Mythology
He was
punished for his self-aggrandizing craftiness and deceitfulness by being forced
to roll an immense boulder up a hill only for it to roll down when it nears the
top, repeating this action for eternity.
Reign
Sisyphus
was the founder and first king of Ephyra (supposedly the original name of Corinth).[7] King Sisyphus promoted navigation and commerce
but was avaricious and deceitful. He also killed travellers and guests, a
violation of xenia, which fell under Zeus's
domain. He took pleasure in these killings because they allowed him to maintain
his iron-fisted rule.
Conflict
with Salmoneus
Sisyphus
and his brother Salmoneus were known to hate each other, and Sisyphus consulted
with the Oracle of Delphi on just how to kill Salmoneus without incurring
any severe consequences for himself. From Homer onward,
Sisyphus was famed as the craftiest of men. He seduced Salmoneus's
daughter Tyro in one of his plots to kill Salmoneus, only for Tyro
to slay the children she bore him when she discovered that Sisyphus was
planning on using them eventually to dethrone her father.
Cheating
death
King
Sisyphus also betrayed one of Zeus's secrets by revealing the whereabouts
of Aegina, (an Asopid who was taken away by Zeus) to her father (the
river god Asopus) in return for causing a spring to flow on the
Corinthian acropolis.[7]
Zeus
then ordered Death (in Greek, Thanatos) to chain King Sisyphus down below in Tartarus. Sisyphus was curious as to why Hermes, whose job it was to guide souls to the Underworld, had
not appeared on this occasion. King Sisyphus slyly asked Thanatos to
demonstrate how the chains worked. As Thanatos was granting him his wish,
Sisyphus seized the opportunity and trapped Thanatos in the chains instead.
Once Thanatos was bound by the strong chains, no one died on earth. This caused
an uproar especially for Ares (who was annoyed that his battles had
lost their fun because his opponents would not die), and so he intervened. The
exasperated Ares freed Thanatos and turned King Sisyphus over to Thanatos.[9]
In
another version, Hades was sent to chain Sisyphus and was
chained himself. As long as Hades was tied up, nobody could die. Because of
this, sacrifices could not be made to the gods, and those that were old and
sick were suffering. The gods finally threatened to make life so miserable for
Sisyphus that he would wish he were dead. He then had no choice but to release
Hades.[10]
Before
King Sisyphus died, 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).
This caused King Sisyphus to end up on the shores of the river Styx.
Then, complaining to Persephone, goddess of the Underworld,
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. Once back in Ephyra, the spirit
of King Sisyphus scolded his wife for not burying his body and giving it a
proper funeral (as a loving wife should). When King Sisyphus refused to return
to the Underworld, he was forcibly dragged back there by Hermes. In
another version of the myth, Persephone was tricked by Sisyphus that he had
been conducted to Tartarus by mistake, and so she
ordered that he be released.[11]
In Philoctetes by Sophocles, there is a reference to the father of Odysseus (rumoured to have been Sisyphus, and not Laërtes, whom we know as the father in the Odyssey) upon having returned from the dead.
Punishment in the Underworld
As
a punishment for his trickery, King Sisyphus was made to roll a huge boulder
endlessly up a steep hill.[7][12][13] The maddening nature of the punishment was
reserved for King Sisyphus due to his hubristic belief that his cleverness surpassed that of
Zeus himself. Zeus accordingly displayed his own cleverness by enchanting the
boulder into rolling away from King Sisyphus before he reached the top, which
ended up consigning Sisyphus to an eternity of useless efforts and unending
frustration. Thus it came to pass that pointless or interminable activities are
sometimes described as Sisyphean. King Sisyphus was a common
subject for ancient writers and was depicted by the painter Polygnotus on the walls of the Lesche at Delphi.
這件事教我們 讀希臘神話 要注意tricksters
他們是那個滿天神佛的世界中 最有趣的傢伙 就像在我們這個世界 要注意洗碗工和應召女和流浪跑路的人 他們是當今最有趣的生命型態的可能
