Two
"The
Chapters
Myth of
from
Sisyphus"
ALBERT CAMUS
SISYPHUS
T
HE Goos
had condemned Sisyphus to roll a rock endlessly to the
top of a mountain from which the rock falls back of its own weight.
They thought with some reason that there was no punishment more
awful than useless and hopeless labor.
If
one is to believe Homer, Sisyphus was the most wise and
prudent of mortals. However, there is another tradition according to
which Sisyphus was a bandit. I see no contradiction here. Opinions
differ on the reasons for his becoming a useless laborer in Hell. He
is blamed, first, for some levity towards the gods. He betrayed their
secrets. Egina, daughter of Asopus, was kidnapped by Jupiter. Her
father was astonished by her disappearance and complained to Sisy–
phus. He, knowing of the kidnapping, offered to tell Asopus what
had happened on the condition that he would give water to the
citadel of Corinth. To the celestial lightning and thunderbolt he
preferred the benediction of the water. He was punished for it in
Hell. Homer tells us that Sisyphus had imprisoned Death. Pluto could
not endure the spectacle of his empire deserted and silent. He appealed
to the god of war who delivered Death from the hands of its victor.
It is also said that Sisyphus, being close to dying, imprudently
wished to test the love of his wife. He ordered her to cast his body
without burial in the midst of the public square. Sisyphus found
himself in hell, and there, angered by an obedience so contrary to
human love, he obtained permission from Pluto to return to earth
in order to punish his wife. But when he again saw the face of this
world, tasted the water and the sun, the warm rocks and the sea,
he no longer wished to return to the shadow of hell. Recalls, out–
bursts of anger, warnings-had no effect upon
him.
For many years
he lived in the bend of a bay before the breaking waves and amid
the pleasures of this earth. The action of the gods was necessary.
Mercury went to seize the audacious one by the collar, and, taking
