Heroes: Volume II of Mythos

T HE R IDDLE OF THE S PHINX The province of Boeotia through which Oedipus had been walking was a land of pleasant fields, gentle valleys and sparkling rivers. He found that the path he had chosen rose up towards a mountain pass. A voice called to him. ‘Wouldn’t go that way, if I were you.’ Oedipus turned to see an old man leaning on a stick. ‘No? Why not?’ ‘That’s Mount Phicium, is that.’ ‘So?’ ‘Haven’t you heard tell of the Sphinx?’ ‘No. What is a “Sphinx”?’ ‘I’m a poor man.’ Oedipus sighed and dropped a coin into the man’s outstretched palm. ‘Thankee kindly, sir.’ The old man wheezed and crinkled his eyes. ‘Some say the Sphinx was sent by the Queen of Heaven herself as a punishment to King Laius. You’ve heard of him, at least?’ Oedipus had always paid attention in the schoolroom. He had been obliged to commit to memory endless lists of dull provincial kings, princes and tribal chiefs. ‘Laius, King of Thebes. Son of Labdacus, son of Polydorus, son of Cadmus.’ ‘You’ve got him. Great-grandson of the sower of the dragon’s teeth himself. Husband to Queen Jocasta and a mighty powerful king and lord.’ ‘So why would Hera wish to punish him?’ ‘Ah, well now. He raped Chrysippus of Pisa, so they say. The lad killed himself, at any rate.’ ‘I heard the story. But surely that was ages ago?’ ‘Twenty years or more. But what’s that to the gods?’ ‘And so she sent this sphincter …?’ ‘Ha! You’re a funny one. Sphinx, I said. Terrible creature, head of a mortal woman, but the body of a lion and the wings of a bird. You don’t want to mess with her. She stands at the top of the pass there, just where you was headed. She stops every traveller with a riddle. If they can’t answer it right, she throws them down to their deaths on the rocks below. Nobody’s answered the riddle yet. Trade nor traffic from the north can’t get through to Thebes. You want to go there, you’d best go all the way round the mountain to avoid her.’ ‘I’m good at riddles,’ said Oedipus. The old man shook his head. ‘See the buzzards circling in the air? They’ll be picking the flesh from your broken bones.’ ‘Or from the sphincter’s.’ ‘Sphinx, boy. That’s a Sphinx, and don’t you forget it.’ Oedipus left him cackling, wheezing and tutting, and walked on. It was true that he was good at riddles. He had invented a whole new style of word game in which you rearranged the letters of one word to make another.fn9 He had stumbled across the idea as a child when told the story of Python, the great snake that Gaia – Mother Earth – had sent up to guard the Omphalos, the navel stone of Greece at Pytho, now called Delphi.fn10 Oedipus had excitedly pointed out to his mother that Typhon, another of Gaia’s great monster sons, shared the same letters as Python. ‘And Hera is the same as her mother Rhea!’ he had cried. ‘Very good, dear. But it doesn’t mean anything.’fn11 No, he supposed that it didn’t. But it was fun. Conundrums, puzzles and codes continued to delight him and bore most other people. Now the prospect of a life-or-death riddle appealed to his intellectual vanity. The mountain pass was narrowing as he ascended. The old man had been right about the buzzards, a full dozen wheeled above him, screeching in anticipation. ‘Halt!’ He looked up and saw a winged figure crouching on a ledge above him. It leapt down and landed softly on the path in front of him, opening and closing its wings. A human face, the body of a lion, just as the old man had said.fn12 ‘Good morning, sir,’ said Oedipus. ‘Sir? Sir? Are you blind?’ ‘Forgive me. Hard to tell. I can’t even be sure which is your face and which your arse.’ ‘Oh, I am going to enjoy watching you die,’ said the Sphinx, her lion’s fur bristling. ‘You’ll have quite a wait,’ said Oedipus. ‘I don’t plan on doing that for years yet. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get through.’ ‘Not so fast! No one passes me unless they can answer my riddle.’ ‘Oh, I see. The riddle being why your mother didn’t strangle you at birth? No?’ The Sphinx, who thought herself exceptionally fine-looking – as indeed she was – spat with rage. ‘You will answer the riddle or die!’ She indicated the sheer face of the cliff below her. Oedipus looked down. Hundreds of bleached human bones lay scattered on the rocks beneath. ‘Ooh. Nasty. Right then, fire away. Haven’t got all day. Have to be in Thebes before night.’ The Sphinx settled herself down and tried to compose herself. She had never met anyone quite like Oedipus before. ‘Tell me this, traveller. What walks on four feet in the morning, two feet at noon and three in the evening?’ ‘Hm … four feet in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening?’ ‘Just give me the answer to that,’ purred the Sphinx, ‘and you may freely pass.’ Oedipus sucked in through his teeth. ‘Man, oh man,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘that’s a teaser and no mistake.’ ‘Ha! You can’t solve it, then?’ ‘But I did,’ said Oedipus raising his eyebrows in surprise. ‘Didn’t you hear me?’ The Sphinx stared. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I just told you. “Man, oh man,” I said. And “man” is the answer. When Man is born, in the morning of his existence, he crawls on all fours; in his prime, the noontime of his day, he goes upright on two legs; but in the evening of his life he has a third – a stick to help him on his way.’ ‘B-but … how …?’ ‘It’s called “intelligence”. Now let me try one out on you. Let me see … What has the face of a hag, the body of a sow, the wings of a pigeon and the brains of a pea? No?’ The Sphinx reared up with a screech and before she had time to open her wings, fell backwards off the cliff’s edge, claws thrashing the air, down onto the rocks below. With screams of delight, the buzzards swooped. Oedipus passed on and began to make his own, more gentle, descent from the mountain. The city of Thebes lay spread out in the valley below, threaded through by the waters of Lake Copais. As he went he encountered shepherds, goatherds and a body of soldiers who were all amazed to see someone coming down from the mountain pass. By the time he reached the gates of Thebes, the story of his defeat of the Sphinx had spread throughout the city. He was welcomed by an ecstatic populace, who carried him shoulder-high to the palace and the presence of their ruler, Creon. ‘You have rid us of a quite terrible problem, young man,’ said Creon. ‘That creature not only choked off an important commercial route, her presence caused many to believe that Thebes lay under a curse. Other cities and kingdoms were refusing to trade with us. My sister, the queen, wishes to thank you personally.’ Queen Jocasta welcomed the hero with a sweet smile. Oedipus smiled back. She was older than him by some years, but remarkably beautiful. ‘You are in mourning, majesty,’ he said bowing low and holding her hand for a little longer than many might have thought suitable. ‘My husband, the king,’ Jocasta replied. ‘He was ambushed and killed by a gang of robbers. My brother Creon has been ruling as regent ever since.’ ‘My sincere condolences, madam.’ What a very attractive woman, Oedipus thought to himself. What a very attractive young man, Jocasta thought to herself.