Oedipus and the Sphinx
It befell in times past that the gods, being angry with the
inhabitants of Thebes, sent into their land a very troublesome beast which men
called the Sphinx. Now this beast had the face and breast of a fair woman, but
the feet and claws of a lion; and it was wont to ask a riddle of such as
encountered it, and such as answered not aright it would tear and devour.
When it had laid waste the
land many days, there chanced to come to Thebes one Oedipus, who had fled from
the city of Corinth that he might escape the doom which the gods had spoken
against him. And the men of the place told him of the Sphinx, how she cruelly
devoured the people, and that he who should deliver them from her should have
the kingdom. So Oedipus, being very bold, and also ready of with, went forth to
meet the monster. And when she saw him she spoke, saying:
"Read me this riddle right, or die:
What lived there beneath the sky,
Four-footed creature that doth choose
Now three feet and now twain to use,
And still more feebly o'er the plain
Walked with three feet than with pain?"
And Oedipus made reply:
"'This man, who in
life's early day
Four-footed crawled on his way;
When time hath made his strength complete,
Upright his form and twain his feet;
When age hath bound him to the ground
A third foot in his staff is found."
And when the Sphinx found
that her riddle was answered she cast herself from a high rock and perished.
As a reward Oedipus received
the great kingdom of Thebes and the hand of the widowed queen Jocasta in
marriage. Four children were born to them--two sons, Eteocles and Polynices,
and two daughters, Antigone and Ismené.
Now the gods had decreed that
Oedipus should murder his own father and marry his own mother, and by a curious
chance this was precisely what he had done. As a baby he had been left to die
lest he should live to fulfil the doom, but had been rescued by an old shepherd
and brought up at the court of Corinth. Fleeing from there that he might not
murder him whom he believed to be his father, he had come to Thebes, and on the
way had met Laius, his true father, the king, and killed him.
While he remained ignorant of
the facts Oedipus was very happy and reigned in great power and glory; but when
pestilence fell upon the land and he discovered the truth of the almost
forgotten oracle, he was very miserable, and in the madness of grief put out
his own eyes.
