Oedipus and the Riddle of the Sphinx

the encounter between Oedipus and the Sphinx is an ancient, pre-Sophoclean element of Theban myth

Man, the Great Symbol of the Mysteries

“Oedipus came down to the plain where the citizens of Thebes were oppressed by a monster, the Sphinx a winged lion with a human, female face. She would leave them alone only when she got an answer to her riddle; many had tried to guess it, failed and been killed. The Thebans promised a great reward to anyone who could free them from the Sphinx: the throne of Thebes and the hand of Jocasta, the widowed queen. Oedipus answered the riddle. “What is it that goes on four feet, three feet and two feet... and is most feeble when it walks on four?” His answer was “man—on all fours as a baby, on two feet at maturity, on three as an old man with a stick.” The Sphinx threw herself to death off the rocks, and Oedipus entered the city to claim his reward.”

Represents the initiatory journey of the human soul through cycles of incarnation, ignorance, and partial enlightenment. The answer, "man," signifies the physical stages of life: infancy (four legs, crawling), maturity (two legs, upright), and old age (three legs, with a cane). However, the deeper, inner meaning points to the soul's progression toward gnosis, or divine self-knowledge.

a hidden fourth stage, implied but unspoken in the riddle, symbolizing transcendence beyond mortal frailty. The infant's four-legged crawl evokes the prima materia of alchemy—the raw, instinctual base of the psyche. The two-legged adult phase denotes the ego's dominion, marked by duality (reason versus passion). The three-legged elder suggests a fragile equilibrium, where wisdom (the staff) supports but does not fully liberate. The unresolved fourth element—the "unsaid" answer—represents the adept's ascension to unity, akin to the philosopher's stone or the enlightened master who "comes forth by day" (as in Egyptian solar mysticism), free from the night's illusions of separation

the Sphinx is not merely a monster but a liminal entity, a "goddess of discontinuity" who enforces the veil between profane and sacred realms. She embodies the shadow aspects of the psyche—devouring the uninitiated who approach without humility. Oedipus' triumph, achieved through intellect alone, ironically dooms him, illustrating the peril of partial gnosis: rational mastery over the riddle yields worldly power (the throne) but blinds one to the deeper mystery of fate and incestuous self-delusion.

famously recounted in Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus Rex (Oedipus the King), written c. 429 BCE. This play is the canonical version that has shaped all later understandings of the encounter.

• The Sphinx and her riddle are already mentioned in Hesiod’s Theogony (c. 700 BCE), though only briefly.
• The earliest detailed surviving accounts appear in fragmentary works of the Epic Cycle and in lost tragedies of Aeschylus (whose own Oedipus trilogy does not survive).
• Sophocles did not invent the riddle encounter; he inherited and dramatized a well-established Theban myth cycle.

• Sophocles (Oedipus Rex, lines 130–131, summarized by the Chorus): “What creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening, and is weakest when it has the most legs?”
• Earlier poetic version preserved in fragments (e.g., Asclepiades of Tragilus, 4th century BCE, and the mythographer Pherecydes): “There is on the earth a being two-footed and four-footed, with one voice, and also three-footed… and alone among all things that move on land or in the sky or in the sea it changes its nature…”

Oedipus’ answer, “man” (ἄνθρωπος), is identical in every surviving Greek source.

The riddle is one of the earliest expressions in Western literature of human self-knowledge and the human life cycle. By solving it, Oedipus demonstrates superior intellect but also tragic irony: the man who understands the universal human condition fails utterly to understand his own identity and fate.

The “riddle of the ages of man” is an international motif (Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 921B). Similar riddles appear in medieval European, Indian, and African traditions, suggesting either ancient diffusion or independent emergence of the life-cycle metaphor.

In The Occult Anatomy of Man, Hall describes the Sphinx as an "androgynous enigma" representing the quaternary division of human faculties: the lion body as vital forces (four lower bodies: physical, etheric, astral, mental), the human head as intellect aspiring to spirit. The riddle encodes the sacred tetrad (four elements), with Oedipus' solution signifying the adept's harmonization of these into the pentad of mastery—yet his subsequent fall warns of hubris, the "unbalanced quaternary" that invites nemesis. Hall links this to Egyptian neteru, asserting the Giza Sphinx as the "elder brother" archetype: a silent oracle whose gaze imparts the same initiatic shock, guarding the "lost word" of creation.

