What Animal Stands With Two Legs But Sleeps With Three

"What walks on four legs in the morn, two legs in the afternoon, three legs in the evening, and no legs at dark?"

The classic riddle presented to Oedipus Rex by the Sphinx in Greek Mythology. He was the starting time one to solve it—all the others who failed were eaten past the Sphinx—subsequently which she threw herself down a chasm. This is one of the oldest Stock Puzzles out there, going back to the Greek writer Apollodorus in the 2nd century Advert.

The reply? "A man." As a babe, a man goes about on all fours ("4 legs in the morning"; morning = childhood), until he learns to walk, which he does so well into adulthood ("two legs in the afternoon"; afternoon = adulthood), until old historic period requires him to utilize a cane to support himself ("three legs in the evening", evening = old age), finally he dies ("no legs at night", night = death).

Versions of the story itself was told past oral tradition long before Apollodorus, and in the earliest versions, the exact riddle asked by the Sphinx was non specified past early tellers of the stories, and was not standardized as the 1 given in Apollodorus' version. (An additional part of the riddle, "The more than legs information technology has the weaker it is", is usually omitted now.)

This trope is about the riddle; it may or may not be delivered past a sphinx. The more general trope for sphinxes that ask riddles is Riddling Sphinx.

Also see Riddle Me This, These Questions Iii....

Examples:

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Anime & Manga

Used by a riddle-based time-shifter in Flintstone the Fourth dimension Detective. The Quirky Miniboss Squad, stumped, tries to guess a chimpanzee.
Sakon from Karakurizoushi Ayatsuri Sakon corrects a man who tells him nigh the Egyptian riddle of the sphinx.
Ulysses 31: "The Hole-and-corner Of The Sphynx" had this. Strangely, virtually mythology used in the show was based on Greek mythology, and the Riddle is also Greek, but it was all done in an Egyptian setting.
Parodied in Final Fantasy: Unlimited episode sixteen, where the "correct" reply is the Hemoran bacterium. The person who answers "a human" gets it incorrect. The riddle giver in that episode is cheating, so the person answering is always incorrect. The but "true" correct answer was to point out that the riddler is adulterous.
Nine and Twelve present the riddle in Terror in Resonance as part of a bomb threat. The myth is directly referenced, being tied in with the grouping's name, Sphinx.
In episode 136 of Tamagotchi, as Mametchi and his friends traverse a big temple to notice the Crystal Crown to cure the Gotchi King of his Easter egg sickness, they come up across a sphinx resembling Kuchipatchi. The statue gives them this riddle, and Mametchi almost guesses a Tamagotchi before remembering that the Gotchi King in item never had legs, thus making that answer inaccurate, and finally answers a human.
In the Viz Media dub of Sailor Moon, during her final moments, Sailor Atomic number 26 Mouse tries to weasel her way out of being killed by Sailor Galaxia past asking her this riddle. Galaxia doesn't bother to answer at all. (Information technology's worth mentioning that in the Japanese version, Iron Mouse asks a riddle that has no correct answer.)
Soul Hunter, Sontenkun of Kingo Islands challenges one of the heroes, Tou Sengyoku, to a game of Quiz inside his Pocket Dimension. The starting time question Sengyoku picks is the classical riddle of the Sphinx, though she thinks the respond, for some reason, is Narazuke (a blazon of pickled vegetables) and is transformed into a toy for failing the quiz.

Comedy

The comedian Richard Herring says the respond shouldn't be a homo considering a stick isn't actually a leg. The existent reply should be Paul McCartney and his wives.
An Emo Philips routine postulates that the answer is a ass, "who has iv legs in the morning, and then in the afternoon you chop two of them off, and so in the evening y'all glue 1 dorsum on over again."

