Sphinx

The others, then, perceive their own folly somewhat more, but Oedipus, having thought himself the wisest and to have escaped the Sphinx, and having persuaded the other Thebans of this, perished most wretchedly.

Have you not heard that the Sphinx bade him know himself, that he is a man?

She destroyed the house of Oedipus, root and branch, when his shrewdness solved the Sphinx’s unsolvable song and killed that savage singer.

You came, you came, O winged creature, born of earth and hellish viper, to prey upon the sons of Cadmus, full of death, full of sorrow, half a maiden, a murderous monster, with roving wings and ravening claws;

At last came Oedipus, the man of sorrow, sent from Delphi to this land of Thebes, a joy to us then, but afterwards a cause of grief;

but Echidna was subject in love to Orthus and brought forth the deadly Sphinx which destroyed the Cadmeans, and the Nemean lion, which Hera, the good wife of Zeus, brought up and made to haunt the hills of Nemea, a plague to men.

Residents of our native Thebes, behold, this is Oedipus, who knew the renowned riddle, and was a most mighty man.

For he, O Zeus, shot his shaft with peerless skill, and won the prize of an all-prosperous fortune, having slain the maiden with crooked talons, who sang darkly.