truths out of these people, and not just on first entering the city, but each day as someone went to market and another went to trade a horse in a neighboring town. The brilliance of this is; there are no shortcuts. The day the Sphinx detects a wrong answer, she has an obligation by the agreement made to exterminate the wrong-doer.
I always felt as though the Sphinx began to enjoy the day to day interaction with the people from the city; having conversations and getting to know those who went by. She had a serious conundrum, a self imposed quandary of which she would have to ask herself questions. ‘Why should I let this one go and not another?’ ‘How am I to judge a ‘near’ answer to a question and let the friend go by whereas I must condemn a stranger with a wrong answer simply on merit?’ Should she change the question to be easier for those who pass daily and have the stranger answer the tough question? She keeps the Wheel turning with every swish of her sword, and therefore must continue to question.
Maybe there is significance in the wheel moving counterclockwise…the Sphinx is always approaching her quarry, the monkey is always climbing toward her and the croc and snake seems as though they are going along for the ride. The Sphinx moves in this way to show that one should always have protection from going too far. With the play of the Wheel the universe is set in motion. And any reader of Tarot will know it is the interplay of the elements that keeps things moving, damage or eliminate one and like a house of cards all will fall.
According to Aleister Crowley, the Sphinx is, “… a Glyph of the Satisfaction and Perfection of the Will and of the Work, the Completion of the True Man as the Reconciler of the Highest with the Lowest." ~ (Aleister Crowley, Liber aleph-De Natura) .