The Seba library treats Sphinx in 9 passages, across 6 authors (including Neumann, Erich, Hillman, James, Rank, Otto).
Oedipus becomes a hero and dragon slayer because he vanquishes the Sphinx. This Sphinx is the age-old foe, the dragon of the abyss, representing the might of the Earth Mother in her uroboric aspect.
Neumann argues that the Sphinx embodies the uroboric Earth Mother’s fatal power, and that Oedipus’s conquest of her is identical with heroic incest — both being expressions of the ego’s differentiation from the Great Mother.
, The Origins and History of Consciousness (Princeton, 2019thesis
Oedipus had an early chance with the Sphinx to practice the psychological ear. He heard the Sphinx, however, as a riddle, setting him a problem. He heard with a heroic ear.
Hillman argues that Oedipus’s fatal error was treating the Sphinx’s enigma as a problem to be solved rather than a symbol to be inhabited, and that ‘stopping her mouth’ is emblematic of the ego’s refusal of depth.
, Mythic Figures, 2007thesis
the Sphinx represents the primal trauma itself. The man-swallowing character of the Sphinx brings it into direct connection with the infantile fear of animals, to which the child has that ambivalent attitude, arising out of the birth trauma.
Rank identifies the Sphinx not merely as a maternal symbol but as the direct embodiment of the primal birth trauma, linking its devouring character to infantile animal anxiety and the regression barrier.
, The Trauma of Birth, 1924thesis
The Sphinx is a semi-theriomorphic representation of the mother-imago, or rather of the Terrible Mother, who has left numerous traces in mythology.
Jung defines the Sphinx as an archaic, part-animal image of the Terrible Mother, standing at the threshold of fate as the unconscious coins its symbols in forms continuous with the remote mythological past.
, Symbols of Transformation, 1952thesis
the intellect is to no avail in confronting the sphinx on the Wheel. We cannot free our creative energies with mental gymnastics nor outwit our human fate by clever answers.
Nichols, drawing on von Franz, extends the Sphinx symbolism to the Wheel of Fortune in Tarot, arguing that the intellect which defeated the Sphinx in the Oedipus myth cannot liberate consciousness from fate.
, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, 1980supporting
It would be interesting to know how Dionysus and his train were brought into connection with the Sphinx and Oedipus and whether there was any appearance of the God as deliverer or bringer of new life.
Harrison situates the Sphinx within the Dionysiac theatrical tradition, noting the Satyr-play of the Theban trilogy was titled ‘Sphinx’ and raising the question of a cultic connection between the Sphinx and the god of renewal.
, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912supporting
if it is negative towards the unconscious, the animals will be frightening; if positive, they appear as the ‘helpful animals’ of
Jung contextualizes theriomorphic divine figures — the class of images to which the Sphinx belongs — as representations of the instincts whose valence is determined by the conscious attitude toward the unconscious.
, Symbols of Transformation, 1952supporting
In Egyptian plastic art, and in ancient Chinese rock sculpture, the figure gradually grows out of the stone (‘stone birth’) as, for example, the granite statue to be found in the Berlin Museum of Senmut
Rank extends his analysis of Sphinx symbolism to Egyptian monumental sculpture, reading the emergence of the human figure from stone as an artistic encoding of birth and the trauma’s overcoming.
, The Trauma of Birth, 1924supporting
Stopping the mouth of the Sphinx, another way of stopping his own ears, is the signal deed for which the chorus praises him in the last verses of the play
Hillman’s footnote apparatus clarifies his reading of the Sphinx episode in Sophocles, noting how the chorus’s praise of Oedipus for solving the riddle reinforces precisely the heroic-ego stance Hillman critiques.
, Mythic Figures, 2007aside