What Animal Walks On 4 Feet In The Morning

"What walks on 4 legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, 3 legs in the evening, and no legs at nighttime?"

The archetype riddle presented to Oedipus Rex by the Sphinx in Greek Mythology. He was the first one to solve it—all the others who failed were eaten past the Sphinx—later which she threw herself down a chasm. This is ane of the oldest Stock Puzzles out in that location, going back to the Greek writer Apollodorus in the second century Advertizing.

The answer? "A man." As a baby, a human goes about on all fours ("four legs in the morn"; morning = childhood), until he learns to walk, which he does so well into machismo ("two legs in the afternoon"; afternoon = adulthood), until old age requires him to apply a cane to support himself ("3 legs in the evening", evening = quondam historic period), finally he dies ("no legs at nighttime", nighttime = death).

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

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

Likewise come across Riddle Me This, These Questions 3....

Examples:

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Anime & Manga

Used by a riddle-based time-shifter in Flintstone the Fourth dimension Detective. The Quirky Miniboss Team, stumped, tries to approximate a chimpanzee.
Sakon from Karakurizoushi Ayatsuri Sakon corrects a human being who tells him well-nigh the Egyptian riddle of the sphinx.
Ulysses 31: "The Secret Of The Sphynx" had this. Strangely, most mythology used in the bear witness 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 man" gets it wrong. The riddle giver in that episode is cheating, so the person answering is always wrong. The only "true" correct answer was to indicate out that the riddler is cheating.
Nine and Twelve present the riddle in Terror in Resonance equally function of a flop threat. The myth is directly referenced, existence tied in with the group's name, Sphinx.
In episode 136 of Tamagotchi, as Mametchi and his friends traverse a big temple to detect 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 virtually guesses a Tamagotchi earlier remembering that the Gotchi King in particular never had legs, thus making that respond inaccurate, and finally answers a human.
In the Viz Media dub of Sailor Moon, during her final moments, Sailor Fe Mouse tries to weasel her way out of being killed past Crewman Galaxia by asking her this riddle. Galaxia doesn't bother to answer at all. (It'due south worth mentioning that in the Japanese version, Iron Mouse asks a riddle that has no right answer.)
Soul Hunter, Sontenkun of Kingo Islands challenges one of the heroes, Tou Sengyoku, to a game of Quiz inside his Pocket Dimension. The outset question Sengyoku picks is the classical riddle of the Sphinx, though she thinks the answer, for some reason, is Narazuke (a blazon of pickled vegetables) and is transformed into a toy for failing the quiz.

One-act

The comedian Richard Herring says the answer shouldn't be a human being because a stick isn't really a leg. The real answer should exist Paul McCartney and his wives.
An Emo Philips routine postulates that the reply is a donkey, "who has four legs in the forenoon, then in the afternoon y'all chop 2 of them off, then in the evening you glue i back on once more."

Comic Books

Nero: In De IJzeren Kolonel ("The Atomic number 26 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 immune to leave.
One 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 pass her, she wants to them to reply a riddle, Huey, Dewey and Louie immediately comes to the conclusion that she probably wants them to solve the traditional riddle. Indeed, they are correct 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 information technology was and so piece of cake for them to figure out, but agrees that a deal is a bargain.
Batman'due south nemesis The Riddler sometimes gets his proper name translated as "The Sphinx" (for example, in French) every bit 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 instance, Batman: Gotham Adventures #eleven has him robbing ii men (i.e., four legs) in the morning, one man in the afternoon, and a man with a cane in the evening. Batman realizes that this means the Riddler is hiding out in a building with a giant sphinx statue on the roof. When Batman explains how he tracked him down, a shocked Riddler reveals that he had been making a conscious effort to commit a crime without leaving clues, and that the pattern of his crimes was entirely hidden. The shaken villain surrenders and asks to be taken to Arkham, realizing for the start time that he might really need help.
- Meanwhile, one consequence of The Question has the Riddler get asked this by the titular hero, every bit a show of mercy after existence stumped into helplessness by a serial of much more Mind 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 man states it'south one of the few jobs a human of his historic period can hold down), Alexi antagonizes him past answering his riddles earlier he's finished telling them. A section of the text is equally follows:
Human being: Listen well to your first fiendish riddle, foolish male child! "What walks on four legs in—"
Alexi: Man.
Human: What? What do y'all mean "homo"?
Alexi: It's the answer, I've heard that riddle around a hojillion times.
Human being: Well then become fix for round two! "As I was going to St. Ives, I—"
Alexi: I. One was going to St. Ives.
Human being: OK, wise-ass, no more Mr. Overnice Granddad. "I'm the beginning of Eterni—"
Alexi: The letter "Eastward". Y'all know, you could try to put some endeavour into this.
Man: Exercise I come to you at work and tell you how to practise your job? No. Startin' to piss me off, boy. Right, "I occur once in a minute, tw—"
Alexi: The letter "M", I see we're stuck on letters now.
Man: All right. I meet I'll have to pull out all the stops. "You come to two doors, guarded by a pair of men, i tells only the truth, wh—"
Alexi: The truth or lies guys riddle? Seriously? You know, I don't think you eve— Ow! You kicked me!
Subverted in What'south New? with Phil and Dixie, in which a sphinx insists that everybody knows the "iv legs, ii legs, three legs" riddle, so instead asks: "How much woods would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?"
Curtis tries to make a bet with his dad with this riddle in one Dominicus strip; either he doesn't know how onetime it is or discredits his dad's intelligence - or both - simply he loses the bet.

