The Torment Of Sisyphus

18” X 18”

SOLD

Sisyphus, founder of Corinth, one day witnessed Zeus abducting Aegina, a river nymph. Her father Asopus, came across him in his pursuit of his daughter, and asked Sisyphus if he had any information. In return for a fresh water spring in his citadel at Acrocorinth, Sisyphus told Asopus what he knew. Zeus was furious at this exchange, and sent Thanatos, god of death, to take him to Hades. Sisyphus was clever enough to convice Thanatos to show him how his chains work, and once the god had bound himself, Sisyphus promptly locked him away. Unfortunately with Thanatos bound, people stopped dying. After Hades informed Zeus and the other gods in this disruption in the natural cycle, Ares was dispatched to find Thanatos. Sisyphus had the foresight to know Thanatos would likely be rescued, and gave instructions to his wife Merope to leave his corpse unburied, and make no funerary offerings. When Thanatos had been freed, the first soul he sent to the Underworld was Sisyphus. When he stood before Hades and Persephone, he feigned outrage at his wife for her negligence in her duties, and Hades and his wife galled, allowed him to returned to the living to punish his wife, and make her perform his funeral rites. When he arrived however, he simply resumed his life, and lived to a ripe old age. When he did die, Zeus and Hades sent him to Tartarus, where he would be subjected to a special torture they had devised. In punishment for his cunning ploys against the gods, he would be performing an exercise in futility, rolling a large rock up a hill, which always managed to escape his grasp near the top, rolling back down, to be rolled up the hill again, forever.