described with gay plumage, which means it is colorful and attractive. Echo dies when it touches the earth, in water, and in air, and can only survive by holding its breath. Echo is also destroyed by darkness and light. The name Echo can be guessed by a woman or girl, but not by a boy or a man.

Well, friend, it’s interesting. The answer confirms what we already knew: ChatGPT is just another search-engine aggregator.

The main reason I say this here is that the echo answer is hardly original or new — though far be it from me to argue with an artificially intelligent device or doll. Still, I must say, I emphatically do not agree with this robotic reasoning, if it can be called reasoning at all.

Echo is described with gay plumage? When? Where? By whom? ChatGPT infers this to mean “colorful and attractive,” but I’m prepared to argue that even this is a stretch: echos are not always — or even usually — colorful and attractive. That, to me, is a dangerous stretch. As proof of this, we need look no further than a bad sound-mixer or an echoey room where jazz musicians play.

But I think ChatGPT — which is nothing more or less than upcycled regurgitation, a newly repackaged search-engine scouring the www for more information to spit out more rapidly (and, please note: AI [so-called] cannot induct) — makes even more tremendous leaps than this:

“Destroyed by darkness and light” are bad enough to be worthy of baba’s shitty answer above. In fact, echoes across still water at night are echoes at their most pristine and strongest.

Most baffling of all and where I think ChatGPT is wrongest:

“The name Echo can be guessed by a woman or girl, but not by a boy or a man”? I will admit, this made me scratch my head. It’s as unconvincing as any bad literary interpretation I’ve ever read.

I frankly don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Yet I’m sincere, Mr. mcvay, when I say that it is interesting. And I thank you for dropping by.

sirens echo

Say more about this siren’s echo, j luke, if you will. It has the stature of something interesting, the shimmer of something real. Justify it, for fuck sake. I may or may not contravene. List your reasons for this take of yours — this sirens echo take. Explain how you arrived at it exactly — and I do mean exactly — and explain exactly what you mean. “Echo” on its own I’d call a pretty old and boring hat. But siren’s echo? Now that — that, j luke, I like. It has a gothic quality. It has a haunting tone. It has for me a sympathetic strike. It’s not an old and boring hat. Why sirens specifically? And why echo? Why not song or breath or cry or hammer-blow? Why not threnody? Why this and not that? Tell me.

The thing which I think gives your answer the stature of something real — the thing which makes it seem not merely somewhat plausible but possibly true — is its evocative alone-and-wandering wailing feel, with very far off an eternal flight of stairs rising in the crepuscular light, a vast and empty space through which the wind electrically blows and there’s a constant seething hiss, and the air is silver-blue, and the ocean’s swollen fat. Maybe you intended this. Or maybe that. Maybe it’s all a fluke. Who knows? Who cares?

Tell me something else: Who are you? And what brought you here, Ms. or Mr. luke?