Films — Live-Action

Played with in MirrorMask. Helena, when asked this riddle, answers with the name of the performing dog from the circus in which she grew up. The "sphinx" ^note Really credited equally a griffin, though he looks like. Sphinxes in this setting are basically unintelligent feral cats tells her that the respond is man, and she responds...
Helena: Nuh-uh. I saw him. He was walking on four legs in the morn, two legs during the afternoon show, and he was limping on three in the evening because he hurt his paw! He can skateboard, too.

Literature

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Subverted in The Battle of the Labyrinth, Percy and the gang come across the Sphinx who, like everything else in Greek mythology in this series, gets modernized. She now uses an Sat fashion automatic 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 take the quiz. Judge who has to fight a Sphinx.
Discworld: Spoofed in Pyramids. Pteppic encounters a Sphinx who asks him this riddle. He's unable to answer, but protests that the metaphor is overly simplistic, forcing it to requite a more accurate version covering all possibilities. Pteppic answers this and walks off before the Sphinx remembers that information technology had already told him the reply.
Parodied by John Sladek, in a story parodying Cordwainer Smith. "The answer is a java table. I fixed four legs to it in the morning time just two legs barbarous off in the afternoon, and by the evening I'd just gotten around to replacing one of them."
Soldier of the Mist: Latro meets upwards with the same sphinx. He answers that it is a man going a journey: in the morn, he rides a horse, but when the equus caballus is stolen, he walks, and so in the evening, he cuts himself a walking stick. This answer was also approved by the sphinx.
One for the Forenoon Glory: The Riddling Animate being at the edge of the goblin kingdom asks "What goes on 4 legs in the forenoon, shaves the barber 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 virtually threw him. Later, they turn most the Riddling Beast so it guards the way out of the goblin kingdom — which is good, because a goblin cannot hands answer a riddle whose reply is "myself and the things that are mine".
Pyramid Scheme: The Sphinx can only consume someone who fails to reply her riddle. The heroes, of form, know the answer (although at that place's a certain amount 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 substitution for her assist. After they escape the myth world, the Sphinx gets a chore as a greeter / tourist attraction at the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas. She asks guests riddles in commutation for all the food she can eat.
In The Stress of Her Regard, it'south revealed that Oedipus only answered correctly by accident: its intended reply is "sentient life on Earth", and the "legs" are the diminutive bonds in the skeletal structures of Earth's primordial silicon-boned, present calcium-boned, and future aluminum-boned inhabitants. (The former are the novel'south vampires, and the latter are presumably robots.) It'due south unsaid that Oedipus really said "people", and the sphinx didn't class 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 reply which, while not the one the sphinx wanted, did come across the conditions of the riddle. Eventually afterwards giving the sphinx a ridiculous one ^note about a frog in a cuisinart he just threatens the sphinx until it agrees to let him get.
Esther Friesner's works:
- The riddle is the reason that the members of the Order in "The Wedding ceremony of Wylda Serene" accepted the sphinx that one of their members brought, figuring that everyone knew the answer, and then no one would go 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 non 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 forenoon, pale at noon, and gone by sunset?" Its pilus.
In Pact, Blake Thorburn encounters a Sphinx that specializes in asking questions (if yous answer wrong, she gets to eat yous) and manages to evade several of her questions by having answers that are true only nonspecific, albeit to her later that a prospective answer to the question of "who are you?" had been "A homo." As she's the girl of the original, mythological Riddling Sphinx, she informs him that if he had answered that she would take ripped him apart for "being a smartass."
In the Sabrina The Teenage Witch novelisation "Witch Way Did She Go", Sabrina and Salem get asked this question in an Other Realm maze. Sabrina is well-nigh to answer that it's a human - but Salem answers 'a Purple Spotted Nivek'. He likewise reminds Sabrina that she'due south not in the Mortal Realm whatsoever more.
In Peter Dickinson's work of imaginary natural history Flight 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 also 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 there; hence, the reply is "man".
The Md Who brusk story "The Enigma of Sisterhood" is based on the bottom known second riddle: "2 sisters die giving nascency to each other. Who are they?" Night and day.

