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| Picture Credits: Britannica |
Sisyphus, or Sisyphos, is a man from Greek mythology who became famous for his deeds in the underworld rather than what he did in his life. Sisyphus was the founder and king of Corinth (known in ancient Greece as Ephyra). He was known for his wicked intelligence, trickery and his eternal punishment for cheating death twice.
Cheating Death: The Peak of Trickery
Like many other Greek myths and legends, Sisyphus’s story also has many varying versions depending on the authors. But his punishment is the one thing that remains unchanged throughout all the versions. Sisyphus was the son of King Aeolus and Enarete of Thessaly. Sisyphus also founded the famed Isthmian games of Corinth.
These games were held every two years in honour of Poseidon and were one of the four major Panhellenic games including the Olympic games. Sisyphus' son Glaucus replaced him as king of Corinth, but he was ripped to shreds by his own flesh-eating horses. His grandson Bellerophon’s winged horse, Pegasus, became a symbol of the city and a feature of Corinthian coins.
Homer describes Sisyphus in Iliad as “the most cunning of men” and he certainly lived up to this statement, cheating death not once but twice.
The first was when he betrayed Zeus who had taken Aegina, daughter of Asopus. Sisyphus, who had observed the kidnapping, told Asopus the whereabouts of his daughter in exchange for a fresh-water spring in Corinth.
By doing this, Sisyphus earned Zeus’s wrath. Zeus ordered Thanatos, personification of death, to chain Sisyphus in Tartarus, where souls were judged and divine punishment was exacted.
Sisyphus tricked Thanatos into demonstrating how the chains worked and trapped him. As a result of Death being chained, no one died on earth which caused an uproar. Ares intervened because apparently he was annoyed that his opponents in battles weren’t dying and it spoiled his fun. So, he freed Thanatos.
The second time, before Sisyphus descended to the underworld, he told his wife not to perform the rituals and offerings that were due her husband’s death if she really loved him. Sisyphus pleaded Persephone, goddess of the underworld and Hades’s wife, and asked her to let him return to earth and instruct his wife to carry out the rituals.
After being granted this second lease on life, he refused to return to the underworld and lived to a ripe old age (because death didn’t want to go near him because of what happened to him previously) before being dragged back to Hades, a second time, by Hermes to receive his eternal punishment.
The Sisyphean Punishment
For his punishment, Sisyphus was made to roll a huge boulder up a steep hill. Hades enchanted the boulder into rolling away from Sisyphus before he reached the top. Every time he reached the top, the boulder would come rolling down and Sisyphus would roll it up again only to have the same thing repeated again and again, endlessly.
As a result of the classical influence on modern culture, tedious and pointless tasks came to be referred to as Sisyphean.
Critical Analysis: Lessons in Absurdity
In his essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus interprets Sisyphus as the personification of absurdity of human life. Though in his conclusion he says that “The struggle itself ... is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy”. Camus elevates Sisyphus’s status to that of an absurd hero.
Camus is interested in what goes on in Sisyphus’s mind when he sees the boulder rolling down the mountain after he just labored to roll it up. He says that when Sisyphus is walking down the mountain, this is the time when he becomes conscious of the futility of his labour and the absurdity and hopelessness of his situation. A truly tragic moment for him.
Only for a moment but he is free from his labour and is overcome with sorrow when he looks at the world he has left behind. But the acknowledgment of his tragic and certain fate that he is chained to this destiny for eternity and the acceptance of the crushing truth is what, ironically, frees Sisyphus and makes him content with it.
The mountain and the rock can also be used as symbols of Sisyphus’s fate. Just as they stand and endure all sorts of calamities forever, Sisyphus must also suffer his fate for eternity.
Sisyphus is someone who admires the natural world and genuinely lusts for life. It is not that he has become content with his fate but that he has no choice but to just accept it.
In a Nutshell
We are all searching for life’s meaning, the purpose of our existence because for us humans, living a meaningless life is a scary thought. We cannot put in endless efforts towards something that is futile and that applies to everything from work to our relationships with people.
When people can’t find any sort of meaning in living, they see dying as the only option. That's how much focus we put on the meaning of life. We search for reason in an unreasonable world. So, ultimately aren’t we doing what we would rather not- putting in efforts for something that’s futile.
Through Sisyphus’s story, we are taught to embrace the absurdity of life and be content with it because only through acceptance can we overcome it and find happiness and peace in life’s unreasonability.
Written By - Sanjana Chaudhary
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