The following is a famous riddle from ancient Greece. Solve it and live or fail and die?

Question

It is this: Which animal walks on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon and on three legs in the evening?

The story is that there was once in ancient Greece, a monster guarding a narrow passage between two mountains. It stopped every one who passed and asked them that riddle. Alas no one could find the answer and they all got slain and devoured..

But one day a young, hansome, brave prince was passing and the monster stoped him and asked him the same riddle. The prince easily found the answer; where upon the monsrer threw itself from the mountain and died.

If any one has heard or read the answer to the riddle, please wait a week before writing and if he/she remembers the names of the monster and or the prince, please remind me.

Answer 1

The Sphinx is the monster with a riddle.

The Sphinx comes to Thebes
When King Laius 1 of Thebes was murdered, along with his herald, by an unknown in a Phocian road, the king's brother-in-law Creon 2 came to power. It is during this first regency of Creon 2 that the Sphinx came to Boeotia and Thebes, some say sent by Hera, others by Hades, and systematically started ravaging the fields and gobbling up people

Riddling Beast
The Sphinx (who some call Phix) had the face of a woman, the breast, feet and tail of a lion, and the wings of a bird. She had learned a riddle from the MUSES, which she chanted in inharmonious songs, and sitting on Mount Phicium, propounded it to any Theban willing to take the risk of solving it. As she declared that she would not depart unless anyone interpreted her riddle, Creon 2, in accordance with an oracle, issued a proclamation promising that he would give the kingdom of Thebes and his sister Jocasta in marriage to the person solving the riddle of the Sphinx.

The riddle
The chance to get both kingdom and queen tempted many. But the Sphinx had also declared that she would destroy whoever failed to give the correct answer. And while nobody was able to give the correct answer, she devoured the candidates one by one. This was the riddle of the Sphinx:

"What is that which has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed?" [Apollodorus, Library 3.5.7]

When many had already perished, Oedipus, having heard the proclamation, came to Thebes, and meeting the Sphinx, gave the right answer, declaring that the riddle referred to man; for as a little child he is four-footed, as an adult two-footed, and as an old man he uses a staff as a third limb.

The Sphinx helps to fulfill oracles
The Sphinx kept her promise, for on hearing the solution to her riddle, she threw herself from the citadel and died. In this way Oedipus became king of Thebes, and by marrying his own mother Queen Jocasta, he unwittingly fulfilled the oracles that had declared that he would kill his father and lie with his mother.

The previous account is false
Some are not satisfied with this account, which they find to be a product of wild imagination. For who has seen sphinxes ravishing citizens and eating them raw, destroying fields, and chanting childish riddles on the top of a mountain or from a citadel? So, believing the Sphinx can be easily explained, they, much like Oedipus, answer this riddle by making up their own mature stories, which they find so perfectly rational, that even a child could inmediately grasp it.

Another account
So for example, some have affirmed that the Sphinx came with a fleet on a piratical expedition, and having put in at Anthedon, she seized a mountain, and used it for plundering raids. Oedipus then came with a Corinthian army, and put an end to this unconfortable guerrilla warfare.

Yet another account
Others assert that the Sphinx was just a woman. According to them, she was the lovely daughter of King Laius 1. He was so fond of her that he told her the secret oracle—only known to kings—that Delphi had delivered to Cadmus, the founder of Thebes. Laius 1 had many sons by concubines, they say, but the oracle applied only to Jocasta and her sons. So when any of her brothers came in order to claim the throne, she would say that if they really were sons of Laius 1 they should be acquainted with the oracle. So they were asked, and when they could not answer she put them to death as potential usurpers on the ground that they had no valid claim to the kingdom, or to relationship. Oedipus, they affirm, was able to give the right answer because he had been told the oracle in a dream.

Answer 2

man the monster was the sphinx and the price was Orthos

"A Sphinx, a beast of double form, had come to Thebes and was propounding a riddle to anyone who might be able to solve it, and many were being slain by her because of their inability to do so. And although a generous reward was offered to the man who should solve it, that he should marry Jokaste and be king of Thebes, yet no man was able to comprehend what was propounded except Oidipous, who alone solved the riddle. What had been propounded by the Sphinx was this: What is it that is at the same time a biped, a triped, and a quadraped? And while all the rest were perplexed, Oidipous declared that the animal proposed in the riddle was ‘man’, since as an infant he is a quadruped, when grown a biped, and in old age a triped, using, because of his infirmity, a staff. At this answer the Sphinx, in accordance with the oracle which the myth recounts, threw herself down a precipice." - Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4.64.4

Answer 3

The answer to the riddle is Man. Morning represents babyhood when we crawl on all fours. Noon is our youth when we walk on our two legs. Evening is our old age when we walk aided with a walking stick. The monster is the Sphinx guarding the entrance to the city of Thebes. The prince is Oedipus.

Answer 4

Although the Sphinx is usually thought of when you hear of Egyptian lore, the name itself has its roots in Greek mythology. The name "sphinx" was applied to the portraits of kings by the Greeks who visited Egypt in later centuries, because of the similarity of these statues to their Sphinx.

The Greek Sphinx was a demon of death and destruction and bad luck. She was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna. It was a female creature, sometimes depicted as a winged lion with a feminine head, and sometimes as a female with the breast, paws and claws of a lion, a snake tail and bird wings. She sat on a high rock near Thebes and posed a riddle to all who passed. The riddle was: "What animal is that which in the morning goes on four feet, at noon on two, and in the evening upon three?" Those who could not solve the riddle were strangled by her. Finally Oedipus came along and he was the only who could answer that it was man. He walks on all four as a baby, upright as an adult and with a cane when he is older.

The Sphinx was so mortified at the solving of her riddle that she cast herself down from the rock and perished.

The name 'sphinx' is derived from the Greek sphingo, which means "to strangle". In ancient Assyrian myths, the sphinx usually appears as a guardian of temple entrances.

Answer 5

Well, 'old but still a child' has gone and spoiled it for everyone... anyway, I'm pretty sure that the monster was a sphinx. I can't remember who the prince was though. Wikipedia seems to be full of this kind of useful information though, I suggest you go and consult with them... it's hardly even a click away!

www.wikipedia.com

Peace!

Answer 6

The first answerer had it right and for the right reasons - it's man. It's not ancient Greece, it's ancient Egyptian - this is the classic riddle of the sphinx.

Wow, just reading all the stuff below, and there's some good stuff.

"Y'know, I've learned something today"
- Kyle Browlowski

Answer 7

ITS MAN! Man walks on all fours as a baby, on 2 legs as an adult, and uses a walking device as its third leg in old age

Answer 8

Man is the answer. This is Egyptian Mythology as well. Beast was a Sphinx. it was a female monster, though. In Greece, i think it was actualy Hercules or something who had to answer; i'm not sure what monster it was for him, though.

Answer 9

Didnt it have something to do with 2 voices as well?
Anyway, it doesnt matter:
the riddle has been answered by caller no1!!! :) well done caller no.1 - you shure read the instructions.... wait a week... whatever

Answer 10

Man. Crawls as baby, walks on two as an adult, and uses a cane in old age.... I think!!! Could be totally wrong...

Apparently I'm right. Oedipus answered the q's right btw.