the Sphinx
In the story of Oedipus the starving city of Thebes was guarded by the sphinx, a winged creature who is part woman and part lioness. Those who would attempt to enter Thebes were put to the test of answering her riddle. If they didn't get it she would kill them. She had killed several by the time that Oedipus came along. He was able to answer her riddle correctly, and when he did she threw herself down from the citadel and died. I have pictured her after her fall, among the bones of those that she'd killed.
The riddle was "What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening."
The answer is "a man," who crawls on all fours while a baby, on two legs in his maturity, and with the aid of a cane in his old age.
I actually painted this thing back in 2009, but I wasn't happy with it. So a few years later I was sitting in my studio thinking about what to do next when I pulled this thing out, decided on what needed to be done differently, and set off to work to fix the thing. In the end the surface had been covered again, but I like it better. It isn't often that I pull something out that I'd finished before and go to work on it again, but the thing needed it.