Œdipus and the Sphinx – The Envious Lobster

Œdipus and the Sphinx^[1]

By Sophocles. Translated By Alfred J. Church. Edited by Logan Marshall

Annotations by Ian McLAughlin

It befell in times past that the gods, being angry with the inhabitants of Thebes^[2], sent into their land a very troublesome beast which men called the Sphinx.^[3] 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 Œdipus, 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 Œdipus, being very bold, and also ready of wit, went forth to meet the monster. And when she saw him she spake, saying:

“Read me this riddle right, or die:
What liveth 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
Walketh with three feet than with twain?”

And Œdipus made reply:

“‘Tis man, who in life’s early day
Four-footed crawleth 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 Œdipus 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^[4] and Ismené.

Old Woman With Shawl and a Walking-stick – Van Gogh

Now the gods had decreed that Œdipus 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^[5]. 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 Œdipus 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^[6], he was very miserable, and in the madness of grief put out his own eyes.

Marshall, Logan., ED. trans. MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF all nations. philidelphia Pa: John c. winston company, 1914. http://gutenberg.readingroo.ms/2/0/7/4/20740/20740-h/20740-h.htm.

[1] This story is from Sophocles’ play “Œdipus Rex”, the first of three plays about Œdipus.

[2] Thebes (Thiva) is a city in modern-day Boeotia, central Greece. It is central in many Greek myths, including Heracles and Dionysus.

[3] Egyptian sphinxes feature male human heads and wingless bodies, while Greek sphinxes feature female heads and wings (OED).

[4] Antigone lends her name to the title of the final play in the Œdipus cycle.

[5] Famous as the recipient of Biblical letters from the Apostle Paul, Corinth is a city in south-central Greece on the Isthmus of Corinth.

[6] Oracles are instruments, agencies, or mediums which act as the mouthpiece for a god. The world also refers to the places that house such people or things, or pronouncements of them (OED).

Contexts

The Œdipus Cycle, also known as The Theban Plays, consists of three plays by Sophocles: “Œdipus Rex” (“Œdipus Tyranus” in the original Greek), “Œdipus at Colonus”, and “Antigone”. “Œdipus and the Sphinx” is from the first and most famous of the three and has been used to promote the virtues of cleverness and bravery.

The rest of the play was famously used by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud in his work, in which the Œdipal complex is used to describe the mother as the source of all sexual desire in a boy and the father as the source of all his rivalry. This problematic description has stood the test of time as one of the most misunderstood and misused theories of psychoanalysis.

Resources for Further Study

“Oedipus the King” from History Today gives further details about the play and its 5th-century performances.
“Solving Riddles: Freud, Vienna and the Historiography of Madness” from Journeys in Madness: Mapping Mental Illness in the Austro-Hungarian Empire by Steven Beller explores the connection between the Sphinx’ riddle and Freud’s theories.

Pedagogy

“Œdipus and the Sphinx”, “Œdipus Rex”, and “Antigone”, the final play of the Œdipus Cycle, are all common readings at different levels of education.

The short story of Œdipus’ encounter with the sphinx is fantastic fun for children who are learning wordplay and riddles. This 2nd grade lesson plan in an excellent example of what can be done with this portion of the Œdipus saga.

The themes of incest and murder and the level of violence in the stories “Œdipus Rex” and “Antigone” make them suitable only for higher-grade or college level students. However, with scaffolding and mature students, these works can lead to excellent discussions of free-will & fate, guilt, and power.

Contemporary Connections

The Book of Virtues (1993) and The Children’s Book of Virtues (1995) by Former Education Secretary William J. Bennet both contain versions of this story.
Stories from the books above were also animated in the television series Adventures from the Book of Virtues (1996-98, 2000, 2009).
“Oedipus and the Sphinx” by Andrei Cornea is a brief, somewhat modernized, sequel to this story (World Literature Today, vol. 84, no. 5, Sept. 2010, p. 37).

Œdipus and the Sphinx[1]