Exactly what the title says it is.
This is adapted from Monsters and Villains of the Movies and Literature by Gerrie McCall, Dragons: Fearsome Monsters from Myth and Fiction by Gerrie McCall, and Mythical Monsters by Chris McNab.
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WINGS: Large eagle's wings enable the Sphinx to swoop down upon anyone answering her riddle incorrectly. After devouring a human, she flies back to her perch and awaits her next victim. BODY: Her robust lion's body gives the Sphinx speed, stealth, and unbelievable strength for pinning her victims. PAWS: The Sphinx stands on her victim's neck with her mighty lion's paws and chokes the life from him. Sharp claws rake the flesh easily from the human body. HEAD: An Egyptian headdress and false beard are a remnant of the Sphinx's origins in Egypt, where Sphinx's were guardians representing the power of the pharaoh.
A demon of death, destruction, and bad luck, the Sphinx sits high atop a rock and poses a riddle to all young men who pass by. Those who cannot answer correctly are killed. This winged lion with a woman's head swoops down and ponces upon her victim. After strangling him to death, she eats him. Her riddle is: "Which creature has one voice but goes on four legs inn the morning, two feet at noon, and three feet in the evening?" When the Sphinx slaughters King Creon's son, Creon offers his kingdom and the hand of his sister Jocasta in marriage to anyone who can answer the Sphinx's riddle.
Oedipus arrives on the scene and faces the Sphinx. She recites her riddle to Oedipus and readies herself to pounce upon him, but he answers, "A man. In childhood, he crawls on his hands and knees; in adulthood, he walks upright; in old age, he uses a cane." Furious that he answered her riddle correctly, the Sphinx flings herself from her high perch and dies when she lands on the jagged rocks below. Oedipus is awarded Jocasta as his bride, and it is here that the troubles begin.
DID YOU KNOW? An oracle predicts Oedipus will kill his father and marry his mother. His father fears the prophecy and abandons Oedipus. Oedipus grows up not knowing he is adopted. On the road one day, Oedipus kills a man during an argument, unaware that the man is his father. Later he marries Jocasta, not knowing she is his mother.
A plague falls upon the people of Thebes as punishment for having a king and queen who are son and mother. When Oedipus finds out the terrible truth about his parents, he blinds himself. It seems the cursed Sphinx has had her revenge after all.
Other varieties of sphinxes resemble ram-headed lions or hawk-headed lions.
The Sphinx's name is derived from a Greek word that means "to strangle."
