Sisyphus

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Sisyphus

In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
, Sisyphus (Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
: S?s?f?? [sí.sy.phos] , Latinized: Sisyphus, ), was a king

King

King is a title for a head of state.King may also refer to:...
punished in Tartarus

Tartarus

Boulder

In geology, a boulder is a rock with Particle size of usually no less than 256 mm diameter. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive....
up a hill

Hill

A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain, in a limited area. Hills often have a distinct Summit , although in areas with Escarpment a hill may refer to a particular section of scarp slope without a well-defined summit ....
, only to watch it roll down again, and to repeat this throughout eternity

Eternity

While in the popular mind, eternity often simply means existing for a limitless amount of time, many have used it to refer to a timeless existence altogether outside of time....
.

Today, Sisyphean can be used as an adjective meaning that an activity is unending and/or repetitive. It could also be used to refer to tasks that are pointless and unrewarding.

The myth
Sisyphus was son of the king Aeolus

Aeolus

Aeolus , Latinized as ?olus was the ruler of the winds in Greek mythology. In fact this name was shared by three mythic characters. These three personages are often difficult to tell apart, and even the ancient mythographers appear to have been perplexed about which Aeolus was which....
of Thessaly

Thessaly

Thessaly is one of the 13 Peripheries of Greece of Greece, and is further sub-divided into 4 Prefectures of Greece. The capital of the periphery and traditional Regions of Greece is Larissa....
and Enarete

Enarete

In Greek mythology, Enarete was the wife of Aeolus and ancestress of the Aeolians. Her children were Canace, Sisyphus, Deioneus, Salmoneus, Macar, Cretheus, Athamas, Perieres, Calyce , Peisidice, Perimele and in some myths, Alcyone....
, and the founder and first king of Ephyra

Ephyra

Ephyra may refer to:* The city of Kichyro, later known as Ephyra.* Ephyra, one of the Oceanids* Ephyra, one of the Nereids* Ephyra, stage of the life cycle of Aurelia ...
(Corinth

Ancient Corinth

Corinth, or Korinth was a city-state on the Isthmus of Corinth, the narrow stretch of land that joins the Peloponnesus to the mainland of Greece, roughly halfway between Ancient Athens and Sparta....
).

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In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek language

King

King is a title for a head of state.King may also refer to:...
punished in Tartarus

Tartarus

Boulder

Hill

Eternity

The myth

Sisyphus was son of the king Aeolus

Aeolus

Thessaly

Enarete

Ephyra

Ephyra may refer to:* The city of Kichyro, later known as Ephyra.* Ephyra, one of the Oceanids* Ephyra, one of the Nereids* Ephyra, stage of the life cycle of Aurelia ...
(Corinth

Ancient Corinth

Glaucus

In Greek mythology, Glaucus was the name of several different figures, including one god . These figures are sometimes referred to as Glaukos or Glacus....
by the nymph Merope

Merope

Merope was the name of several, probably unrelated, characters in Greek mythology.* Merope , one of the Heliades, daughter of Helios and Clymene...
, and the grandfather of Bellerophon

Bellérophon

Bell?rophon is an opera with music by Jean-Baptiste Lully and a libretto by Thomas Corneille and Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle first performed at the Palais Royal, Paris on 31 January 1679....
.

Sisyphus promoted navigation and commerce, but was and deceitful, violating the laws of hospitality by killing travelers and guests. He took pleasure in these killings because they allowed him to maintain his dominant position. From Homer

Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
onwards, Sisyphus was famed as the craftiest of men. He seduced his niece, took his brother's throne and betrayed Zeus

Zeus

Zeus in Greek mythology is the king of the gods, the ruler of Mount Olympus and the god of the sky father and List of thunder gods. His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull , and oak....
's secrets. Zeus then ordered Hades

Hades

Hades refers both to the ancient Greek underworld, the abode of Hades, and to the god of the underworld. Hades in Homer referred just to the god; the genitive case , Haidou, was an elision to denote locality: "[the house/dominion] of Hades"....
to chain Sisyphus in Tartarus

