Curiosities & wonders > History of the heathen gods and heroes of antiquity, very necessary for understanding the writings of the ancients, and the modern English poets

i4<> THE HISTORY OF
it, goats in the middle, which abounds with pa
tore, and ferpents at the bottom: and becaul
Bellerophon made this mountain habitable, he i
laid to have killed the Chimera.
Sphinx was a monfter begotten of Typhon an i
Echidna, having the head and face of a young woi’i
man, the wings of a bird, and the body and fee*
of a dog. She lived in the mountain Sphincius
whence the aflaulted all paflengers, and jnfefted tin
country about Thebes. Apollo, being confultet
concerning her, made anfwer, That there woiilc i
be no end of fo great an evil, unlefs fome body re
folved the riddle of Sphinx; which when many at-,
tempted in vain, and were torn by the monfterp
Creon, at that time reigning at Thebes, havings
publifhed an edidf through all Greece, promife^j
that he would give his lifter Joeafta in marriage tc
the man who tlmuld explain it The riddle was ;
What animal goes upon four feet in the morning,
upon two at noon, and three at night ? Oedipus,
encouraged with the hope of the reward, under¬
took it, and happily explained it; telling, that the
creature was man, who, in his infancy, creeping |
on his hands and feet, is four-footed, when age ad-j
vances, he is two-footed, becaufe he ufes no other >
fupport than that of his feet; but when he is o!d„(
he is fupported by the help of a ftaft', and fo mayji
be faid to be three-footed. Sphinx took this fo ill,]
that tire immediately caft herielf headlong from a;
rock, and died.
Oedipus was the fon of Laius, king of Thebes, f
Soon after his birth, his father commanded a foi--
dier to carry the child into a wood, and kill him,
becaufe it had been foretold by the Oracle, that he>i
Ihould be cut off by him : but the foldier being :
moved i!