Sphinx
sfinks, in Grecian and Egyptian mythology, a fabulous monster half beast, half human. The Greek sphinx was figured in art as having the body of a lion, the wings of an eagle, and the breast and upper part of a woman. Sphinxes of this sort are a characteristic form of sculpture in Cyprus. A wingless sphinx stands on the sacred road near Miletus. Half a dozen small specimens in gold were found in a tomb at Myconos. A sphinx appears among the ornaments of the helmet of the statue of Athena in the Parthenon. Sphinxes carrying off children were sculptured on the front feet of the throne of Jupiter at Olympus. For an account of the Theban sphinx, the most famous in Greece, see OEDIPUS.
The term is Greek and is supposed to be allied to a word signifying the binder, the throttler, hence Death. The resemblance between the Grecian and Egyptian sphinxes may be accidental. The latter is without wings, and the head is usually that of a man, the breast is that of a lion. The Egyptian sphinx appears in Assyrian art, especially as the guardian of doorways. Colossal sphinxes in porphyry and granite are not unusual in Egypt. The most noted, the one mentioned usually as The Sphinx, is situated near Gizeh, about a quarter of a mile southeast of the Great Pyramid. It has the form of an enormous crouching lion cut from a single rock. The body is 140 feet long and 63 feet high. The head is thirty feet in length from chin to forehead and is about fourteen feet wide. Flaws in the rock are filled in with masonry. Its outstretched paws, fifty feet in length, are cased in masonry. Between them an inclined passage partly of rock-hewn steps, leads up to the chest at the front of which a memorial tablet fourteen feet high leaned. No interior cavity has been found.
The Sphinx is a personification of the sun god. It is older than the pyramids. It is thought to be the earliest extant work of sculpture. "Hewn in the living rock at the extreme verge of the Libyan plateau," says Maspero, "it seems to uprear its head in order to be the first to catch sight of Ra, the rising sun, across the valley. For centuries, the sands have buried it to the chin, yet without protecting it from ruin. Its battered body preserves but the general form of a lion's body. The paws and breast, restored by the Ptolemies and the Caesars, retain but a part of the stone facing with which they were then clothed in order to mask the ravages of time. The nose and beard have been broken off by fanatics, and the red hue which formerly enlivened the features is almost wholly effaced. And yet, notwithstanding its fallen fortunes, the monster preserves an expression of sovereign strength and greatness. The eyes gaze out afar with a look of intense and profound thoughtfulness, the mouth still wears a smile; the whole countenance is informed with power and repose." Emerson's well known lines,
Her wings are furled;
Her ear is heavy,
She broods on the world,
are descriptive rather of the feminine winged Grecian sphinx than of the masculine bearded sphinx of Egypt.