What goes through the door without pinching itself?
What sits on the stove without burning itself?
What sits on the table and is not ashamed?
What work is it that the faster you work,
the longer it is before you're done,
and the slower you work,
the sooner you're finished?
I know a word of letters three.
Add two, and fewer there will be.
I give you a group of three.
One is sitting down, and will never get up.
The second eats as much as is given to him, yet is always hungry.
The third goes away and never returns.
Five hundred begins it, five hundred ends it,
Five in the middle is seen;
First of all figures, the first of all letters,
Take up their stations between.
Join all together, and then you will bring
Before you the name of an eminent king.
