CURIOUS CREATURES. 65 



cem'gma, in the Theban language, signifieth an inrode, 

 or warlike incursion, wherfore the people complained 

 in this sort. This Grecian Sphinx robbeth us, in setting 

 up with an aenigma, but no man knoweth after what 

 manner she maketh this aenigma. 



" Cadmus hereupon made proclamation, that he would 

 give a very bountifull reward unto him that would kill 

 Sphinx, upon which occasion the Corinthian (Edipus came 

 unto her, being mounted on a swift courser, and accom- 

 panied with some Thebans in the night season, slue her. 

 Other say that (Edipus by counterfaiting friendshippe, 

 slue her, making shew to be of her faction ; and Pau- 

 sanius saith, that the former Riddle, was not a Riddle, but 

 an Oracle of Apollo, which Cadmus had received, whereby 

 his posterity should be inheritors of the Theban kingdome ; 

 and whereas (Edipus, being the son of Laius, a former 

 king of that countrey, was taught the Oracle in his sleepe, 

 he recouvered the kingdome usurped by Sphinx his sister, 

 and, afterwards, unknown, married his mother Jocasta. 



" But the true morall of this poetical fiction is by that 

 learned Alciatus, in one of his emblems, deciphered ; that 

 her monstrous treble formed shape signified her lustfull 

 pleasure under a Virgin's face, her cruell pride, under 

 the Lyon's clawes, her winde-driven leuitye, under the 

 Eagles, or birdes feathers, and I will conclude with the 

 wordes of Suidas concerning such monsters, that the 

 Tritons, Sphinges, and Centaures, are the images of those 

 things, which are not to be founde within the compasse of 

 the whole world.'' 



APES. 



Sluper, who could soar to the height of delineating 

 a Cyclops, is equal to the occasion when he has to deal 



