such as answered not aright it would tear
and devour.

When it had laid waste the land many days, there chanced to come to
Thebes one Oedipus, who had fled from the city of Corinth that he
might escape the doom which the gods had spoken against him. And the men
of the place told him of the Sphinx, how she cruelly devoured the
people, and that he who should deliver them from her should have the
kingdom. So Oedipus, being very bold, and also ready of wit, went
forth to meet the monster. And when she saw him she spake, saying:

"Read me this riddle right, or die:
What liveth there beneath the sky,
Four-footed creature that doth choose
Now three feet and now twain to use,
And still more feebly o'er the plain
Walketh with three feet than with twain?"

And Oedipus made reply:

"'Tis man, who in life's early day
Four-footed crawleth on his way;
When time hath made his strength complete,
Upright his form and twain his feet;
When age hath bound him to the ground
A third foot in his staff is found."

And when the Sphinx found that her riddle was answered she cast herself
from a high rock and perished.

As a reward Oedipus received the great kingdom of Thebes and the hand
of the widowed queen Jocasta in marriage. Four children were born to
them--two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, and two daughters, Antigone and
Ismene.

Now the gods had decreed that Oedipus should murder his own father and
marry his own mother, and by a curious chance this was precisely what he
had done. As a baby he had been left to die lest he should live to
fulfil the doom, but had been rescued by an old shepherd and brought up
at the court of Corinth. Fleeing from there that he might not murder him
whom he believed to be his father, he had come to Thebes, and on the way
had met Laius, his true father, the king, and killed him.

While he remained ignorant of the facts Oedipus was very happy and
reigned in great power and glory; but when pestilence fell upon the land
and he discovered the truth of the almost forgotten oracle, he was very
miserable, and in the madness of grief put out his own eyes.

ANTIGONE. A FAITHFUL DAUGHTER AND SISTER

Jocasta, when she learned that Oedipus was really her son, was so
filled with horror and distress that she took her own life. But Antigone
and Ismene were sorry for their father, whom they loved very dearly, and
sought by every means they knew to render his