Sphinx— Greek Creature"The Riddler"

The Riddler of Thebes

The Sphinx was sent to Thebes as a punishment—some say by Hera for the city's crimes, others by Ares for a blood debt unpaid. She perched on a rock outside the city gates, her lion's body coiled, her woman's face serene and terrible, her eagle's wings folded. All who wished to enter or leave Thebes must first answer her riddle.

The Riddle

The Sphinx posed the same question to every traveler: "What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?" Those who failed—and all failed—were strangled and devoured. Some say she also asked a second riddle about two sisters who give birth to each other. The roads to Thebes grew empty, the city starved.

The Price of Thebes

King Laius was killed while traveling (murdered, though no one knew it, by his own son Oedipus). Laius's brother-in-law Creon became regent and offered the throne and the widowed queen Jocasta to whoever could defeat the Sphinx. Many tried. The rocks around her perch grew white with bones.

Oedipus's Answer

Oedipus, fleeing Corinth to escape a prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother (not knowing he had already done the first), came to Thebes. The Sphinx asked her riddle. Oedipus answered: "Man—who crawls as an infant, walks upright as an adult, and uses a cane in old age." It was correct.

The Sphinx's Death

Upon hearing the answer, the Sphinx threw herself from her rock and died—or in some versions, Oedipus pushed her. The curse was lifted, Thebes was saved, and Oedipus married the queen and became king. He had solved the riddle of what man is, but not the riddle of who he was. That answer would destroy him far more surely than the Sphinx ever could.