Alive-Action Telly

The Riddler includes this with several other riddles in his first advent in the campy 60's version of Batman (1966). While this i is easy, finding out the villain's truthful plan requires combining the answer with many other riddles, which class a larger riddle.
Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger has this as i of the questions asked by Dora Sphinx- his victim, who'd answered every riddle correctly until then, didn't get this i.

Pro Wrestling

GLOW's Piddling Egypt brags in her rap "Even though I may be footling/I'm the answer to the Sphinx's riddle". Technically she's right since she is a human being subsequently all.

Tabletop Games

Theater

Mentioned in P.D.Q. Bach's Oedipus Tex (of course), where a "Bigfoot" plays the Sphinx's role and Oedipus plays that of his brother King.
In Motorcar Talk: The Musical, the riddle posed by the Sorcerer of Cahs is: "What goes on four wheels in the morning, 2 wheels in the afternoon, and four completely dissimilar wheels in the evening?" A scholar recognizes the riddle, and is the first to attempt an answer: a human first riding in a baby carriage, then on a bicycle, and finally in an car. The Wizard shows the scholar the Trap Door. The protagonist offers a more original answer: his Alleged Car driving on its own wheels, then existence 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, but at least information technology'southward passable.
Peer Gynt encounters the Egyptian Sphinx at Gizeh, and asks him the question "who are yous". This is the same question he asked the boyg ii 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

Blackness Mirror has four books with i riddle each to hibernate the coffin of Marcus Gordon. Interestingly, the actual riddle doesn't appear, though the riddles were evidently inspired by it in the fashion they are formulated. ^notation "Yous can't see it, but hear it. It only speaks when spoken to." Repeat - "You buy it black, use it cherry and dispose it grey." Coal - "You lot see it in the cold, merely information technology usually is invisible to the heart. Gentle and calorie-free equally a plumage, merely no creature tin can exist without it." Breath - "The more you lot take, the more than it grows." Hole
In Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, this is used in the Trial of Wisdom, where you are supposed to walk through the doorway with the right number of glowing eyes (in the context of the game's riddle, the glowing optics are allusions to legs). Picking the wrong doorway leads to a fight against several demons and causes a Puzzle Reset.
Your wisdom will be put to the test in the chamber ahead. Apply your lifetime experience: from the itch babe; to the homo standing tall; and finally to the quondam human leaning on his pikestaff.
The tertiary-level boss of Wario: Master of Disguise for the Nintendo DS has the player answering a sphinx's riddles, the answers being objects you saw during the level (including the "homo" riddle). Miss a question and you die instantly.
At the stop of the Tombs of Amenti in Valkyrie Contour, you are asked this riddle. The choices are "Humans", "Man", and "Human Sapiens", and so it's incommunicable to go it wrong.
Referenced in gruesome mode by the Riddler in Batman: Arkham Asylum: he claims the reply is "a baby", because information technology walks around on four limbs, but it walks on merely two if you lot cut off its legs and iii if y'all give it a crutch. When asked how he could make 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 do with this erstwhile trope except the name.
Shows up in the Unexpected Text Adventure section of NieR.
Played with in Monster Girl Quest. As part of a trial to be eligible to marry a dragon, a Sphinx gives this question, and it is lampshaded by Luka how well-nigh everyone knows the answer to this question and that it'due south anticlimactic. The riddle's truthful purpose is to illustrate that whatever monster and human romance will be a Mayfly–Dec Romance and to make the trial taker aware of this fact and its implications.
In Heroes of Might and Magic II, in that location 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 will gain you a cash reward, just if you get the wrong reply, you'll lose that hero and their entire army.
Once scenario for the Facebook flash game Ghost Tales features a direct equivalent to this riddle: "At dawn, it creeps. At midday, it sleeps. At nighttime, it flies." The reply is expressed by clicking 3 statues and then they transform into a caterpillar, a cocoon, and a butterfly.
In Scribblenauts Unlimited, 1 of the Starite Shard quest in the Abjad Dunes is based on this riddle. Maxwell has to create a "human" for the Sphinx to get the shard.
In Shadowrun Returns: Hong Kong, the memory fragments of a graphic symbol are guarded past passwords which reference this riddle. Nonetheless, the "night" in the game refers to sometime age and not death, while "dusk" refers to middle age instead. To revive said character, the memory fragments must exist bundled in chronological gild.
One of the very first puzzles in Virtue's Concluding Reward flirts with this, with rows of buttons next to pictures of an quondam man and a baby. Answering three and iv respectively is wrong. Yous're really supposed to count the numbers of old people and babies on a poster and enter those numbers.
Zeus: Master of Olympus' version is a piffling easier to gauge:
What crawls on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, three legs at dusk, and screams in abject terror now?
In her Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary story, Raffina comes across the ghosts Yu and Rei, who requite her a pop quiz that involves Yu request what has iv legs at birth and three legs at old age. Raffina correctly guesses "man" and wins an obligatory puyo boxing with the ghosts.

