The conceptual journey of the sphinx: From royal icon to eternal riddle

“ Like the Pyramids, the Sphinx has stood wrapped in mysterious silence these thousand years. The form of the Sphinx was very common in ancient Egypt, it being a symbolic representation of the king. The body of the lion symbolized his strength, or power; the human face was a portrait of the monarch. Shifting sands have accumulated to the breast of the body—said to be 140 feet long. Of the huge proportions one may judge from the fact that should a man stand upon the ear of the Sphinx his hand could not reach the top of the head. ”

“ There is a sense of deathlessness about the ancient Nile, about the grim Sphinx and Pyramids, on the very colonnades of Karnak, whose pylons now once more stand upright after a sleep of forty centuries on their backs; above all, in the strength of the floating, rustling sand⁠—something that defies time and repudiates change in death. Out of that flat, undifferentiated landscape which is Egypt, still stand the unconquerable finger-posts of stone, pointing, like symbols of eternity, to the equally unchanging skies. ”

“ Bryant is of opinion that the Sphinx was originally a vast rock of different strata, which, from a shapeless mass, the Egyptians fashioned into an object of beauty and veneration. Although the excavators have now reached a lower level than Carglia and others, yet much remains to be done before the whole of this wondrous specimen of ancient art is entirely uncovered; for, if we are to believe Pliny’s statements, the head of the Sphinx was one hundred and two feet in circumference, and sixty-two feet high from the belly ”

“ The Sphinx overcomes us by his stony, his disdainful silence. Let the visitor be ever so unimpassioned, surely he must be more than mortal to resist the impression of mingled awe, wonder, and admiration which a first sight of this weird object forces upon him. ”

“ About six hundred yards to the Southeast of the Great Pyramid is the Sphinx. The Sphinx is a natural rock, to which has been given, more or less accurately, the external appearance of that mystic animal. The head alone has been sculptured. The body is formed of the rock itself, supplemented, where defective, by a somewhat clumsy masonry of limestone. ”

“ The Sphinx is as lasting as the mountains, as eternal as the rock out of which it is carved. The riddle of the origin of this masterpiece of an ancient civilization may yet be solved by a man digging with a spade in the desert sands.
The famous Colossi of Memnon, set up by Amenhotep III in front of his chapel on the bank of the Nile at Thebes, almost rival the Sphinx in their gigantic stature. The great figures, 50 feet [Pg 70] high, are carved out of solid blocks of limestone, and there they sit on guard as they have sat for thousands of years. ”

“ In another Greek legend, that of Œdipus, the same connection is made through the Sphinx, whose riddle the Greek hero solves, whereat the Egyptian monster destroys itself.
The Sphinx, the grand symbol of Egypt and chief product of its Art, may be taken as the Egyptian starting-point for both Greece and Judea. The Sphinx is half human, half animal; the two are put together in stone and thus stand a fixed, unreconciled contradiction. Such was just the Sphinx-riddle of humanity to the old Egyptian: man is a beast and a spirit, linked together without any true mediation. ”

“ It has a majestic dignity and impressiveness exceeding that of any other work of man; as it is approached one feels like an ant in its presence.
The Sphinx near by is of the same nature. It is sixty-six feet high, hewn out of the living rock. No one has discovered with what intention it was made nor what it is meant to represent. It is said to be the emblem of immortality, and it impresses the visitor with the idea that it sits serene in its nobility above the earth and its inhabitants and all else that the world contains. It has always been a riddle and will always remain one. ”

“ The Sphinx was an ancient Egyptian divinity, who personified wisdom, and the fertility of nature. She is represented as a lion-couchant, with the head and bust of a woman, and wears a peculiar sort of hood, which completely envelops her head, and falls down on either side of the face.
Transplanted into Greece, this sublime and mysterious Egyptian deity degenerates into an insignificant, and yet malignant power, and though she also deals in mysteries, they are, as we shall see, of a totally different character, and altogether inimical to human life. ”

