Sisyphus

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The Greek Underworld
Residents:
Persephone Hades Minos Aeacus	Rhadamanthys Charon Cerberus
Geography:
Acheron Cocytus Tartarus Lethe Elysion	Styx Phlegethon Asphodel Meadows Erebus
Famous inmates:
Ixion Sisyphus	Tantalus The Titans
Related:
Greek mythology	Greek religion

Sisyphus (Greek Σίσυφος; transliteration: Sísuphos; IPA: ['sɪsɪfəs]), in Greek mythology, was a king punished in the underworld by being set to roll a huge rock up a hill throughout eternity. The name is traditionally connected with sophos "wise"; but this has etymological problems.

[edit] Biography

Sisyphus was the son of Aeolus and Enarete, husband of Merope, and King/Founder of Ephyra (Corinth), but some later sources say Sisyphus was the father of Odysseus by Anticlea, just before she married her later husband, Laertes. Sisyphus was said to have founded the Isthmian games in honour of Melicertes, whose body he found lying on the shore of the Isthmus of Corinth.

Sisyphus promoted navigation and commerce, but was avaricious and deceitful, killing travellers and guests in violation of the laws of hospitality. From Homer onwards, Sisyphus was famed as the craftiest of men. He seduced his niece, took his brother's throne and betrayed Zeus's secrets (specifically, Zeus' rape of Aegina, the river god Asopus' daughter, or by some accounts, the daughter of his father Aeolus, making her either Sisyphus' sister or half-sister). Zeus then ordered Hades to chain Sisyphus in hell. Sisyphus slyly asked Thanatos to try the chains to show how they worked, and when Thanatos did so, Sisyphus secured them and threatened Hades. This caused an uproar, and no human could die till Ares (who was annoyed that his battles had lost their fun because his opponents would not die) intervened, freeing Thanatos and sending Sisyphus to Tartarus.

However, before Sisyphus died, he had told his wife that when he was dead she was not to offer the usual sacrifice. In the underworld he complained that his wife was neglecting him and persuaded Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, to allow him to go back to the upper world and ask her to perform her duty. When Sisyphus got back to Corinth, he refused to return and was eventually carried back to the underworld by Hermes.

[edit] "Sisyphean task" or "Sisyphean challenge"

Sisyphus on a red-figure vase

As a punishment from the gods for his trickery, Sisyphus was compelled to roll a huge rock up a steep hill, but before he reached the top of the hill, the rock always escaped him and he had to begin again (Odyssey, xi. 593). The Image personifies Vain labor. This punishment was because Sisyphus told the river god Asopus the whereabouts of Asopus' daughter, Aegina. Zeus had taken her away, and was then angry at Sisyphus (Edith Hamilton's Mythology, 312–313). 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 on the walls of the Lesche at Delphi (Pausanias x. 31).

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. Welcker suggested that he symbolises the vain struggle of man in the pursuit of knowledge, and S. Reinach (Revue archéologique, 1904) that his punishment is based on a picture in which Sisyphus was represented rolling a huge stone up Acrocorinthus, symbolic of the labour and skill involved in the building of the Sisypheum.