page_title: Sisyphus
section_title: Literary interpretations
hierarchical_section_title: Sisyphus / Interpretations / Literary interpretations
caption_attribution_description: Español: La obra representa a Sísifo, rey de Éfira y condenado por Zeus a hacer rodar con su cabeza y empujando una gran roca cuesta arriba, que continuamente se precipitaba hacia abajo, por haber revelado que Zeus había secuestrado a Egina.
context_page_description: In Greek mythology Sisyphus or Sisyphos was the king of Ephyra. 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 every time it neared the top, repeating this action for eternity. Through the classical influence on modern culture, tasks that are both laborious and futile are therefore described as Sisyphean.
context_section_description: Homer describes Sisyphus in both Book VI of the Iliad and Book XI of the Odyssey.
  Ovid, the Roman poet, makes reference to Sisyphus in the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.  When Orpheus descends and confronts Hades and Persephone, he sings a song so that they will grant his wish to bring Eurydice back from the dead.  After this song is sung, Ovid shows how moving it was by noting that Sisyphus, emotionally affected, for just a moment, stops his eternal task and sits on his rock, the Latin wording being inque tuo sedisti, Sisyphe, saxo ("and you sat, Sisyphus, on your rock").
  In Plato's Apology, Socrates looks forward to the after-life where he can meet figures such as Sisyphus, who think themselves wise, so that he can question them and find who is wise and who "thinks he is when he is not"
  Albert Camus, the French absurdist, wrote an essay entitled The Myth of Sisyphus, in which he elevates Sisyphus to the status of absurd hero. Franz Kafka repeatedly referred to Sisyphus as a bachelor; Kafkaesque for him were those qualities that brought out the Sisyphus-like qualities in himself. According to Frederick Karl: "The man who struggled to reach the heights only to be thrown down to the depths embodied all of Kafka's aspirations; and he remained himself, alone, solitary." The philosopher Richard Taylor uses the myth of Sisyphus as a representation of a life made meaningless because it consists of bare repetition.
  Wolfgang Mieder has collected cartoons that build on the image of Sisyphus, many of them editorial cartoons.
caption: Sisyphus (1548–49) by Titian, Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain
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