“ Ah! brother, stop the ebb of thy soul, — ebbing downward into the forms into whose habits thou hast now for many years slid. As near and proper to us is also that old fable of the Sphinx, who was said to sit in the road-side and put riddles to every passenger. If the man could not answer, she swallowed him alive. If he could solve the riddle, the Sphinx was slain. What is our life but an endless flight of winged facts or events! In splendid variety these changes come, all putting questions to the human spirit. ”

“ An Egyptian sphinx has the body of a lion couchant with the head of a man. The sphinxes seem for the most part to have been set up in the avenues leading to the temples. It is thought by Egyptologists that the lion’s body is a symbol of power, the human head is a symbol of intellect. The whole figure was typical of kingly royalty, and set forth the power and wisdom of the Egyptian monarch.
In ancient Egypt, sphinxes might be numbered by thousands, but the gigantic figure known by pre-eminence as “The Sphinx,” stands on the edge of the rocky platform on which are built the pyramids of Ghizeh. ”

“ The lion's body represents the monarch's might — the human head his wisdom. The rock, from which the figure is cut, broke the view of the Pyramids, and to convert it into the Sphinx was a stroke of Egyptian genius. ”

“ In this way we obtain a solution of the Sphinx's riddle more commensurate and symmetrical with the other features of the story, which are all clothed with the grandeur of mystery. The Sphinx herself is a mystery. Whence came her monstrous nature, that so often renewed its remembrance amongst men of distant lands, in Egyptian or Ethiopian marble? Whence came her wrath against Thebes? This wrath, how durst it tower so high as to measure itself against the enmity of a nation? ”

“ Such a Sphinx is this Life of ours, to all men and societies of men. Nature, like the Sphinx, is of womanly celestial loveliness and tenderness; the face and bosom of a goddess, but ending in claws and the body of a lioness. There is in her a celestial beauty,— which means celestial order, pliancy to wisdom; but there is also a darkness, a ferocity, fatality, which are infernal. She is a goddess, but one not yet disimprisoned; one still half-imprisoned,—the inarticulate, lovely still encased in the inarticulate, chaotic. ”

“ As we pass out of the narrow streets of the city to which the temple belongs, we find ourselves standing upon a broad paved way, which stretches before us for hundreds of yards. On either side, this way is bordered by a row of statues, and these statues are in the form of what we call sphinxes—that is to say, they have bodies shaped like crouching lions, and on the lion-body there is set the head of a different creature. Some of the sphinxes, like the Great Sphinx, have human heads; but those which border the temple avenues have oftener either ram or jackal heads. ”

“ One of the figures often repeated by the sculptors of Egypt was the Sphinx. The colossal and most famous one (Fig. 5) is not far from the great pyramid, and has the form of a recumbent lion with a human head. It is one hundred and seventy-two feet long, and is the Sphinx of the world; but there were great numbers of these strange figures in Egypt—in some cases there were avenues leading to the temples bordered by them on each side. The form of the Sphinx was intended to express some spiritual thought to the Egyptians, and the stories about it are very interesting. ”

“ The sphinx differs from other compound figures, which occur very often in the Egyptian pictorial representations, in always having the body of a lion, or, it may be, a panther, or some such animal as might be considered a symbol of strength and courage. The whole history of our species bears testimony to that tendency of the human mind, when not restrained and guided by better knowledge, to pourtray in some visible form its conceptions of Deity. ”

“ The idea that they were places for worship, is perhaps strengthened by the presence of the colossal Sphinx, which lies about two hundred yards east [107] from them, and on the side of the eminence on which they stand. Avenues of sphinxes leading to their temples were common in the ancient Egyptian cities; and in Memphis, if my memory is correct, was one of great extent, formed by colossal sphinxes, which have all disappeared. ”

