This Sphinx Which Is Not One

The Power of Non-Binariness and Intersex in the Egyptian and Greek Representation of the Sphinx(es)

Abstract

Oedipus is on the journey from Corinth to Thebes when he encounters the Sphinx, who harasses the city of Thebes and kills whoever cannot solve her riddle. Only Oedipus is able to do this. The Sphinx, defeated, commits suicide. As a reward for this liberation, Oedipus is crowned king of Thebes and receives the widowed queen Jocasta, his mother, as his wife. As a winged being with a human head (and bust) and a lion's body, the sphinx figure shapes ideas of knowledge and dangerous power. Depicted in Ancient Egypt as a male mythical creature, in Ancient Greece as a female figure, multiple representations and sculptures such as those at Giza or the paintings of the French artist Ingres adorn the sphinx, as do narrative imaginaries that are still prevalent today.

This article aims to demonstrate the non-binariness of the mythological figure and to show the Sphinx as a transcendental being through a discussion of gender images under the three hierarchical power constructs of the masculine, language and knowledge. This will be done using the traditions of Apollodorus, Euripides and Sophocles, as well as modern linguistic and interpretive approaches by Muriel Rukeyser and Julia Kristeva.