2-650-999 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'Oedipus and the Sphinx', 1880. Oedipus was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. Oedipus meetd the Sphinx at the crossroads on his journey between Thebes and Delphi and must answer the Sphinx's riddle in order to pass. Failure means his own death and that of the besieged Thebans. The riddle was: What walks on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon and three at night?. From Stories from the Greek Tragedies by the Rev. Alfred J. Church, M.A. [Seeley, Jackson, & Halliday, London, 1880]