Tartarus

In classic Roman mythology, below Heaven, Earth, and Pontus is Tartarus, or Tartaros . It is a deep, gloomy place, a pit, or an abyss used as a dungeon of torment and suffering that resides beneath the Hades....
. Sisyphus slyly asked Hades to try the chains to show how they worked. When Hades did so, Sisyphus secured them and threatened him. This caused an uproar, and no human could die until Ares

Ares

In Greek mythology, Ares is the son of Zeus and Hera. Though often referred to as the Twelve Olympians God of warfare, he is more accurately the god of bloodlust, or slaughter personified: "Ares is apparently an ancient abstract noun meaning throng of battle, war."...
(who was annoyed that his battles had lost their fun because his opponents would not die) intervened, freeing Hades and sending Sisyphus to Tartarus.

However, before Sisyphus died, he had told his wife to throw his naked body into the middle of the public square in attempt to test his wife's love for him. Annoyed by the obedience and loveless decision by his wife, Sisyphus persuaded Persephone

Persephone

In Greek mythology, Persephone was the embodiment of the Earth's fertility at the same time that she was the Queen of the Greek Underworld, the kore , and the parthenogenesis daughter of Demeter and, in later Classical myths, a daughter of Demeter and Zeus....
, Queen of the Underworld, to allow him to go back to the upper world and scold his wife for not burying his body like a loving wife would. When Sisyphus returned to Corinth, he refused to retreat back to the underworld and was forcibly dragged back to the underworld by Hermes

Hermes

Hermes is the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology. An Twelve Olympians, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of thieves and road travelers, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures, of invention, of general commerce, and of the cunni...
. In another version of the myth, Persephone was directly persuaded that he had been conducted to Tartarus by mistake and ordered him to be freed.

"Sisyphean task" or "Sisyphean challenge"

As a punishment from the gods for his trickery, Sisyphus was compelled to roll a huge rock up a steep hill, but before he could reach the top of the hill, the rock would always roll back down again, forcing him to begin again. The maddening nature of the punishment was reserved for Sisyphus due to his hubris

Hubris

Hubris or hybris , mythology is a term used in modern English to indicate overweening pride, superciliousness, or arrogance, often resulting in fatal retribution....
tic belief that his cleverness surpassed that of Zeus. Sisyphus took the bold step of reporting one of Zeus's sexual conquests, telling the river god Asopus

Asopus

Asopus or As?pos is the name of five different rivers in Greece and Turkey and also in Greek mythology the name of the God of those rivers....
of the whereabouts of his daughter Aegina

Aegina (mythology)

Aegina was a figure of Greek mythology, the nymph of the island that bears her name, Aegina, lying in the Saronic Gulf between Attica and the Peloponnesos....
. Zeus had taken her away, but regardless of the impropriety of Zeus's frequent conquests, Sisyphus overstepped his bounds by considering himself a peer of the gods who could rightfully report their indiscretions. As a result, Zeus displayed his own cleverness by binding Sisyphus to an eternity of frustration. Accordingly, pointless or interminable activities are often described as Sisyphean. Sisyphus was a common subject for ancient writers and was depicted by the painter Polygnotus

Polygnotus

Polygnotus was an ancient Greek painter from the middle of the 5th century BC, son of Aglaophon. He was a native of Thasos, but was adopted by the Athenians, and admitted to their citizenship....
on the walls of the Lesche

Lesche

Lesche is an Ionic Greek word, signifying council or conversation, and a place for council or conversation. There is frequent mention of places of public resort, in the Greek cities, by the name of leschai , some set apart for the purpose, and others so called because they were so used by loungers; to the latter class belong...
at Delphi

Delphi

Delphi is an archaeology site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis. Delphi was the site of the Pythia, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, when it was a major site for the worship of the god Apollo after he slew the Python , a deity who lived there and protecte...
.

