Once He Pushed the Rock Up the Hill It Fell Down Again Tartarus

King of Ephyra in Greek mythology

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus or Sisyphos (; Ancient Greek: Σίσυφος Sísyphos) was the founder and king of Ephyra (now known as Corinth). Zeus punished him for cheating expiry twice by being forced to roll an immense boulder upwards a hill only for it to whorl down every time it neared the elevation, repeating this activeness for eternity. Through the classical influence on modern culture, tasks that are both laborious and futile are therefore described as Sisyphean ().^[2]

Etymology [edit]

R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a pre-Greek origin and a connection with the root of the word sophos (σοφός, "wise").^[three] German mythographer Otto Gruppe idea that the name derived from sisys (σίσυς, "a goat's skin"), in reference to a rain-charm in which goats' skins were used.^[4]

Family [edit]

Sisyphus was the son of King Aeolus of Thessaly and Enarete^[5] and the brother of Salmoneus. He married the Pleiad Merope by whom he became the father of Glaucus, Ornytion, Thersander, Almus, Sinon and Porphyrion.^[6] Sisyphus was the gramps of Bellerophon through Glaucus,^{[7] [8]} and Minyas, founder of Orchomenus, through Almus.^[6]

Mythology [edit]

Reign [edit]

Sisyphus was the founder and showtime king of Ephyra (supposedly the original name of Corinth).^[7] King Sisyphus promoted navigation and commerce but was avaricious and mendacious. He killed guests and travelers in his palace, a violation of invitee-obligations, which fell under Zeus' domain, thus angering the god. He took pleasure in these killings because they allowed him to maintain his iron-fisted dominion.

Conflict with Salmoneus [edit]

Sisyphus and his brother Salmoneus were known to hate each other, and Sisyphus consulted the oracle of Delphi on just how to kill Salmoneus without incurring whatever astringent consequences for himself. From Homer onward, Sisyphus was famed as the craftiest of men. He seduced Salmoneus' girl Tyro in 1 of his plots to kill Salmoneus, only for Tyro to slay the children she bore him when she discovered that Sisyphus was planning on using them eventually to degrade her father.

Cheating death [edit]

Sisyphus betrayed one of Zeus' secrets by revealing the whereabouts of the Asopid Aegina to her father, the river god Asopus, in return for causing a jump to flow on the Corinthian acropolis.^[7]

Zeus and then ordered Thanatos to concatenation Sisyphus in Tartarus. Sisyphus was curious as to why Charon, whose chore it was to guide souls to the underworld, had not appeared on this occasion. Sisyphus slyly asked Thanatos to demonstrate how the chains worked. As Thanatos was granting him his wish, Sisyphus seized the opportunity and trapped Thanatos in the bondage instead. Once Thanatos was spring by the strong chains, no i died on Earth. This caused an uproar and Ares, bellyaching that his battles had lost their fun because his opponents would not die, intervened. The exasperated Ares freed Thanatos and turned Sisyphus over to him.^[9]

In some versions, Hades was sent to chain Sisyphus and was chained himself. Every bit long as Hades was tied up, nobody could die. Because of this, sacrifices could not exist made to the gods, and those that were erstwhile and sick were suffering. The gods finally threatened to brand life so miserable for Sisyphus that he would wish he were dead. He then had no option but to release Hades.^[10]

Before Sisyphus died, he had told his wife to throw his naked body into the middle of the public foursquare (purportedly as a test of his married woman's love for him). This caused Sisyphus to end upwardly on the shores of the river Styx. Then, complaining to Persephone, goddess of the underworld, that this was a sign of his wife'south disrespect for him, Sisyphus persuaded her to allow him to render to the upper world. Once dorsum in Ephyra, the spirit of Sisyphus scolded his wife for not burying his body and giving it a proper funeral as a loving wife should. When Sisyphus refused to return to the underworld, he was forcibly dragged back there by Hermes.^{[11] [12]} In another version of the myth, Persephone was tricked past Sisyphus that he had been conducted to Tartarus by mistake, and so she ordered that he exist released.^[thirteen]

In Philoctetes by Sophocles, there is a reference to the male parent of Odysseus (rumoured to take been Sisyphus, and non Laërtes, whom we know every bit the father in the Odyssey) upon having returned from the dead^{[ clarification needed ]}. Euripides, in Cyclops, also identifies Sisyphus as Odysseus' father.

