Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward that lower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. As for this myth, one sees merely the whole effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it, and push it up a slope a hundred times over one sees the face screwed up, the cheek tight against the stone, the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them. Nothing is told us about Sisyphus in the underworld. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth. Gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. He is,Īs much through his passions as through his torture. You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. Mercury came and seized the impudent man by the collar and, snatching him from his joys, lead him forcibly back to the underworld, where his rock was ready for him. Many years more he lived facing the curve of the gulf, the sparkling sea, and the smiles of earth. Recalls, signs of anger, warnings were of no avail. Warm stones and the sea, he no longer wanted to go back to the infernal darkness. When he had seen again the face of this world, enjoyed water and sun, Pluto permission to return to earth in order to chastise his wife. And there,Īnnoyed by an obedience so contrary to human love, he obtained from He ordered her to cast his unburied body into the middle

It is said that Sisyphus, being near to death, rashly wanted to test He dispatched the god of war, who liberated Death from the hands of her conqueror. Pluto could not endure the sight of his deserted, silent empire. Homer tells us also that Sisyphus had put Death in chains. He was punished for this in the underworld. To the celestial thunderbolts he preferred the benediction of water. He, who knew of the abduction, offered to tell about it on condition that Esopus would give water to the citadel of Corinth. The father was shocked by that disappearance and complained to Sisyphus. Egina, the daughter of Esopus, was carried off by Jupiter. To begin with, he is accused of a certain levity in Opinions differ as to the reasons why he became the futile laborer of According to another tradition, however, he was disposed to If one believes Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor. The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. Albert Camus: THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS The Myth Of Sisyphus

The myth of sisyphus by albert camus