Sisyphus

More about Sisyphus

The punishment that befalls Sisyphus has become proverbial. Homer does not give a reason for the punishment, which is why various authors in antiquity gave different reasons for it: once Sisyphus was punished for his rebelliousness towards the god Thanatos, once for his cunning, once because he betrayed the father of the gods Zeus to the river god Asopos the one whose daughter Aegina stole. Finally, Hermes forces him into the underworld for his crime, where as punishment he has to roll a boulder up a mountain forever, which, almost at the summit, always rolls back into the valley. This motif was already formative for the reception of Sisyphus in ancient times; today, Sisyphean work or Sisyphean task is a common expression for a fruitless and difficult activity with no foreseeable end.[