Penalisation in the underworld [edit]

Equally a punishment for his trickery, Hades made Sisyphus curl a huge boulder endlessly up a steep colina.^{[7] [14] [xv]} The maddening nature of the penalty was reserved for Sisyphus due to his hubristic conventionalities that his cleverness surpassed that of Zeus himself. Hades accordingly displayed his ain cleverness by enchanting the boulder into rolling away from Sisyphus earlier he reached the summit, which ended upwards consigning Sisyphus to an eternity of useless efforts and unending frustration. Thus information technology came to pass that pointless or interminable activities are sometimes described every bit "Sisyphean". Sisyphus was a mutual field of study for ancient writers and was depicted past the painter Polygnotus on the walls of the Lesche at Delphi.^[sixteen]

Interpretations [edit]

Sisyphus as a symbol for continuing a senseless war. Johann Vogel: Meditationes emblematicae de restaurata footstep Germaniae, 1649

Co-ordinate to the solar theory, King Sisyphus is the disk of the lord's day that rises every day in the east and so sinks into the westward.^[17] Other scholars regard him as a personification of waves ascent and falling, or of the treacherous body of water.^[17] The 1st-century BC Epicurean philosopher Lucretius interprets the myth of Sisyphus as personifying politicians aspiring for political office who are constantly defeated, with the quest for ability, in itself an "empty thing", being likened to rolling the bedrock upwards the colina.^[xviii] Friedrich Welcker suggested that he symbolises the vain struggle of man in the pursuit of knowledge, and Salomon Reinach^[xix] 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, in his 1942 essay The Myth of Sisyphus, saw Sisyphus as personifying the applesauce of human life, simply Camus concludes "one must imagine Sisyphus happy" as "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart." More recently, J. Nigro Sansonese,^[20] building on the work of Georges Dumézil, speculates that the origin of the name "Sisyphus" is onomatopoetic of the continual back-and-forth, susurrant sound ("siss phuss") fabricated by the breath in the nasal passages, situating the mythology of Sisyphus in a far larger context of archaic (meet Proto-Indo-European religion) trance-inducing techniques related to jiff control. The repetitive inhalation–exhalation cycle is described esoterically in the myth as an up–down motion of Sisyphus and his boulder on a colina.

In experiments that test how workers respond when the meaning of their chore is diminished, the examination condition is referred to equally the Sisyphusian condition. The ii main conclusions of the experiment are that people work harder when their work seems more meaningful, and that people underestimate the relationship between meaning and motivation.^[21]

In his volume The Philosophy of Recursive Thinking,^[22] German language writer Manfred Kopfer suggested a feasible solution for Sisyphus' punishment. Every time Sisyphus reaches the top of the mountain, he breaks off a rock from the mountain and carries it downwards to the lowest bespeak. This way, the mountain volition eventually be levelled and the stone cannot roll down anymore. In Kopfers' interpretation, the solution turns the penalty by the gods into a test for Sisyphus to prove his worthiness for godlike deeds. If Sisyphus is able "to move a mountain", he shall exist immune to exercise what, otherwise, merely gods are entitled to exercise.

Literary interpretations [edit]

• Homer describes Sisyphus in both Volume Six of the Iliad and Book 11 of the Odyssey.^{[eight] [15]}
• Ovid, the Roman poet, makes reference to Sisyphus in the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. When Orpheus descends and confronts Hades and Persephone, he sings a song so that they will grant his wish to bring Eurydice back from the expressionless. Later this song is sung, Ovid shows how moving information technology was by noting that Sisyphus, emotionally affected, for just a moment, stops his eternal job and sits on his rock, the Latin diction being inque tuo sedisti, Sisyphe, saxo ("and y'all saturday, Sisyphus, on your stone").^[23]
• In Plato's Amends, Socrates looks forward to the after-life where he tin can run into figures such as Sisyphus, who recollect themselves wise, so that he can question them and discover who is wise and who "thinks he is when he is not"^[24]
• Albert Camus, the French absurdist, wrote an essay entitled The Myth of Sisyphus, in which he elevates Sisyphus to the status of absurd hero. Franz Kafka repeatedly referred to Sisyphus as a bachelor; Kafkaesque for him were those qualities that brought out the Sisyphus-like qualities in himself. According to Frederick Karl: "The human who struggled to reach the heights merely to be thrown down to the depths embodied all of Kafka's aspirations; and he remained himself, lonely, solitary."^[25] The philosopher Richard Taylor uses the myth of Sisyphus as a representation of a life made meaningless because it consists of bare repetition.^[26]
• Wolfgang Mieder has nerveless cartoons that build on the image of Sisyphus, many of them editorial cartoons.^[27]

In popular culture [edit]

• Sisyphus is a character in Hades, a 2020 indie rogue-like game adult by Supergiant Games, voiced by Andrew Marks.^{[28] [29]} The player character, Zagreus, is given the option to lessen Sisyphus' sentence in Tartarus.^{[30] [31]}

See besides [edit]

• The Myth of Sisyphus, a 1942 philosophical essay past Albert Camus which uses Sisyphus' punishment as a metaphor for the absurd
• Sisyphus cooling, a cooling technique named after the Sisyphus myth
• Syzyfowe prace, a novel by Stefan Żeromski
• Comparable characters:
  • Naranath Bhranthan, a willing boulder pusher in Indian sociology
  • Tantalus, who was similarly punished with a neverending toil
  • Wu Gang – also tasked with the incommunicable: to fell a self-regenerating tree