Interpretations

According to the solar theory, Sisyphus is the disk of the sun that rises every day in the east and then sinks into the west. Other scholars regard him as a personification of waves rising and falling, or of the treacherous sea. The 1st-century BC Epicurean

Epicureanism

Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of Epicurus , founded around 307 BC. Epicurus was an atomism materialism, following in the steps of Democritus....
philosopher Lucretius

Lucretius

Titus Lucretius Carus was a Roman Republic poet and philosopher. His only known work is the epic philosophical poem on Epicureanism De rerum natura, translated into English as On the Nature of Things....
interprets the myth of Sisyphus as personifying politicians aspiring for political office who are constantly defeated, with the quest for power, in itself an "empty thing," being likened to rolling the boulder up the hill. Welcker

Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker

Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker , Germany philologist and archaeologist, was born at Gr?nberg, Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt.Having studied classical philology at the university of Giessen, he was appointed master in the high school, an office which he combined with that of lecturer at the university....
suggested that he symbolises the vain struggle of man in the pursuit of knowledge, and S. Reinach that his punishment is based on a picture in which Sisyphus was represented rolling a huge stone Acrocorinthus, symbolic of the labour and skill involved in the building of the Sisypheum. Albert Camus

Albert Camus

Albert Camus was an Algerian-born France author, Philosophy, and journalist who won the Nobel Prize in 1957. He is often associated with existentialism, but Camus refused this label....
, in his 1942 essay The Myth of Sisyphus
The Myth of Sisyphus

The Myth of Sisyphus is a philosophical essay by Albert Camus. It comprises about 120 pages and was published originally in 1942 in French language as Le Mythe de Sisyphe; the English translation by Justin O'Brien followed in 1955....
, sees Sisyphus as personifying the absurdity of human life, but concludes "one must imagine Sisyphus happy" as "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart."

Literary and other references

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso was a Roman Empire poet known as Ovid to the English language-speaking world, who wrote about love, seduction, and Roman mythology transformation....
, the famous Roman poet, references Sisyphus in the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. When Orpheus descends and confronts Hades and Persephone, he sings a song with the result of getting his wish of bringing Eurydice back. After this song is sung, Ovid shows how moving it was by noting that Sisyphus sat on his rock, the Latin wording being "inque tuo sedisti Sisyphe, saxo."

Albert Camus

Albert Camus

Albert Camus was an Algerian-born France author, Philosophy, and journalist who won the Nobel Prize in 1957. He is often associated with existentialism, but Camus refused this label....
, the French Absurdist, wrote an essay entitled The Myth of Sisyphus
The Myth of Sisyphus

The Myth of Sisyphus is a philosophical essay by Albert Camus. It comprises about 120 pages and was published originally in 1942 in French language as Le Mythe de Sisyphe; the English translation by Justin O'Brien followed in 1955....
in which he elevates Sisyphus to the status of absurd hero.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka was one of the major fiction writers of the 20th century. He was born to a middle-class German language-speaking Jewish family in Prague, Austria-Hungary, presently the Czech Republic....
repeatedly referred to Sisyphus as a bachelor; the Kafkaesque

Kafkaesque

"Kafkaesque" is an eponym used to describe concepts, situations, and ideas which are reminiscent of the literary work of Prague writer Franz Kafka, particularly his novels The Trial and The Castle , and the novella The Metamorphosis....
for him were those qualities that brought out the Sisyphus-like qualities in himself. According to Frederick Karl: "The man who struggled to reach the heights only to be thrown down to the depths embodied all of Kafka's aspirations; and he remained himself, alone, solitary."

In Gene Wolfe

Gene Wolfe

Gene Wolfe is an United States science fiction and fantasy writer. He is noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith, to which he converted after marrying a Catholic....
's Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
novel Soldier of Arete, the protagonist Latro encounters Sisyphus, observes him trying to lift the stone and fail, then succeeds in helping him carry the stone to the top of the hill.

