Sphingx

*Greek version of Egyptian shesepankh*.

A **sphinx** (Ancient Greek: Σφίγξ [spʰíŋks], Boeotian: Φίξ [pʰíːks], plural **sphinges**) is a mythical creature with the head of a human and the body of a lion. The term can also refer to any creature with the head of a person and the body of an animal.

In Greek tradition, it has the head of a human, the haunches of a lion, and sometimes the wings of a bird. It is mythicised as treacherous and merciless. Those who cannot answer its riddle suffer a fate typical in such mythological stories, as they are killed and eaten by this ravenous monster.[1] This deadly version of a sphinx appears in the myth and drama of Oedipus.[2] Unlike the Greek sphinx, which was a woman, the Egyptian sphinx is typically shown as a man (an **androsphinx**). In addition, the Egyptian sphinx was viewed as benevolent, but having a ferocious strength similar to the malevolent Greek version and both were thought of as guardians often flanking the entrances to temples.

From the Bronze Age, the Hellenes had trade and cultural contacts with Egypt. Before the time that Alexander the Great occupied Egypt, the Greek name, *sphinx*, was already applied to these statues. The historians and geographers of Greece wrote extensively about Egyptian culture. Herodotus called the ram-headed sphinxes **Criosphinxes** and called the hawk-headed ones **Hieracosphinxes**.

The word *sphinx* comes from the Greek Σφίγξ, apparently from the verb σφίγγω (*sphíngō*), meaning "to squeeze", "to tighten up".[7][8] This name may be derived from the fact that the hunters for a pride of lions are the lionesses, and kill their prey by strangulation, biting the throat of prey and holding them down until they die. However, the historian Susan Wise Bauer suggests that the word "sphinx" was instead a Greek corruption of the Egyptian name *shesepankh*, which meant "living image", and referred rather to the statue of the sphinx, which was carved out of "living rock" (rock that was present at the construction site, not harvested and brought from another location), than to the beast itself.[9]

There was a single *sphinx* in Greek mythology, a unique demon of destruction and bad luck. According to Hesiod, she was a daughter of Orthrus[10] and either Echidna or the Chimera, or perhaps even Ceto;[11] according to others, she was a daughter of Echidna and Typhon. All of these are chthonic figures from the earliest of Greek myths, before the Olympians ruled the Greek pantheon. The Sphinx is called Phix (Φίξ) by Hesiod in line 326 of the Theogony, the proper name for the Sphinx noted by Pierre Grimal's *The Penguin Dictionary of Classical Mythology*.

In Greek mythology, a sphinx is represented as a monster with a head of a woman, the body of a lioness, the wings of an eagle, and a serpent-headed tail.

The sphinx was the emblem of the ancient city-state of Chios, and appeared on seals and the obverse side of coins from the 6th century BCE until the 3rd century CE.

## The Riddle of the Sphinx

The Sphinx is said to have guarded the entrance to the Greek city of Thebes, and to have asked a riddle of travelers to allow them passage. The exact riddle asked by the Sphinx was not specified by early tellers of the stories, and was not standardized as the one given below until late in Greek history.[12]

It was said in late lore that Hera or Ares sent the Sphinx from her Aethiopian homeland (the Greeks always remembered the foreign origin of the Sphinx) to Thebes in Greece where she asks all passersby the most famous riddle in history: "Which creature has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed?" She strangled and devoured anyone who could not answer. Oedipus solved the riddle by answering: Man—who crawls on all fours as a baby, then walks on two feet as an adult, and then uses a walking stick in old age.[13] By some accounts[14] (but much more rarely), there was a second riddle: "There are two sisters: one gives birth to the other and she, in turn, gives birth to the first. Who are the two sisters?" The answer is "day and night" (both words—*ἡμέρα* and *νύξ*, respectively—are feminine in Ancient Greek). This riddle is also found in a Gascon version of the myth and could be very ancient.[15]

Bested at last, the tale continues, the Sphinx then threw herself from her high rock and died. An alternative version tells that she devoured herself. Thus Oedipus can be recognized as a "liminal" or threshold figure, helping effect the transition between the old religious practices, represented by the death of the Sphinx, and the rise of the new, Olympian gods.

In Jean Cocteau's retelling of the Oedipus legend, *The Infernal Machine*, the Sphinx tells Oedipus the answer to the riddle in order to kill herself so that she did not have to kill anymore, and also to make him love her. He leaves without ever thanking her for giving him the answer to the riddle. The scene ends when the Sphinx and Anubis ascend back to the heavens.

## Meta

The word *sphinx* could also be used to refer to any animal with a human-like face and an animal body. In Strabo's use of the term, some think he may have been referring to chimpanzees, also using the term *kynokephalos* to refer to a baboon (such as the yellow baboon, whose species name is *cynocephalus,* it could also be used to refer to the Barbary macaque, but the geography does not fit), and *kebos* to refer to the moustached guenon. This seems reasonable except that Strabo does then describe all three (or just the *kebos*?) as having "the face of a lion and the rest of the body like that of a panther; they are as large as deer." See the links to the source at Tauragrios.