The riddle of the Sphinx in the Oedipus myth: the horse motif as a foreshadowing of the hero's fate

The author offers an alternative reading of the riddle of the Sphinx, based on the polysemy of the key words in Oedipus's answer: τετράπουν (four-footed, quadruped - may refer to an “animal”, “horse” or “centaur”), ὀχούμενον (riding, having oneself borne, being carried e.g. on a horse), and βρέφος (“infant, baby”, but also used to denote “mare, foal” or “embryo of beasts: of a mare or foal”). The article argues that the “four-footed” (τετράπουν) in the riddle, traditionally understood as a metaphor of a babe crawling on four limbs, contains a hidden “horse motif”. In the light of the horse motif (and in the context of the meanings of the participle ὀχούμενον - “riding, being carried”) the “four-footed” is not just someone crawling on four limbs (a babe), but also someone who “has oneself borne or carried” e.g. on a horse's back. Using this line of reasoning, the author argues that there is a hidden meaning behind the “four-footed” in the riddle: a person riding a horse. This implies that the “four-footed” is not just one creature but a symbolic combination of two creatures resulting in an image of a “horse rider” (metaphoric equivalent to the Sphinx or a centaur: half man and half horse). The author finds that the recurrent “horse motif”, conveyed in the myth of Oedipus through repeated equine imagery, foreshadows the events that will happen later: 1. the transformation of Oedipus into a four-footed creature at the end of his life (in «Oedipus at Colonus» he is leaning upon his daughters, who play the role of their father's two crutches - σκῆπτρα) and 2. t he death of Oedipus in the “land of running horses” (Colonus), exactly where the First Horse was born from the semen of Poseidon. The author shows how a foreshadowing of Oedipus' future, expressed in the riddle of the Sphinx in the image of a creature that changes the number of its feet, occurs in the hero's real life (he actually becomes “three-footed”, “four-footed” and “two-footed”) within the extended narrative scheme of the story of Oedipus, for which the myth of Poseidon Hippios, the god of horses, serves as a framework.