Web Comics

Nerf NOW!!: If this question e'er comes upwards in Jeopardy!, Dracula'due south got it covered.
Parodied on these 2 pages of GastroPhobia, where everyone knows the Sphinx's riddle. Only they don't have to be so rude virtually it. It'south to the point where she'southward now trying to call up up a new riddle.
- She's briefly excited when someone incorrectly answers "Goblin"...only then she realizes the speaker is a goblin, and is forced to admit that it counts.
Aforementioned riddle, same characters, different effect.
Subverted in this Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic.
Paranatural subverts this here. Two characters are asked the riddle in question by a sphinx-like creature. They both immediately respond, "Man," having heard the riddle before, but are instead told, "Incorrect! The answer is that guy."
In Dinosaur Comics, T-King tries this riddle on his friends, who respond information technology easily and point out that information technology'southward the most well-known riddle of all time. Information technology predates Newspaper. At least Patrick Stewart liked it; it plain spoke to him on a personal level.
Parodied in Slack Wyrm. Duchess Doris ends upward caged as prisoner of a sphinx, that gives her meaningless riddles. she freeds herself by bully the sphinx' head with a mace (information technology gets better) and giving it an unexpected respond.
Parodied with this comic strip, in which the person being questioned merely points to a many-legged... creature who simply happens to walk past. As well dubbed by ProZD!
"So many legs... So many OPTIONS!"

Web Original

Welcome to Night Vale gives this variation at the end of one episode.
What walks on iv legs in the morning time, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs at evening? I don't know, just I have it trapped in my closet, ship 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 homo, which is incorrect, though Chunt and Usidore are impressed when Arnie explains his respond. The correct respond, every bit it happens, is a Garfunt, a animal native to Food which actually is built-in with four legs, sheds two of them in the afternoon, and grows a tertiary at dusk.

Western Animation

Used particularly desperately in ane episode of Extreme 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 affiliate of Mensa, the one group of people who y'all would look to know the respond.
Similarly, the opening of an episode of The Mummy: The Animated Series had the O'Connells, a family of Charlatan Archaeologists/Egyptologists, oblivious of the respond to the riddle. You'd call back at least Evie would know...
Too parodied in Sabrina: The Blithe Series: The sphinx gives the riddle, and Chloe answers, "Man." However, the answer is the nine-legged... some fauna that exists merely in that world.
My Little Pony 'n Friends: In "The Golden Horseshoes, Part i", the heroes need to retrieve a magic horseshoe from the Blurgs, whose leader is only willing to role with it for a riddle he doesn't know, and Paradise proposes this i. He's quite stumped by it, 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 across a muscular homo who refuses to let them pass unless they answer the Riddle of the Sphinx. Except the 'riddles' are laughably like shooting fish in a barrel ones yous can read off of a popsicle stick (Or in this instance, the bottom of a cup), and after every answer the guard insists All-time Out of Infinity.
Jay: Oh, what is the indicate of all this?!
Riddler: I'm but so lonely...
Teen Titans Go!: Used in "Crazy Solar day", where Raven is sucked into her ain mind and faces Starfire as the Sphinx. Due to Starfire's less-than-tenuous grip on human culture and spoken communication, Hilarity Ensues. Raven is able to outwit Starfire by claiming that she doesn't even know what the answer is, causing her to blurt it out.
Sphinx Starfire: What is running and walks with a mouth, and talks, and has a head, and also, the bed?
Raven: ...what.
In The Adventures of Puss in Boots, this is the start of five riddles the Sphinx asks of Puss. His reply of "Yellow" is remarked upon to be the near incorrect answer she's ever heard.
Batman: The Brave and the Bold: One episode's Cold Open has the Riddler asking Booster Aureate this question. Booster Gilt somehow concludes the answer is "a ix legged unicorn". Notation that the Riddler was playing a deadly game prove, and every time Booster got an answer wrong, Batman got a x,000-volt shock.
Parodied hilariously in an episode of Kaeloo where Mr. Cat dresses equally a sphinx and decides to ask Quack Quack riddles:
Mr. Cat: I take two arms in the forenoon, four ears in the afternoon and seven tentacles in the evening. Who am I?

In the WordGirl episode "Ms. Question's Riddle Rampage", Ms. Question forces WordGirl to reply the "what has four legs in the morning..." riddle to gratis her captive sidekick, Captain Huggyface. WordGirl is eventually able to effigy out the solution and save the day.

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

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