"What has four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three at night"" This was the riddle of the sphinx that Oedipus had to solve to become the king of Thebes. This riddle made him gain the position as a king because the sphinx was causing many terrible things in Thebes. The sphinx would only leave when somebody had solved the riddle. Ironically Oedipus was the one that solved it. To the tragedy that riddle meant more than just a regular simple riddle it meant the past, present and future of Oedipus's life.

It is ironic that Oedipus solved the riddle because it was a metaphor for his life. The times that the sphinx mentioned in her riddle symbolized the different stages of life. Morning meant childhood, noon is adulthood, and night represented old age. During childhood humans crawl on their hands and knees, which was something...