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The Sphinx may be considered as more especially an artistic and symbolic creation, though the old Greek myth of Edipos would seem to show that in very early times there was a real belief in a real monster. The sphinx is composite in nature, being in Greek art and legend ordinarily the combination of the head and bust of a woman with the body of a lion and the wings of an eagle ; while in Egyptian art the creature is always wingless, and its recumbent leonine body is surmounted by the head of a man, hawk, or other creature. Egyptian art is full of such composite monsters, and in cases where such attributes as the courage of the lion or the wisdom of the serpent were to be expressed, it was held that the actual leonine body or tlpe head of the serpent itself would best convey the require]. characteristics to the eye and mind of the beholder. P_ reference to Wilkinson, Rosellini, or any other good star dard work on Egypt, will reveal an immense variety of these curious composite figures, though, as they are evidently in most cases symbolic merely, they scarcely fa:l within the limits of our present study. According to dome authorities, the well-known type of Egyptian sphinx represented the royal power by its junction in one creation of the highest physical and mental strength. Pliny, however, states that it is to be taken as the representation of the beneficent Nile, as
the annual rising took place while the sun was in Leo and Virgo. As the head is masculine in type, and not that of maiden fair, this theory wil scarcely meet the case.
The sphinx of classic story, a monster half-woman, half-lion, was sent by Hera to devastate Ithe land of Thebes in revenge for an insult that had been offered to her. Sitting by the roadside, the sphinx put, to every passer-by the celebrated riddle, " What creature walks on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three in the evening ? " As one after another of these luckless travellers was obliged to "give .it up" he was cast from the rock on which the monster sat into a deep abyss at its foot. The understanding was, that if any one could solve this conundrum the sphinx should herself perish, a consummation devoutly to be wished. One CEdipos hit upon the happy idea that perhaps it,was a man that was meant, his career being traced through crawling infancy to stalwart manhood, and thence to tottering old age. Probably the sphinx had presumed too thoroughly on the badness of the riddle, and thought that its inane character would be her safeguard in this perilous game for forfeits. Lord Bacon * supplies a curious theory in explanation of the Greek legend ; he tells us that the creature represented science, her composite nature being the various and different branches of which it is composed; that the female face denoted volubility of speech, while the wings showed the rapidity with which knowledge could be diffused. Her hooked talons are supposed to remind us of the arguments of science laying hold of the mind. Her position on the crag is a hint that the road to knowledge is steep and difficult, while the riddles of science "perplex and harass the mind." Probably our readers have already made up their minds as to the value of this theory of Bacon's ; it appears to us that fifty other equally good explanations might be devised, and all equally wide of the mark. Of course after so sweeping a statement we can scarcely be expected to supply one ourselves for the other forty-nine critics to mercilessly dissect. |