#DEFINE SISYPHUS HOW TO#

The 1st-century BC Epicurean philosopher Lucretius interprets the myth of Sisyphus as personifying politicians aspiring for political office who are constantly defeated, with the quest for power, in itself an 'empty thing', being likened to rolling the boulder up the hill. Other scholars regard him as a personification of waves rising and falling, or of the treacherous sea. InterpretationsДЄccording to the solar theory, King Sisyphus is the disk of the sun that rises every day in the east and then sinks into the west. King Sisyphus was a common subject for ancient writers and was depicted by the painter Polygnotus on the walls of the Lesche at Delphi. Thus it came to pass that pointless and/or interminable activities are sometimes described as Sisyphean. Zeus accordingly displayed his own cleverness by consigning Sisyphus to an eternity of useless efforts and unending frustration. The maddening nature of the punishment was reserved for King Sisyphus due to his hubristic belief that his cleverness surpassed that of Zeus Himself. Before he could reach the top, however, the massive stone would always roll back down, forcing him to begin again. ДЄs a punishment from Queen Persephone for his trickery King Sisyphus was made to roll a huge boulder up a steep hill. In another version of the myth, Persephone was directly persuaded that he had been conducted to Tartarus by mistake and ordered him to be freed. When he then refused to return to the Underworld he was forcibly dragged back there by Hermes. Once back in Corinth, the spirit or shade of King Sisyphus thereby scolded his wife for not giving him a proper funeral. Then, complaining to Persephone that this was a sign of his wife's disrespect for him, King Sisyphus persuaded her to allow him to return to the upper world and scold his wife for not burying his body and giving it a proper funeral (as a loving wife should). This caused King Sisyphus to end up on the shores of the river Styx.

Д«efore King Sisyphus died, however, he had told his wife to throw his naked body into the middle of the public square (purportedly as a test of his wife's love for him). The exasperated god of war freed Thanatos and turned King Sisyphus over to the god of death as well. Eventually Ares (who was annoyed that his battles had lost their fun because his opponents would not die) intervened. This caused an uproar since no human could die with Thanatos out of commission. As Thanatos was granting his wish, Sisyphus then seized the advantage and trapped the god of death in the Underworld instead. King Sisyphus slyly asked Thanatos to demonstrate how the chains worked. Zeus then ordered Thanatos, god of death, to chain King Sisyphus down below in Tartarus. King Sisyphus also betrayed one of Zeus's secrets by telling the river god Asopus of the whereabouts of his daughter Aegina (an Asopides who was taken away by Zeus) in return for causing a spring to flow on the Corinthian Acropolis. He seduced his niece Tyro in one of his plots to kill Salmoneus, only for Tyro to slay the children she bore by him when she discovered that Sisyphus was planning on eventually using them to dethrone her father Salmoneus. From Homer onwards, Sisyphus was famed as the craftiest of men.

#DEFINE SISYPHUS HOW TO#

Sisyphus and Salmoneus were known to hate each other as Sisyphus had consulted with the Oracle of Delphi on just how to kill Salmoneus without incurring any severe consequences for himself. He took pleasure in these killings because they allowed him to maintain his iron-fisted rulership.

He also killed travelers and guests, a violation of Xenia which fell under Zeus' domain. King Sisyphus promoted navigation and commerce but was avaricious and deceitful. He was the father of Glaucus, Ornytion, Almus and Thersander by the nymph Merope, the brother of Salmoneus, and the grandfather of Bellerophon through Glaucus. Sisyphus was son of King Aeolus of Thessaly and Enarete, and the founder and first king of Ephyra ( Corinth).

Define sisyphus