In The Secret Teachings, Hall elaborates that the myth allegorizes the Qabalistic path of the Fool (0) ascending the Tree of Life, confronting the sphinx at Binah (understanding) before descending into illusion (Malkuth). He connects it explicitly to Giza, viewing both sphinxes as "threshold wardens" in solar mysteries: the Greek as exoteric peril, the Egyptian as esoteric promise. Hall cautions that Oedipus' "victory" is pyrrhic, for true gnosis requires not slaying the guardian but merging with it—echoing the Hermetic tabula smaragdina: "That which is below is like that which is above."

"The wisdom and secrecy of Egypt are epitomized in the Sphinx, which has preserved its secret from the seekers of a hundred generations…. The Sphinx embodies the composite nature of man: the animal body, the intellectual head, and the wings of aspiration. In the riddle propounded by the Sphinx to Oedipus, the stages of human life are symbolized: the quadruped (infancy), the biped (maturity), and the triped (old age). Yet the deeper mystery lies in the unspoken fourth stage—the transcendent man, who walks without feet upon the planes of spirit, having solved the enigma of existence.” - Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928)

"Philosophy reveals to man his kinship with the All/God. It shows him that he is a brother to the suns which dot the firmament; it lifts him from a taxpayer on a whirling atom to a citizen of the Cosmos. It teaches him that while physically bound to earth, there is nevertheless within him a spiritual power, a diviner Self, through which he is one with the symphony of the whole. Because man has this power within himself to interpret, to open gates, to solve the riddle of the sphinx and to come gradually into the possession of all knowledge, he is represented as the magician, the sage, the saint and the scholar." - Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928)

"The Sphinx is an androgynous enigma, symbolizing the eternal quest of the soul for self-knowledge. In the myth of Oedipus, the hero confronts this composite creature—lion body for the vital forces, human head for the intellect, and wings for the aspiring spirit. The riddle she poses, 'What walks on four feet in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?' unveils the mystery of man's incarnate progression: the four-footed crawl of the prima materia (the unregenerate body), the two-footed stride of rational duality, and the three-footed gait of aged wisdom burdened by the staff of experience. Oedipus, answering 'man,' achieves dominion over the lower quaternary but fails to perceive the fifth element—the pentad of illumination—wherein the soul transcends the body's frailties. Thus, his victory is pyrrhic, for in slaying the Sphinx without merging with her wisdom, he invites the nemesis of unintegrated knowledge. This tale allegorizes the Qabalistic ascent: the Fool (Oedipus) faces the guardian at Binah (the Sphinx), solving the riddle of form but descending into the illusions of Malkuth unless he attains the pentagram's harmony." - Manly P. Hall, From The Occult Anatomy of Man (1937 Edition, Chapter on "The Human Body in Symbolism")

"In the alchemical process, the Sphinx guards the threshold of the vas hermeticum, her riddle encoding the nigredo (blackening, four elements in chaos), albedo (whitening, two principles in balance), and rubedo (reddening, three-fold wisdom with the staff of Mercury). Oedipus, as the prima materia animated, dissolves the monster by naming its form—anthropos—but the true adept knows the unspoken resolution: the philosopher's stone, wherein man becomes the quadratus lapis, walking on no feet but supported by the divine will. The Egyptian antecedent, the Great Sphinx of Gizeh, mirrors this: its leonine base (earthly appetites), human visage (rational soul), and unspoken wings (spiritual aspiration) preserve the secret of the duat's cycles, which Oedipus glimpses but does not fully enter.” - Manly P. Hall, From The Occult Anatomy of Man

"Consider the profound symbolism of Oedipus and the Sphinx: the wanderer, exiled from his true self, approaches the devouring enigma at the crossroads of fate. The Sphinx, daughter of chthonic powers, demands the key to life's progression. Oedipus, with Tiresian insight veiled, declares 'man'—the microcosm traversing the ages of gold, silver, bronze, and iron. Yet herein lies the occult profundity: the riddle omits the dawn of the golden age reborn, the fourth foot of the staff inverted as the caduceus, lifting the initiate beyond the triune veil. In Egyptian rites, the aspirant before the Gizeh guardian whispers not 'man' but 'Horus arisen,' merging beast and god in the androgyne of Thoth. Thus, Oedipus teaches the peril of half-light: solve the exoteric riddle, and the throne awaits; pierce the esoteric, and immortality dawns." - Manly P. Hall, a 1930s lecture on "The Mysteries of the Sphinx”