All this Œdipus heard as he stood in the market place and talked with the people.
“What is this famous riddle that none can solve?” he asked.
“Alas! young man, that none can say. For he that would solve the riddle must go up alone to the rock where she sits. Then and there she chants the riddle, and if he answer it not forthwith she tears him limb from limb. And if none go up to try the riddle, then she swoops down upon the city and carries off her victims, and spares not woman or child. Our wisest and bravest have gone up, and our eyes have seen them no more. Now there is no man left who dare face the terrible beast.”
Then Œdipus said: “I will go up and face this monster. It must be a hard riddle indeed if I cannot answer it.”
“Oh, overbold and rash,” they cried, “thinkest thou to succeed where so many have failed?”
“Better to try, and fail, than never to try at all.”
“Yet, where failure is death, surely a man should think twice?”
“A man can die but once, and how better than in trying to save his fellows?”
As they looked at his strong young limbs and his fair young face they pitied him. “Stranger,” they said, “who art thou to throw away thy life thus heedlessly? Are there none at home to mourn thee and no kingdom thou shouldst rule? For, of a truth, thou art a king’s son and no common man.”