The myth of Sisyphus

Sisyphus was a character from Greek mythology who founded the kingdom of Corinth. He was so cunning that he had managed to deceive the gods. He coveted money and to get it he resorted to any form of deception. It is also said of him that he promoted navigation and commerce.

The legend tells that witnessed the kidnapping of Aegina, a nymph, by the god Zeus. He decides to remain silent about her deed until her father, Asopus, god of rivers, arrives in Corinth and asks for her. It is when Sisyphus finds her opportunity to propose an exchange: the secret for a source of fresh water for Corinth. Asopo accepts.

Upon learning, Zeus becomes angry and sends Thanatos, god of death, to kill Sisyphus.. Thanatos’ appearance was terrifying, but Sisyphus is unfazed. He receives him kindly and invites him to eat in a cell. There he surprises him by making him prisoner from one moment to the next.

The living no longer died

For a long time, no one died, and the one who now goes into anger is Hades, god of the underworld. The latter demands Zeus (his brother) to resolve the situation. Zeus decides to send Ares, god of war, to free Thanatos and lead Sisyphus to the underworld.

However, in advance, Sisyphus had asked his wife not to pay him funeral honors when he died. The woman fulfilled the commitment.

Once Sisyphus arrived in the underworld, he began to complain to Hades. He told her that his wife did not fulfill the sacred duty of paying him any funeral honor. Hades ignored him at first, but due to his insistence he granted her the favor of returning to life to reprimand his wife for such an offense.

Of course, Sisyphus had planned in advance not to return to the underworld. And so He lived for many years until he agreed to be sent back by Thanatos..

Over there, Zeus and Hades, who were not at all happy with Sisyphus’s tricks, decided to impose an exemplary punishment on him.. This punishment consisted of carrying a heavy stone up the side of a steep mountain. And when he was about to reach the top, the great rock would fall towards the valley, so that he could climb it again. This would have to be repeated, over and over again, for all eternity.

Camus’ interpretation

Albert Camus starts from this Greek myth to create a philosophical essay that he titled just the same, The myth of Sisyphuspublished in French in 1942. In it he develops a set of ideas associated with the concept of the absurdity and uselessness of life. Determining aspects in the destiny of Sisyphus and so characteristic of today’s man.

Camus refers to the absurd as the hope that grounds tomorrow, as if the certainty of death did not exist. The world, stripped of romanticism, is a strange and inhuman territory.

True knowledge is not possible, neither reason nor science can reveal the reality of the universe: their attempts lie as meaningless abstractions. Absurdity is the most heartbreaking of passions.

For Camus, taking the absurd seriously means accepting the contradiction between reason and desire in an irrational world.. Hence suicide must be rejected, since the absurd does not exist without man.

Contradiction must be lived and the limits of reason must be accepted without false hope. The absurd should never be fully accepted; On the contrary, it demands to be confronted with constant rebellion. Thus, freedom always wins.

The life of the absurd

Camus sees in Sisyphus the hero of the absurd who lives life to the full, hates death and is condemned to carry out a useless task.. The author shows the endless and useless work of Sisyphus as a metaphor present in modern life. Work in a factory or office is a repetitive task. Such work is absurd, but not tragic, except on the rare occasions when there is awareness of it.

Camus is, above all, interested in what Sisyphus is thinking as he walks back to the bottom of the hill to start again. This is the tragic moment, when that man becomes aware of the miserable nature of his condition.. Without hope, destiny is only defeated with contempt.

Recognizing the truth is the way to conquer it. Sisyphus, like an absurd man, keeps up the task of pushing. When Sisyphus is able to recognize the futility of his labor, and is certain of what his destiny is, he is freed to notice the absurdity of his condition. Thus he reaches the state of acceptance. Camus ends with the phrase “everything is fine and you have to imagine Sisyphus happy.”

The myth of Sisyphus and the meaning of life

For Camus, the fundamental question of philosophy is to answer the following doubt: Is life worth living, or not? In other words, the author proposes that the main philosophical question that must be addressed is: what makes suicide not the first option?

For Camus, circumstantial pleasure can comfort the conscience at a given moment, but that does not make lives worth living. Instead, What can make it worthwhile is that each person’s actions are framed in a life project that makes sense..

But, like every existentialist philosopher, Camus affirms that life in itself has no meaning. Assuming it then implies accepting that there are things beyond that structure reality, but for him this does not happen. Reality exists and nothing more. In this sense, he states that It is oneself who must give meaning to life, no matter how absurd it may be..

“The absurd is sin without God.”

—Albert Camus—

An inspiration of theories and artistic works

The myth of Sisyphus has inspired for generations in the world of art, culture and, in general, has served to explain different theories related to the things that surrounded man.

Thus, in relation to the solar theory (also inspired by the myth of the god Helios), Sisyphus with his effort also It represented the sun that rises every morning and then sinks at dusk.. Just as it was a metaphor for the waves that rose and fell with the tides.

Regarding artistic representations, it is worth highlighting the following most relevant pictorial and literary works on the myth of Sisyphus.

In the 16th century, Titian captured his punishment in a painting commissioned by Queen Margaret of Hungary, which today can be visited in the Prado Museum (Madrid). Gutierre de Cetina wrote the poem “Sisyphus realizes the sorrow”, which intermingles verses of sorrow and love. Baudelaire used this character’s experience to inspire his poem “Bad Luck”, which is found in his famous work The flowers of the sea.

Like other figures in Greek mythology, such as Prometheus or Autolycus, Sisyphus has gone down in history as a prototype of the trickster or master of deception of the gods. In the health environment (also in other jobs), the myth has inspired what some call Sisyphus syndrome. One more example of the impact it has had on the history of humanity.

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