This Sphinx summary begins in a student’s room at night. Oscar Wilde’s long poem imagines a young man questioning a small statue of a sphinx, half woman and half beast, about the ancient loves and gods she has seen. As his questions grow wilder, fascination turns to disgust, and he finally drives her away. It is Wilde’s most extravagant poem, famous for its strange sounds and rare words. Read the full text of The Sphinx on Poetry Catalog.
The Sphinx Summary
Opening: the watcher. “In a dim corner of my room for longer than my fancy thinks / A beautiful and silent Sphinx has watched me through the shifting gloom.” She never moves. Day and night pass, and “this curious cat / Lies couching on the Chinese mat with eyes of satin rimmed with gold.”
The summons. The speaker calls to her: “Come forth, my lovely seneschal! so somnolent, so statuesque!” He wants to stroke her and touch her “curving claws of yellow ivory.”
The questions. He points out that “A thousand weary centuries are thine” while he has “hardly seen / Some twenty summers.” She must have seen everything: Isis and Osiris, Cleopatra and Antony, the “painted kings” of the pyramids. He asks who her lovers were, from river gods to monsters.
The fallen god. He describes a great god she once loved, now ruined, whose “giant granite hand” is “still clenched in impotent despair.” The pagan world she belongs to is dead.
The rejection. His mood turns. “Get hence, you loathsome mystery! Hideous animal, get hence!” She wakes “each bestial sense” and makes his “creed a barren sham.” He sends her away and turns to his crucifix, an image of Christ who “weeps for every soul in vain.”
Key Facts
- Poet: Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
- Published: 1894, illustrated by Charles Ricketts; begun years earlier, partly in Paris and Oxford
- Length: about 170 lines
- Form: long lines built from In Memoriam stanzas, with internal rhyme
- Speaker: a young scholar, “some twenty summers” old
- Tone: dreamy and decadent, turning to horror
Themes
Temptation. The Sphinx stands for sensual desire. The speaker is drawn to her and then fears what she makes him.
Pagan against Christian. The poem sets the lush gods of Egypt and Greece against the suffering Christ, and ends with the crucifix.
Time. Her centuries against his twenty summers make the speaker small. The mystery she holds is too old to know.
Decadence. Rich colors, perfumes and exotic names are the style of the 1890s Decadent movement. The poem enjoys excess even as it condemns it.
Key Lines Explained
A beautiful and silent Sphinx has watched me through the shifting gloom.
The poem starts with the speaker being watched, not watching. The silent Sphinx has power from the first line.
Come forth, my lovely seneschal! so somnolent, so statuesque!
A seneschal is a steward of a great house. Rare words like this, and the hissing “s” sounds, are typical of the poem.
Get hence, you loathsome mystery! Hideous animal, get hence!
The turning point. “Lovely” has become “loathsome.”
And weeps for every soul that dies, and weeps for every soul in vain.
The final line is bleak. Even Christ’s grief may not save anyone.
Form, Meter and Rhyme
Wilde uses the stanza of Tennyson’s In Memoriam (four iambic tetrameter lines rhyming ABBA) but prints each pair as one long line. The result is an internal rhyme in the middle of lines (“thinks” … “Sphinx”), which gives the poem its hypnotic, chanting sound.
The Sphinx FAQ
What is The Sphinx about?
A young man questioning a statue of a sphinx about ancient loves and gods, then rejecting her as a temptation.
What does the Sphinx symbolize?
Mystery, sensual desire and the pagan past.
How does the poem end?
The speaker drives the Sphinx away and turns to his crucifix.
Why is The Sphinx hard to read?
It is full of rare words and allusions to Egyptian and classical myth.