{"collection":"Northern European Mythology","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/neu/dun/fotd/fotd05.htm","path":"neu/dun/fotd/fotd05.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/neu/dun/fotd/fotd05.htm","text":"Fifty-one Tales, by Lord Dunsany, [1915]\nTHE SPHINX AT GIZEH\nI saw the other day the Sphinx's painted face.\nShe had painted her face in order to ogle Time.\nAnd he has spared no other painted face in all the world but hers.\nDelilah was younger than she, and Delilah is dust. Time hath loved nothing but this worthless painted face.\nI do not care that she is ugly, nor that she has painted her face, so that she only lure his secret from Time.\nTime dallies like a fool at her feet when he should be smiting cities.\nTime never wearies of her silly smile.\nThere are temples all about her that he has forgotten to spoil.\nI saw an old man go by, and Time never touched him.\nTime that has carried away the seven gates of Thebes!\nShe has tried to bind him with ropes of eternal sand, she had hoped to oppress him with the Pyramids.\nHe lies there in the sand with his foolish hair all spread about her paws.\nIf she ever finds his secret we will put out his eyes, so that he shall find no more our beautiful things\u2014there are lovely gates in Florence that I fear he will carry away.\nWe have tried to bind him with song and with old customs, but they only held him for a little while, and he has always smitten us and mocked us.\nWhen he is blind he shall dance to us and make sport.\nGreat clumsy time shall stumble and dance, who liked to kill little children, and can hurt even the daisies no longer.\nThen shall our children laugh at him who slew Babylon's winged bulls, and smote great numbers of the gods and fairies\u2014when he is shorn of his hours and his years.\nWe will shut him up in the Pyramid of Cheops, in the great chamber where the sarcophagus is. Thence we will lead him out when we give our feasts. He shall ripen our corn for us and do menial work.\nWe will kiss they painted face, O Sphinx, if thou wilt betray to us Time.\nAnd yet I fear that in his ultimate anguish he may take hold blindly of the world and the moon, and slowly pull down upon him the House of Man.","title":"Fifty-one Tales: The Sphinx at Gizeh","type":"page"}