oedipus actually had more than one encounter with the sphinx. while in the more popular tradition, she casts herself off of a mountainside after he solves her riddle, there is a minor tradition in which she simply flees thebes. she then terrorizes the small settlements close to thebes, until finally the people living in those settlements can take it no longer and go to oedipus for help, since he solved her riddle the last time around. oedipus agrees to take on her challenge, and he makes a bargain with her- if he answers her riddle, she will turn to dust, never to devour anyone again, but if he cannot answer it, she will take on his appearance and get to rule thebes.
oedipus feels confident that he can rid the land of the sphinx, but he didn’t expect that she would come up with a riddle so much harder than the last one he solved. when she tells him her riddle (the sources unfortunately do not preserve it), he thinks long and hard, but finally must admit that he has no answer. so the sphinx takes on his form, and in the meantime she turns oedipus into a large snake so that she can easily assume rule of thebes. in desperation, oedipus still returns to thebes in an attempt to convince the people that he is the real oedipus. however, they cannot understand him in his new reptilian form, and they try to kill him. eventually, the people of thebes chase him out to the nearby plains.
the people are concerned about the snake returning, so they consult the blind seer teiresias, who has had previous experience dealing with snakes, to have him get rid of poor oedipus. teiresias, however, has a vision which tells him that the snake is actually oedipus, and that he must capture the snake so he can return the king to his original form and rid thebes of the sphinx for good. so teiresias goes out into the plains to find the snake, but due to his blindness and the snake being terrified that he is going to attack, it takes hours for teiresias to chase the snake around. eventually, he gets fed up from chasing after the serpentine oedipus, lifts his staff to the heavens, and cries out, “I HAVE HAD IT WITH THIS MOTHERFUCKING SNAKE ON THESE MOTHERFUCKING PLAINS!”
I adore this. But partway through I became convinced that the punchline would be that the sphinx turned out to be such an excellent ruler of Thebes that they didn’t want Oedipus back even after they found out what was going on.
So I have to admit I’m maybe a little disappointed.