“ Probably a number of these Horus-gods were local. Thus we find Harmachis worshipped principally at Heliopolis and Apollinopolis. His best-known monument is the famous Sphinx, near the pyramids of Gizeh. We find the first mention of the Sphinx in inscriptions in the days of Thothmes IV, when we read in the text inscribed on the stele between the paws of the Sphinx the following legend of Thothmes and the Sphinx. ”

“ Likewise also the poet Euphorion introduces Nestor saying,
"We have not yet wet the Achæan steeds in Simois."
Therefore also the Egyptians place Sphinxes before their temples, to signify that the doctrine respecting God is enigmatical and obscure; perhaps also that we ought both to love and fear the Divine Being: to love Him as gentle and benign to the pious; to fear Him as inexorably just to the impious; for the sphinx shows the image of a wild beast and of a man together. ”

“ The age of the Sphinx is unknown. All that is certain is that it was the work of one of the kings of the ancient empire. A stele discovered of the time of Thothmes, b.c. 1533, records that one day, during an after-dinner sleep, Hermachis appeared to Thothmes IV., and promised to bestow upon him the crown of Egypt if he would dig his image the Sphinx out of the sand. Another inscription recently discovered shows that the Sphinx existed in the time of Cheops. The Sphinx is here hewn out of the solid rock, but pieces of stone have been added when necessary. ”

“ We have here, I believe, an indication of the clearing of the Sphinx effected under this prince, consequently an almost certain proof that the Sphinx was already buried in sand in the time of Kheops and his predecessors. *** Mariette identifies the temple which he discovered to the south of the Sphinx with that of Osiris, lord of the Necropolis, which is mentioned in the inscription of the daughter of Kheops. This temple is so placed that it must have been sanded up at the same time as the Sphinx ”

“ From time to time others have removed the sand, but always the sand comes back and quickly steals over the body and covers it, leaving the head emerging like some monster of the desert.
In the past the Sphinx has been badly treated by the ignorant Arabs, who have smashed its face about and given it that strange expression which is a half-wry smile. Probably thousands of years hence, when our present civilization has disappeared and been forgotten, the Sphinx will still be regarding the Nile and the world with the same half-sad, half-mocking expression. ”

“ Their features are gone, and though in their attitudes there is power, and there is something that awakens awe, they are more wonderful as a far-off feature of the plain. They gain in grandeur from the night in strangeness from the moonrise, perhaps specially when the Nile comes to their feet. More than three thousand years old, they look less eternal than the Sphinx. Like them, the Sphinx is waiting, but with a greater purpose. The Sphinx reduces man really to nothingness. The Colossi leave him some remnants of individuality. ”

“ Hundreds of years after I am dead the Sphinx would be probably as it is now—silent, grave, crouching there under the scorching sun, its eyes of stone gazing beyond the world of men, and seeming for ever to be smiling ironically on the folly of human vanities and aspirations. ”

“ These signs happening to be Leo and Virgo, the mystical fancy of the ancient Egyptians united them in one, and thus formed the figure of the Sphinx, which has the head and breast of a woman, and the body of a lion. This was a great enigma to the Greeks and Phœnicians who travelled to Egypt; they saw the monster, but could not comprehend its meaning. On returning to their respective countries, they invented the fable of the Sphinx offering riddles at the gates of Thebes, and destroying those who could not unravel them ”

“ Sometimes the forepaws are replaced by human hands holding symbolic objects (Figs. 227 and 238) ; sometimes the head of a hawk is substituted for that of a man. The animals which form many of the dromoi at Karnak are called crio-sphinxes (Fig. 205, Vol. I.) , but the 283name is an unhappy one, because they have nothing in common with a sphinx but the position. They are rams and nothing else.
The Greek word σφίγξ is feminine. The sphinx with female breasts is, however, very rare in Egypt. Wilkinson only knew of one, in which the Queen Mut-neter of the eighteenth dynasty was represented. ”

