ld have turned him to
stone) and at one blow struck off her head. When Perseus had slain
Med{=u}sa, the other sisters pursued him, but he escaped from their
sight by means of his helmet. They were afterwards thrown into hell.

SPHINX was a female monster, daughter of Typhon and Echidna. She had the
head, face, and breasts of a woman, the wings of a bird, the claws of a
lion, and the body of a dog. She lived on mount Sphincius, infested the
country about Thebes, and assaulted passengers, by proposing dark and
enigmatical questions to them, which if they did not explain, she tore
them in pieces. Sphinx made horrible ravages in the neighborhood of
Thebes, till Creon, then king of that city, published an edict over all
Greece, promising that if any one should explain the riddle of Sphinx,
he would give him his own sister Iocasta in marriage.

The riddle was this, "What animal is that which goes upon four feet in
the morning, upon two at noon, and upon three at night?" Many had
endeavored to explain this riddle, but failing in the attempt, were
destroyed by the monster; till OEdipus undertook the solution, and thus
explained it: "The animal is man, who in his infancy creeps, and so may
be said to go on four feet; when he gets into the noon of life, he walks
on two feet; but when he grows old, or declines into the evening of his
days, he uses the support of a staff, and thus may be said to walk on
three feet." The Sphinx being enraged at this explanation, cast herself
headlong from a rock and died.

CHAPTER XI.

_Dii indig{)e}tes, or Heroes who received divine Honors after Death._

HERCULES was the son of Jupiter by Alcmena, wife of Amphitryon, king of
Thebes, and is said to have been born in that city about 1280 years
before the Christian era. During his infancy Juno sent two serpents to
kill him in his cradle, but the undaunted child grasping one in either
hand, immediately strangled them both. As he grew up, he discovered an
uncommon degree of vigor both of body and of mind. Nor were his
extraordinary endowments neglected; for his education was intrusted to
the greatest masters. The tasks imposed on him by Eurystheus, on account
of the danger and difficulty which attended their execution, received
the name of the _Labors of Hercules_, and are commonly reckoned, (at
least the most material of them) to have been twelve.

The first was his engagement with Cleonaean lion, which furious animal,
it is said, fell fr