How do you solve that sphinx riddle?

Ah, that riddle is way too classic! The Sphinx would ask: "What is the being that walks on four feet in the morning, on two at noon, and on three in the evening?" The answer is the human being, like basically: when we're babies, we crawl (four "feet," counting hands), then when we grow up we walk normally on two feet, and when we get old we use a cane (which would be the third "support"). I hear that it was pretty common for the Sphinx to devour whoever got it wrong, so it was basically a life or death test, you know.

The meaning behind it is kinda deep, honestly. The Greeks were talking about the different phases of human life and how we change over time. It's almost like a meditation on mortality and aging, you know? When Oedipus manages to solve it, it's not just because he's smart, but because he understands something fundamental about the human condition. The Sphinx gets so frustrated that she ends up killing herself, or in some versions she just disappears. Like, the riddle represents that mystery of existence that we carry with us from the start, and when you manage to answer it, you kind of transcend that challenge.

The cool thing is that this riddle still makes sense today. You're starting out in life, going through transformations, and eventually you're gonna get old and need support. It's really poetic, like way different from those random riddles you see floating around on the internet.

That classic riddle of the sphinx! The answer is "man". The sphinx asked: "What is the being that walks on four legs in the morning, on two at midday, and on three in the evening?"

The solution is pretty straightforward once you get it - it's the cycle of human life. In the morning of life (childhood), the kid crawls around on all fours, with four "legs" (two hands and two legs). At midday, meaning in adulthood, man walks normally on two legs. And in the evening, which is old age, he needs a cane to lean on, so he has three points of contact with the ground - the two legs plus the cane.

The meaning behind it is basically about time and mortality. The sphinx is talking about how we all go through these phases of life, and it's a way of saying that nobody can escape that fate. That's why the riddle is so important in Greek mythology - it represents the inevitability of aging and death. Oedipus was the one who managed to solve this and then he had all those problems that followed, as you probably know.