What is the answer to the "Labyrinth" riddle?

I dunno if you’re being ironical or not, but one of Smullyan’s books that contained this type of “engraved box” puzzle was (wait for it) What is the Name of This book?. Chapter five is “The Mystery of Portia’s Caskets”. The premise is that Portia will marry the man who can figure out which of a group of engraved caskets contains the gold ring (or whatever the prize was). The caskets (typically gold, silver and bronze) have engravings like “Either the statement on this casket is true, or the bronze casket contains the ring” and whatnot.

The chapter goes on to describe the daughter and then grandaughter of Portia (each also named Portia), who present suitors with increasingly difficult puzzles. The chapter closes with a distant descendant of Portia (also named Portia) who presents a suitor with caskets engraved with statements that are deliberately misleading, I guess to prove a point that just because a statement says it is true, doesn’t necessarily make it so.

Smullyan finishes the story by saying this final Portia marries her suitor anyway, despite him being tricked by the misleading statements. Then (somewhat sexistly, I thought) her new husband promptly puts her over his knee and gives her a good spanking, thus discouraging her from any future thoughts of playing such games.

Yep, that’s it. No, I knew the title was something like that, but I hadn’t spotted the irony in my genuinely not remembering it.

Sexist? Maybe, but not if you assume she’d have done the same thing to him if he’d have played silly buggers with her like that - I think all the women I know would :slight_smile: