Atalanta Fugiens · Emblem XXXIX
Oedypus Sphynge superata et trucidato Lajo patre matrem ducit in uxorem.
Oedipus, having overcome the Sphinx and killed his father Laius, takes his mother as his wife.
Emblem XXXIX
Three centuries before Freud, Maier read the myth of Oedipus as an allegory of the work: the riddle solved, the old ruler removed, a return to the origin.
A question to carry
Which riddle have you been avoiding?
Emblem of the day
Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens (1618), with the Latin motto, a translation and a reading for each plate.
Engraving in the public domain.