The
Sphinx and Oedipus
Cold Cast Bronze
12.5 inches high
$59.00
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#TL-1713
Oedipus' travels brought him to the place where guarding the gates of Thebes was
a terrible monster with the body of a lion and the head and torso of a woman.
She allowed no one to enter or leave the city without answering the riddle that
she posed. If the traveler could not answer correctly, she would kill and devour
him. As no one had yet come up with the right answer, the sphinx was well-fed,
and the city of Thebes was effectively cut off from all trade and all contact
with the world outside the city walls.
When Oedipus reached the gates of the city, the
creature posed her riddle: What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at
noon, and three legs in the evening? Oedipus solved the riddle, answering that
man crawls on all fours in infancy, walks upright on two legs in adulthood, and
uses a cane as a third leg in old age.
The sphinx was so frustrated that Oedipus had
answered her riddle that she threw herself from the city walls, and died there
on the road in front of the city that she had terrorized for so long. The
Thebans were immensely grateful to Oedipus for having rid them of the monstrous
sphinx.
Based on the painting Oedipus and the Sphinx
by Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) -- French Painter
(1864) Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY. Oil on
canvas.
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