My Favourite Sphinxes In Fiction
Sphinx. n. A mythical creature with the
body of a lion and a human head.
I was first introduced to sphinxes in the Neverending Story film. My little
brothers thought the pair were hilarious because they had boobs – right up
until the moment their laser-eyes fried the knight in shining armour. I’m
pretty sure we all screamed when the helm flew back and we saw the smoking,
skeletal skull.
Important lesson: Don’t cross the sphinx.
My best friend in fourth grade later lent
me the novel version of Michael Ende’s Neverending Story.
I found the book-version even more shivery-thrilling: The gaze of the sphinx
freezes you until you answer all the riddles of the universe. The reason that
the pair face each other is that only a sphinx can look into the eyes of
another sphinx.
On my first trip overseas, I saw the Great
Sphinx of Giza, and discovered that sphinxes could be men.
I saw more sphinxes flanking the throne of
Astarte at the Temple of Eshmun in Lebanon, learned that that part of the
Temple had been built in the Hellenistic period, and that the riddle-telling
sphinx was originally Ancient Greek.
Astarte was a Phoenician goddess of
fertility and of war, so I supposed the sphinx suited her – sexy woman-bits and
powerful, war-like lion-bits.
It also gave me a delighted shiver to hear
that in 300BCE, when those lion-bodies were carved, black lions roamed the Lebanon.
I loved the sphinx cameo in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
(Image by Drew Graham: http://asg.animatedheroes.com/HPatGoF/Sphinx
)
I ate up chapters on sphinxes in Greek
mythology collections. It was inevitable that I would write a sphinx story,
really.
I may even do it again.
Anyone else have any favourite sphinx
tales?
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