Notes [edit]

1. ^ museum inv. 1494
2. ^ "sisyphean". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford Academy Printing. (Subscription or participating establishment membership required.)
3. ^ R. S. P. Beekes, Etymological Lexicon of Greek, Brill, 2009, p. xxxiii.
4. ^ Gruppe, O. Griechische Mythologie (1906), 2., p. 1021
5. ^ Pseudo-Apollodorus. Bibliotheca, 1.vii.three
6. ^ ^{a b} Scholia, on Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 3.1553
7. ^ ^{a b c d} Pseudo-Apollodorus. Bibliotheca, one.9.3
8. ^ ^{a b} Homer, Iliad VI 152ff
9. ^ Morford & Lenardon 1999, p. 491.
10. ^ "Ancient Greeks: Is expiry necessary and tin decease actually harm u.s.a.?". Mlahanas.de. Archived from the original on 2 July 2014. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
11. ^ "Encyclopedia of Greek Mythology: Sisyphus". world wide web.mythweb.com. Archived from the original on 29 March 2021. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
12. ^ "Sisyphus". www.greekmythology.com.
13. ^ Evslin 2006, p. 209-210.
14. ^ "Homeros, Odyssey, 11.13". Perseus Digital Library. Retrieved 9 Oct 2014.
15. ^ ^{a b} Odyssey, xi. 593
16. ^ Pausanias x. 31
17. ^ ^{a b} Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Sisyphus". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 161.
18. ^ De Rerum Natura III
19. ^ Revue archéologique, 1904
20. ^ Sansonese, J. Nigro. The Body of Myth. Rochester, 1994, pp. 45–52. ISBN 0-89281-409-8
21. ^ Ariely, Dan (2010). The Upside of Irrationality. ISBN0-06-199503-7.
22. ^ Manfred Kopfer (2018); The Philosophy of Recursive Thinking, The recursive solution for Sisyphos problem. ISBN 978-3-7438-7149-6
23. ^ Ovid. Metamorphoses, 10.44.
24. ^ Apology, 41a
25. ^ Karl, Frederick. Franz Kafka: Representative Man. New York: International Publishing Corporation, 1991. p. 2
26. ^ Taylor, Richard. "Time and Life's Meaning." Review of Metaphysics forty (June 1987): 675–686.
27. ^ Wolfgang Mieder. 2013. Neues von Sisyphus: Sprichtwortliche Mythen der Antike in moderner Literatur, Medien und Karikaturen. Vienna: Praesens.
28. ^ "Hades: All Voice Actors From The Game & Who They Play". TheGamer. 19 August 2021. Retrieved vii September 2021.
29. ^ Jung, E. Alex (26 February 2021). "How I Learned to Beloved Dying (in Hades)". Vulture . Retrieved 10 September 2021. The real mythological forebear of Hades is non any of the Greek gods but really Sisyphus and his bedrock. He too appears in Hades, reimagined as someone whose endless toil has made him cheerful, reflective, and possibly a scrap mad. The task of pushing upwardly the bedrock has non changed, merely he seems to enjoy it. {{cite spider web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
30. ^ "Every Companion in Hades (& How To Get Them)". ScreenRant. 29 September 2020. Retrieved ten September 2021.
31. ^ "Hades: Is It Worth Giving Nectar To Bouldy?". Game Rant. five September 2021. Retrieved ten September 2021.

References [edit]

• Evslin, Bernard (2006). Gods, Demigods and Demons: A Handbook of Greek Mythology. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN978-one-84511-321-6.
• Homer, The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PhD in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Homer. Homeri Opera in five volumes. Oxford, Oxford Academy Press. 1920. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Homer, The Odyssey with an English Translation past A.T. Murray, PH.D. in 2 volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard Academy Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1919. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.
• Morford, Marking P. O.; Lenardon, Robert J. (1999). Classical Mythology. Oxford Academy Printing. ISBN978-0-19-514338-6.
• Pausanias, Description of Hellenic republic with an English Translation by W.H.South. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
• Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio. 3 vols. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903. Greek text bachelor at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Pseudo-Apollodorus, The Library with an English Translation past Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in two Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.
• Publius Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses translated by Brookes More than (1859-1942). Boston, Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Publius Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses. Hugo Magnus. Gotha (Germany). Friedr. Andr. Perthes. 1892. Latin text bachelor at the Perseus Digital Library.

External links [edit]

Await up Sisyphean in Wiktionary, the costless dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sisyphus.

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Sisyphus

• "Sisyphus". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.
• "Sisyphus". New International Encyclopedia. 1905.

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus

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