Greek Mythology: Sisyphus

[paulb203]

Why didn't he refuse to push the boulder up the hill?

 

[Mayhem]

He couldn't
He was compelled by divine interference.

 

[fresh_42]

Sisyphus was quite clever and a trickster. He ridiculed the gods of the underworld, Hades, and even made an enemy of Zeus. Therefore, after his death, his shadow was condemned to roll up the rock in Tartarus again and again.

You can't do much once you're dead. Especially not against the wrath of the gods.

 

[DaveC426913]

Why didn't he refuse to push the boulder up the hill?

Or better yet, turn that frown upside down and make money while you sleep.

 

[paulb203]

Sisyphus was quite clever and a trickster. He ridiculed the gods of the underworld, Hades, and even made an enemy of Zeus. Therefore, after his death, his shadow was condemned to roll up the rock in Tartarus again and again.

You can't do much once you're dead. Especially not against the wrath of the gods.

Thanks.
You say you can't do much once you're dead, but when he first died and when to Hades didn't he rebel by tricking them into letting him live again?

 

[fresh_42]

Thanks.
You say you can't do much once you're dead, but when he first died and when to Hades didn't he rebel by tricking them into letting him live again?

Yes, but not eternally.

 

[paulb203]

Yes, but not eternally.

Yeah, he got dragged back to Hades, is that right?

 

[fresh_42]

Yeah, he got dragged back to Hades, is that right?

After he extended his normal lifespan by cheating, he became very old, but not immortal. I had only looked up the summary and not the whole story. It was very complicated (already in the summary), as usual in Greek mythology. The point to answer your question was that his shadow after his death was sentenced for the torture with the boulder, not Sisyphus, while he lived.

 

[apostolosdt]

Read Camus; and, please, don’t take everything too literally.

 

[paulb203]

Read Camus; and, please, don’t take everything too literally.

Thanks.
I'd read about Camus, and his idea, if I've understood it, that Sisyphus's task is a metaphor for our lives generally, given that Camus believed life to be meaningless, and we are all toiling away at it even though it is futile.
I hear you when you say don't take everything too literally, but I'm assuming there is always some logic to these stories. Before I go on, do you know if Sisyphus's punishment was supposed to be the ultimate punishment?
This is why I'm asking the question.
If it was supposed to be the ultimate punishment, why didn't it occur to the creator of the story (or creators, plural, given the oral tradition of someone coming up with the story, then successive generations adding to it etc) that Sisyphus could have refused to push the boulder up the hill.
And, had the gods threatened him with some other punishment if he continued to refuse, Sisyphus could've said, 'Whatever you come up with can't be worse than this.'
So much of mythology seems to be about pitting the mortals against the gods, and given Sisyphus's cunning, even when he was dead, and first in Hades, this seems like an obvious plot twist to me.

 

[Klystron]

Read Camus; and, please, don’t take everything too literally.

And for SF fans, P. K. Dick wrote a futuristic novel that contains a Sisyphus / Camus allegory, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?".

In the original novel, though not in the "Bladerunner" movie versions, human characters connect to an electronic empathy network that simulates a Sisyphean ancient person climbing an endless hill. Instead of rolling a large stone uphill, small rocks intermittently strike the climber. Rather than demonstrating futility of striving, the shared agony of the simulation expresses common virtue.