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Cloud Cuckoo Land by Antonius Diogenes, Folio ∏

Though there have been many guesses, the riddle of the owls guarding the gates has been lost to time. The solution here has been inserted by the translator and was not part of the original text. Translation by Zeno Ninis.

… I thought, “Simple but actually complicated. Or was it complicated but actually simple? ·[He that knows all that Learning ever writ. Could the answer be water? An egg? A horse?”]·

… Though the tortoise with his honeycakes had plodded out of sight, I could still smell them. I ·[paced?]· on my crow feet, my talons sinking into the soft pillow of the clouds. The rich scents of cinnamon and honey and roasting pork flowed over me from the far side of the gates, and I flapped through the caverns of my mind, traveling from one end to the other, but I found nothing there.

The other shepherds were right to call me a dimwit and an airhead, a muttonheaded lamebrain. I turned to the two enormous owls with their golden spears and said, “I know ·[nothing]·.”

The two owls ·[stood straight up and the first guardian said, “That is correct, little crow. The answer is nothing,” and the second guardian said, “ ‘He that knows all that Learning ever writ, knows only this—that he knows nothing yet.’ ”]·

… they stepped aside and ·[as though I’d said the magic words]· the golden gates swung wide…