"Quadruped in the dawn, erect at noon, and wandering on three legs across the blind spaces of the afternoon; so the eternal Sphinx saw her inconstant brother, Man. And to her rocky silence came a man who unlocked the riddle in the mirror; terrified, he saw the shattering image of his destruction and his error. We are Oedipus, doomed as he, to be the triple beast: child, savior, suppliant- all that we will be, all that we have been. It would annihilate us in an instant to glimpse our monstrous being; merciful God grants us issue and oblivion."