Also seen in Airborn by Kenneth Oppel

Kenneth Oppel

Kenneth Oppel is a Canada author. Born in Port Alberni, British Columbia, British Columbia, he spent his childhood in Victoria, British Columbia, British Columbia and City of Halifax, Nova Scotia....
in regard to the Sisyphus Triangle, similar to the Bermuda Triangle

Bermuda Triangle

The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is a region of the northwestern Atlantic Ocean in which a number of aircraft and Surface ship are alleged to have disappeared....
.

In ultra low temperature Physics, 'The Sisyphus Effect' involves the use of specially selected laser light, hitting atoms from various angles to both cool and trap them in a potential well, effectively 'rolling' the atom down a hill of potential energy until it has lost its kinetic energy.

The stone Sisiphus ended rolling up the hill, became the name of the title track and album for the American rock band Chicago

Chicago (band)

Chicago is an American pop rock band formed in 1967 in Chicago, Illinois. The band began as a politically charged, sometimes experimental, rock band and later moved to a predominantly softer sound, becoming famous for producing a number of hit ballads....
titled Chicago XXXII: Stone of Sisiphys. It was a metaphor describing their career.

“Cheating Death” theme in other folk tales

The way in which Sisyphus cheated Death is not unique to his tale. Thus in a Venetian

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy, the capital city of the Italian regions Veneto, a population of 271,251 . Together with Padua, Italy, the city is included in the Padua-Venice Metropolitan Area ....
story the ingenious Beppo ties up Death in a bag and keeps him there for eighteen months; there is general rejoicing; nobody dies, and the doctors are in high feather. In a Sicilian

Sicily

Sicily is an Autonomous regions with special statute of Italy. Of all the regions of Italy, Sicily covers the largest land area at 25,708 km? and currently has just over five million inhabitants....
story an innkeeper corks up Death in a bottle; so nobody dies for years, and the long white beards are a sight to see. In another Sicilian story a monk keeps Death in his pouch for forty years (T. F. Crane

Thomas Frederick Crane

Thomas Frederick Crane was an United States folklorist, academic and lawyer.He studied law at Princeton University, earned his undergraduate degree in 1864, and in 1867 graduated with an A.M....
, Italian Popular Tales, 1885). The German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
parallel is Gambling Hansel, who kept Death up a tree for seven years, during which no one died (Grimm

Brothers Grimm

The Brothers Grimm , Jakob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm , were Germans academics who were best known for publishing collections of folk tales and fairy tales and for their work in linguistics, relating to how the sounds in words shift over time ....
, Household Tales). The Norse

Norse

Norse is an adjective relating things to ancient Scandinavia, that is Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland during the early Middle-Ages ....
parallel is the tale of the Master Smith (G. W. Dasent

George Webbe Dasent

Sir George Webbe Dasent , England writer, was born in Saint Vincent , West Indies, the son of the attorney general of that island.He was educated at Westminster School, King's College London, and University of Oxford, where he was a contemporary of John Thadeus Delane, whose friend he had become at King's College....
, Popular Tales from the Norse). For a Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast to the southwest....
n parallel, see A. Schleicher, Litauische Märchen, Sprichworte, Rätsel und Lieder (1857); for Slavonic parallels, F. S. Krauss

Friedrich Salomon Krauss

Friedrich Salomon Krauss was an Croatian Jewish sexology, ethnography, folkloristics, and Slavistics.In 1877-78 Krauss attended the University of Vienna....
, Sagen und Märchen der Südslaven, ii. Nos. 125, 126; see also Frazer's Pausanias, iii. p. 33; O. Gruppe

Otto Gruppe

Otto Gruppe was a German mythographer, remembered for his Griechische Mythologie und Religion-Geschichte , which summed up the 19th century reading of Greek mythology through surviving texts....
, Griechische Mythologie (1906), ii., p. 1021, note 2.

Sisyphus

The myth

"Sisyphean task" or "Sisyphean challenge"

Interpretations

Literary and other references

“Cheating Death” theme in other folk tales

See also

Sources