Comic Books

Nero: In De IJzeren Kolonel ("The Iron Colonel") Nero and a British colonel are stuck in an Egyptian tomb where the sphinx tells them they are not allowed to leave unless they solve his riddle, which is the famous one from Greek mythology. Nero finally solves it and they are allowed to leave.
1 Disney Ducks Comic Universe sees Huey, Dewey and Louie coming together a Sphinx on an island inhabited by various mythical creatures. As soon equally the Sphinx tells them that for them to laissez passer her, she wants to them to answer a riddle, Huey, Dewey and Louie immediately comes to the conclusion that she probably wants them to solve the traditional riddle. Indeed, they are right and no sooner has the Sphinx posed her question than Huey, Dewey and Louie answers her by pantomiming the different parts of the reply. The Sphinx is rather disappointed that it was so like shooting fish in a barrel for them to figure out, but agrees that a bargain is a deal.
Batman's nemesis The Riddler sometimes gets his name translated equally "The Sphinx" (for case, in French) as a Shout-Out to this.
- On top of that, many Riddler stories allude to the sphinx, even if few of them have him asking the riddle outright. For example, Batman: Gotham Adventures #eleven has him robbing two men (i.e., four legs) in the forenoon, one man in the afternoon, and a human being with a cane in the evening. Batman realizes that this means the Riddler is hiding out in a building with a behemothic sphinx statue on the roof. When Batman explains how he tracked him downward, a shocked Riddler reveals that he had been making a conscious effort to commit a law-breaking without leaving clues, and that the pattern of his crimes was entirely subconscious. The shaken villain surrenders and asks to be taken to Arkham, realizing for the first fourth dimension that he might actually need help.
- Meanwhile, ane issue of The Question has the Riddler get asked this past the titular hero, equally a bear witness of mercy later beingness stumped into helplessness past a series of much more Heed Screw-y philosophical riddles.

Comic Strips

Spoofed, along with many other stock riddles, in Sovisa when Alexi is confronted by a riddle-telling old human (a further spoof, in that the human states information technology's one of the few jobs a man of his age can hold downwards), Alexi antagonizes him by answering his riddles earlier he's finished telling them. A section of the text is equally follows:
Human being: Mind well to your first fiendish riddle, foolish boy! "What walks on 4 legs in—"
Alexi: Human.
Man: What? What practise you mean "man"?
Alexi: It'southward the respond, I've heard that riddle around a hojillion times.
Man: Well and then become set for circular ii! "As I was going to St. Ives, I—"
Alexi: I. One was going to St. Ives.
Homo: OK, wise-ass, no more than Mr. Dainty Granddad. "I'g the beginning of Eterni—"
Alexi: The letter "E". You know, yous could try to put some endeavour into this.
Human: Do I come up to yous at work and tell you how to do your job? No. Startin' to piss me off, male child. Right, "I occur once in a minute, tw—"
Alexi: The letter "Thousand", I see we're stuck on messages now.
Human being: All right. I meet I'll have to pull out all the stops. "You come to two doors, guarded by a pair of men, ane tells but the truth, wh—"
Alexi: The truth or lies guys riddle? Seriously? You know, I don't recall yous eve— Ow! Y'all kicked me!
Subverted in What'southward New? with Phil and Dixie, in which a sphinx insists that everybody knows the "four legs, two legs, three legs" riddle, and then instead asks: "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck forest?"
Curtis tries to make a bet with his dad with this riddle in 1 Sunday strip; either he doesn't know how old it is or discredits his dad'south intelligence - or both - simply he loses the bet.

Films — Alive-Activeness

Played with in MirrorMask. Helena, when asked this riddle, answers with the name of the performing dog from the circus in which she grew upwards. The "sphinx" ^notation Actually credited every bit a griffin, though he looks similar. Sphinxes in this setting are basically unintelligent feral cats tells her that the answer is human, and she responds...
Helena: Nuh-uh. I saw him. He was walking on iv legs in the morning, two legs during the afternoon show, and he was limping on 3 in the evening because he hurt his mitt! He tin can skateboard, too.

Literature

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Subverted in The Battle of the Labyrinth, Percy and the gang meet the Sphinx who, similar everything else in Greek mythology in this serial, gets modernized. She now uses an Sabbatum way automated grader and asks random trivia questions. Annabeth, who was taking the quiz expecting to hear the original questions, takes this as an insult to her intelligence and refuses to accept the quiz. Guess who has to fight a Sphinx.
Discworld: Spoofed in Pyramids. Pteppic encounters a Sphinx who asks him this riddle. He'south unable to answer, but protests that the metaphor is overly simplistic, forcing information technology to requite a more authentic version covering all possibilities. Pteppic answers this and walks off earlier the Sphinx remembers that it had already told him the answer.
Parodied by John Sladek, in a story parodying Cordwainer Smith. "The answer is a coffee tabular array. I fixed 4 legs to it in the morning but two legs fell off in the afternoon, and past the evening I'd only gotten around to replacing ane of them."
Soldier of the Mist: Latro meets up with the same sphinx. He answers that it is a man going a journey: in the forenoon, he rides a horse, but when the equus caballus is stolen, he walks, and then in the evening, he cuts himself a walking stick. This answer was also approved by the sphinx.
1 for the Morning Celebrity: The Riddling Animate being at the edge of the goblin kingdom asks "What goes on four legs in the morn, shaves the hairdresser at noon, and crosses the road in the evening, and what does it have in its pockets?" Prince Amatus correctly answers "Myself and the things that are mine" because the reply to such riddles is always "myself" — though the pockets nearly threw him. Later, they plow nearly the Riddling Beast and then information technology guards the way out of the goblin kingdom — which is good, because a goblin cannot easily reply a riddle whose respond is "myself and the things that are mine".
Pyramid Scheme: The Sphinx tin only eat someone who fails to answer her riddle. The heroes, of class, know the reply (although at that place's a certain corporeality of tension because while the guy beingness asked knows the answer, he doesn't know Aboriginal Greek....) After hearing the Sphinx mutter about how hungry she is they offer to teach her a new riddle in exchange for her aid. Subsequently they escape the myth world, the Sphinx gets a job as a greeter / tourist attraction at the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas. She asks guests riddles in substitution for all the food she tin can consume.
In The Stress of Her Regard, information technology'south revealed that Oedipus only answered correctly by accident: its intended answer is "sentient life on Earth", and the "legs" are the atomic bonds in the skeletal structures of Earth'south primordial silicon-boned, nowadays calcium-boned, and futurity aluminum-boned inhabitants. (The former are the novel's vampires, and the latter are presumably robots.) Information technology'south implied that Oedipus actually said "people", and the sphinx didn't form his answer too harshly.
The Chronicles of Amber: In Trumps of Doom, Merlin briefly encounters a sphinx that asks him a riddle. He gives an answer which, while not the 1 the sphinx wanted, did meet the weather condition of the riddle. Eventually afterward giving the sphinx a ridiculous one ^notation about a frog in a cuisinart he merely threatens the sphinx until it agrees to let him go.
Esther Friesner'southward works:
- The riddle is the reason that the members of the Club in "The Wedding of Wylda Serene" accepted the sphinx that one of their members brought, figuring that anybody knew the answer, so no ane would get eaten. Then she learned some new ones...
- In Sphynxes Wild, the sphinx—currently operating as a Greek heiress in Atlantic City—is the villain, and not until the hero finally answers her new riddle can she exist defeated.
Gollum tells a version of this riddle in The Hobbit. Bilbo answers correctly.
In a variant from Myth-Fortunes, Tweety the Sphinx asks Skeeve: "What is it that is dark in the morning, pale at apex, and gone by sunset?" Its hair.
In Pact, Blake Thorburn encounters a Sphinx that specializes in asking questions (if you answer wrong, she gets to eat yous) and manages to evade several of her questions by having answers that are true but nonspecific, admitting to her subsequently that a prospective respond to the question of "who are you?" had been "A human." As she'southward the daughter of the original, mythological Riddling Sphinx, she informs him that if he had answered that she would have ripped him apart for "being a smartass."
In the Sabrina The Teenage Witch novelisation "Witch Way Did She Become", Sabrina and Salem get asked this question in an Other Realm maze. Sabrina is about to answer that it'due south a human - just Salem answers 'a Purple Spotted Nivek'. He too reminds Sabrina that she's non in the Mortal Realm whatsoever more.
In Peter Dickinson'south work of imaginary natural history Flying of Dragons, he proposes that the sphinx was actually a dragon, and the "riddle" was the confusion caused by the dragon's hypnotic abilities (he likewise explains why he believes dragons had hypnotic abilities). "Solving" the riddle meant Oedipus snapping out of the trance and remembering who he was and what he was doing in that location; hence, the answer is "human being".
The Doctor Who short story "The Enigma of Sisterhood" is based on the lesser known second riddle: "Two sisters die giving nascency to each other. Who are they?" Dark and day.

Live-Activeness Goggle box

The Riddler includes this with several other riddles in his kickoff appearance in the campy 60's version of Batman (1966). While this one is easy, finding out the villain's truthful plan requires combining the reply with many other riddles, which form a larger riddle.
Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger has this equally one of the questions asked by Dora Sphinx- his victim, who'd answered every riddle correctly until so, didn't get this 1.

Pro Wrestling

GLOW's Little Egypt brags in her rap "Fifty-fifty though I may be fiddling/I'one thousand the answer to the Sphinx's riddle". Technically she's right since she is a human after all.

Tabletop Games

Theater

Mentioned in P.D.Q. Bach's Oedipus Tex (of form), where a "Bigfoot" plays the Sphinx's role and Oedipus plays that of his brother King.
In Car Talk: The Musical, the riddle posed by the Wizard of Cahs is: "What goes on iv wheels in the forenoon, two wheels in the afternoon, and four completely different wheels in the evening?" A scholar recognizes the riddle, and is the showtime to effort an reply: a human first riding in a baby carriage, so on a bicycle, and finally in an car. The Wizard shows the scholar the Trap Door. The protagonist offers a more original answer: his Declared Car driving on its own wheels, then being dragged on its rear wheels by a tow truck, and finally loaded onto a flatbed truck to be scrapped. This isn't the answer the Wizard wanted either, just at least it's passable.
Peer Gynt encounters the Egyptian Sphinx at Gizeh, and asks him the question "who are you lot". This is the aforementioned question he asked the boyg two acts prior. Before he sees the sphinx, the statue of Memnon has advised him to "die, or solve the riddle of the song".

Video Games

Black Mirror has iv books with one riddle each to hide the coffin of Marcus Gordon. Interestingly, the actual riddle doesn't announced, though the riddles were patently inspired past it in the way they are formulated. ^note "You tin't see it, merely hear it. It only speaks when spoken to." Repeat - "You buy it black, employ it scarlet and dispose it grey." Coal - "Y'all see it in the cold, but information technology usually is invisible to the eye. Gentle and lite as a plume, simply no animate being can exist without it." Jiff - "The more y'all accept, the more than information technology grows." Hole
In Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, this is used in the Trial of Wisdom, where you lot are supposed to walk through the doorway with the right number of glowing eyes (in the context of the game'south riddle, the glowing optics are allusions to legs). Picking the incorrect doorway leads to a fight against several demons and causes a Puzzle Reset.
Your wisdom volition be put to the test in the chamber ahead. Utilize your lifetime experience: from the itch baby; to the homo standing tall; and finally to the old man leaning on his cane.
The tertiary-level boss of Wario: Chief of Disguise for the Nintendo DS has the thespian answering a sphinx's riddles, the answers beingness objects you saw during the level (including the "man" riddle). Miss a question and you dice instantly.
At the terminate of the Tombs of Amenti in Valkyrie Profile, you are asked this riddle. The choices are "Humans", "Homo", and "Homo Sapiens", so information technology'south impossible to become it incorrect.
Referenced in gruesome fashion by the Riddler in Batman: Arkham Asylum: he claims the answer is "a baby", because information technology walks around on iv limbs, but it walks on only two if you cutting off its legs and iii if you give it a crutch. When asked how he could brand such a sick joke, the Riddler calmly responds "It's not my baby."
Averted in the Riddle Of The Sphinx video game, which has nothing to exercise with this old trope except the name.
Shows upwardly in the Unexpected Text Take a chance department of NieR.
Played with in Monster Girl Quest. Every bit part of a trial to be eligible to ally a dragon, a Sphinx gives this question, and it is lampshaded past Luka how almost anybody knows the answer to this question and that it's anticlimactic. The riddle'southward true purpose is to illustrate that any monster and homo romance will exist a Mayfly–December Romance and to brand the trial taker enlightened of this fact and its implications.
In Heroes of Might and Magic II, at that place is a sphnix on the map "Sudden Siege" that asks this riddle. The Sphinx is a recurring feature in the game that asks your heroes riddles. Answering correctly volition gain you a cash reward, but if you get the incorrect answer, you'll lose that hero and their unabridged ground forces.
In one case scenario for the Facebook flash game Ghost Tales features a direct equivalent to this riddle: "At dawn, information technology creeps. At midday, it sleeps. At night, it flies." The reply is expressed by clicking three statues then they transform into a caterpillar, a cocoon, and a butterfly.
In Scribblenauts Unlimited, ane of the Starite Shard quest in the Abjad Dunes is based on this riddle. Maxwell has to create a "human" for the Sphinx to become the shard.
In Shadowrun Returns: Hong Kong, the memory fragments of a graphic symbol are guarded past passwords which reference this riddle. However, the "night" in the game refers to former age and not death, while "dusk" refers to middle age instead. To revive said graphic symbol, the memory fragments must exist arranged in chronological club.
I of the very outset puzzles in Virtue'due south Terminal Reward flirts with this, with rows of buttons next to pictures of an old man and a baby. Answering iii and four respectively is wrong. You lot're actually supposed to count the numbers of sometime people and babies on a poster and enter those numbers.
Zeus: Primary of Olympus' version is a little easier to estimate:
What crawls on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, iii legs at sunset, and screams in abject terror at present?
In her Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary story, Raffina comes across the ghosts Yu and Rei, who give her a popular quiz that involves Yu request what has 4 legs at birth and iii legs at sometime age. Raffina correctly guesses "man" and wins an obligatory puyo boxing with the ghosts.

Web Comics

Nerf NOW!!: If this question ever comes up in Jeopardy!, Dracula's got information technology covered.
Parodied on these ii pages of GastroPhobia, where everyone knows the Sphinx'southward riddle. Merely they don't take to exist then rude near it. It's to the signal where she'southward now trying to call up up a new riddle.
- She's briefly excited when someone incorrectly answers "Goblin"...but then she realizes the speaker is a goblin, and is forced to admit that information technology counts.
Aforementioned riddle, same characters, different outcome.
Subverted in this Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic.
Paranatural subverts this here. 2 characters are asked the riddle in question by a sphinx-like creature. They both immediately respond, "Homo," having heard the riddle earlier, but are instead told, "Incorrect! The reply is that guy."
In Dinosaur Comics, T-Rex tries this riddle on his friends, who answer it easily and indicate out that information technology's the most well-known riddle of all time. It predates Paper. At least Patrick Stewart liked it; it apparently spoke to him on a personal level.
Parodied in Slack Wyrm. Duchess Doris ends up caged as prisoner of a sphinx, that gives her meaningless riddles. she freeds herself past nifty the sphinx' caput with a mace (it gets improve) and giving it an unexpected reply.
Parodied with this comic strip, in which the person being questioned just points to a many-legged... creature who only happens to walk by. Too dubbed by ProZD!
"So many legs... Then many OPTIONS!"

Web Original

Welcome to Night Vale gives this variation at the terminate of one episode.
What walks on four legs in the morn, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs at evening? I don't know, only I have it trapped in my closet, send help.
In Hi, from the Magic Tavern, this is a common riddle for bridge trolls; when a guest asks it of Arnie, he naturally answers that it's a man, which is incorrect, though Chunt and Usidore are impressed when Arnie explains his answer. The correct answer, every bit it happens, is a Garfunt, a beast native to Food which actually is born with four legs, sheds two of them in the afternoon, and grows a third at dusk.

Western Animation

Used peculiarly badly in 1 episode of Farthermost Ghostbusters, where a ghost modeled on the Sphinx asks this of its victims and renders those who answer incorrectly into helpless, mindless beings. This includes an entire chapter of Mensa, the ane group of people who yous would expect to know the answer.
Similarly, the opening of an episode of The Mummy: The Animated Serial had the O'Connells, a family of Adventurer Archaeologists/Egyptologists, oblivious of the answer to the riddle. Yous'd think at least Evie would know...
Also parodied in Sabrina: The Animated Series: The sphinx gives the riddle, and Chloe answers, "Man." Yet, the answer is the nine-legged... some creature that exists only in that world.
My Little Pony 'n Friends: In "The Golden Horseshoes, Part 1", the heroes demand to retrieve a magic horseshoe from the Blurgs, whose leader is only willing to part with information technology for a riddle he doesn't know, and Paradise proposes this one. He's quite stumped by information technology, guessing a series of increasingly improbable creatures before conceding defeat.
The Critic: Subverted in "Sherman of Arabia". Jay, lost in the desert with some soldiers during the Gulf War, comes beyond a muscular homo who refuses to permit them laissez passer unless they answer the Riddle of the Sphinx. Except the 'riddles' are laughably easy ones you tin can read off of a popsicle stick (Or in this instance, the lesser of a cup), and subsequently every answer the guard insists Best Out of Infinity.
Jay: Oh, what is the bespeak of all this?!
Riddler: I'yard simply so lonely...
Teen Titans Become!: Used in "Crazy Solar day", where Raven is sucked into her ain mind and faces Starfire as the Sphinx. Due to Starfire'due south less-than-tenuous grip on human civilisation and spoken language, Hilarity Ensues. Raven is able to outwit Starfire by claiming that she doesn't even know what the reply is, causing her to blurt it out.
Sphinx Starfire: What is running and walks with a rima oris, and talks, and has a head, and likewise, the bed?
Raven: ...what.
In The Adventures of Puss in Boots, this is the kickoff of 5 riddles the Sphinx asks of Puss. His answer of "Yellow" is remarked upon to be the most incorrect respond she'south ever heard.
Batman: The Brave and the Bold: One episode's Common cold Open has the Riddler asking Booster Gold this question. Booster Gold somehow concludes the answer is "a nine legged unicorn". Notation that the Riddler was playing a deadly game show, and every time Booster got an answer wrong, Batman got a 10,000-volt shock.
Parodied hilariously in an episode of Kaeloo where Mr. Cat dresses as a sphinx and decides to ask Quack Quack riddles:
Mr. Cat: I have ii arms in the morning, iv ears in the afternoon and vii tentacles in the evening. Who am I?

In the WordGirl episode "Ms. Question's Riddle Binge", Ms. Question forces WordGirl to answer the "what has four legs in the morn..." riddle to gratuitous her captive sidekick, Captain Huggyface. WordGirl is somewhen able to figure out the solution and save the mean solar day.

Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RiddleOfTheSphinx

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