Ah, "the Grail seekers challenged by the Sphinx"!

I suppose that if you meet the Buddha on the road and haven't the strength to kill him, running away is the next best thing.

Many years ago, I took a seminar with a profoundly eccentric and original Classics prof name of Norman O. Brown. The title of the course was simply "Archetypes". I'm still recovering from a chronic case of Fisher-King syndrome.