“ The Sphinx may be considered as more especially an artistic and symbolic creation, though the old Greek myth of Œdipos 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. ”

“ As the head is masculine in type, and not that of maiden fair, this theory will scarcely meet the case.
The sphinx of classic story, a monster half-woman, half-lion, was sent by Hera to devastate the 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?” ”

“ I assure you that we are most anxious to understand the meaning of this symbol!'
'With pleasure, Strangers!' said he. 'But first you must hear that such an explanation is not without its very real dangers.'
'How so?' cried we all.
'Should you,' said he, 'understand and assimilate what I should say, you shall become wise and happy; but if not, you will live badly, having become foolish, unfortunate, bitter, and ignorant.
'For the explanation is not unlike the Sphinx's Riddle, that he propounded to all men. Whoever solved it was saved; but destruction by the Sphinx overtook those who could not. ”

“ Imitated from the commencement of the plague in the first book of the Iliad. The story of the Sphinx is generally known: She was a monster, who delighted in putting a riddle to the Thebans, and slaying each poor dull Bœotian, who could not interpret it. Œdipus guessed the enigma, on which the monster destroyed herself for shame. Thus he attained the throne of Thebes, and the bed of Jocasta. To dare a lark, is to fly a hawk, or present some other object of fear, to engage the bird's attention, and prevent it from taking wing, while the fowler draws his net ”

“ Unless his ready wit disclos'd
The subtle riddle she propos'd.
Oedipus was resolv'd to go,
And try what strength of parts would do.
Says Sphinx, on this depends your fate;
Tell me what animal is that
Which has four feet at morning bright,
Has two at noon and three at night?
'Tis man, said he, who, weak by nature,
At first creeps, like his fellow creature,
Upon all-four; as years accrue,
With sturdy steps he walks on two;
In age, at length, grows weak and sick,
For his third leg adopts a stick.
Now, in your turn, 'tis just methinks,
You should resolve me, Madam Sphinx. ”

“ And the gods who had given him understanding sent light into his heart, and boldly he answered,
"What can this creature be but man, O Sphinx? For, a helpless babe at the dawn of life, he crawls on his hands and feet; at noontide he walks erect in the strength of his manhood; and at evening he supports his tottering limbs with a staff, the prop and stay of old age. Have I not answered aright and guessed thy famous riddle?" ”

“ In the mysteries of the Eleusinia there is the same prominence of human sorrow,—only here the Sphinx propounds her riddle in its religious phase; and in the change from the mystæ to the epoptæ, in the revelation of the central self, was the great problem symbolically realized.
Greece had her reckoning; and to her eye the Sphinx long ago seemed to plunge herself headlong into precipitate destruction. But this strange lady is ever reappearing with her awful alternative: they who cannot solve her riddle must die. It is no trifling account, reader, which we have with this lady. ”

“ It is with the utmost elegance added in the fable, that when Sphinx was conquered, her carcass was laid upon an ass; for there is nothing so subtile and abstruse, but after being once made plain, intelligible, and common, it may be received by the slowest capacity.
We must not omit that Sphinx was conquered by a lame man, and impotent in his feet; for men usually make too much haste to the solution of Sphinx's riddles; whence it happens, that she prevailing, their minds are rather racked and torn by disputes, than invested with command by works and effects. ”

“ How infinitely grander is the great Sphinx, with its strange, far-gazing, haunting eyes, fixed, for ever, on the East, as if expecting the dawn of a day that never comes; immovable, unchanging, without shadow of sorrow, or light of gladness, whilst the gladness of men has turned to sorrow and their thoughts to ashes before them, through three times a thousand years! ”

“ The Sphinx is grand in its loneliness; it is imposing in its magnitude; it is impressive in the mystery that hangs over its story. And there is that in the overshadowing majesty of this eternal figure of stone, with its accusing memory of the deeds of all ages, which reveals to one something of what he shall feel when he shall stand at last in the awful presence of God. ”