SISYPHUS  , in

Greek mythology, son of Aeolus and Enarete, and king of Ephyra (Corinth) . He was the father of the sea-god Glaucus and (in post-Homeric legend) of Odysseus . He was said to have founded the Isthmian games in honour of Melicertes, whose body he found lying on the shore of the Istnmus of Corinth (Apollodorus iii . 4) . He promoted navigation and commerce, but was avaricious and deceitful . From Homer onwards Sisyphus was famed as the craftiest of men . When Death came to fetch him, Sisyphus put him into fetters, so that no one died till Ares came and, freed Death, and delivered Sisyphus into his custody . But Sisyphus was not yet at the end of his resources . For before he died he told his wife that when he was gone she was not to offer the usual sacrifice to the dead . So in the under world he complained that his wife was neglecting her duty, and he persuaded Hades to allow him to go back to the upper world and expostulate with her . But when he got back to Corinth he positively refused to return, until forcibly carried off by Hermes (Schol. on Pindar, 01. i . 97) .

In the under world Sisyphus was compelled to

roll a big stone up a steep hill; but before it reached the top of the hill the stone always rolled down, and Sisyphus had to begin all over again (Odyssey, xi . 593)• The reason for this punishment is not mentioned in Homer, and is obscure; according to some, he had revealed the designs of the gods to mortals, according to others, he was in the habit of attacking and murdering travellers . The subject was a common-place of 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 and then sinks below the horizon . Others see in him a personification of the waves rising to a height and then suddenly falling, or of the treacherous sea . It is suggested by Welcker that the legend is symbolical of the vain struggle of man in the pursuit of knowledge . The name Sisyphus is generally explained as a reduplicated form of oo4hs (=" the very wise "); Gruppe, however, thinks it may be connected with ale-vs (" a ' Virgil, Aen. viii . 696; Lucan x . 63; Ovid, Am. ii . 13 . I1; Mart xiv .

54 .

xxv . 6goat's skin "), the reference being to a rain-charm in which goats' skins were used . S . Reinach ( Revue archeologique,1904) finds the origin of the story in a picture, in which Sisyphus was represented rolling a huge stone up Acrocorinthus, symbolical of the labour and skill involved in the building of the Sisypheum . When a distinction was made between the souls in the under world, Sisyphus was supposed to be rolling up the stone perpetually as a punishment for some offence committed on earth; and various reasons were invented to account for it . The way in which Sisyphus cheated Death is not unique in folk-tales . Thus in a Venetian story the ingenious Beppo ties up Death in a bag and keeps him there for eighteen months; there is general rejoicing; nobody dies, and the doctors are in high feather . In a Sicilian story an innkeeper corks up Death in a bottle; so nobody dies for years, and the long white beards are a sight to see . In another Sicilian story a monk keeps Death in his pouch for forty years (T . F . Crane, Italian Popular Tales, 1885) .

The

German parallel is Gambling Hansel, who kept Death up a tree for seven years, during which no one died (Grimm, Household Tales) . The Norse parallel is the tale of the Master Smith (E . W . Dasent, Popular Tales from the Norse) . For a Lithuanian parallel, see A . Schleicher, Litauisehe Marchen, Sprichworte, Ratsel and Lieder (1857) ; for Slavonic parallels, F . S . Krauss, Sagen and Marchen der Siidslaven, ii . Nos . 125, 126; see also Frazer's Pausanias, iii. p . 33; O . Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie (1906), ii., p .

1021,

note 2 .