COMMON HISTORICAL ROOTS
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stone uphill, dizzy with fatigue, you could not possible raise your eyes
and look farther ahead. We were your brain trust, we are your
spokespeople! We and no one else! Now we shall rally close around the
granite colossus and be your sturdy support. Prop up the stone with both
hands and never let it go, while we will sing praises to you!"
Amid the sublime wilderness and the passionate voices, Sisyphus
sometimes feels nostalgic for the noble torment of pushing the stone, his
cheek glued to the rough surface, his sweat as if streamjng from the pores
of the animated stonc. It was a futile and hopeless effort, but there was
also a gratifying sense of fulfilled duty! Today, muddy waters lash the
stone, birds smear it with their droppings, and the wise owls withdraw,
so as not to soil themselves. Sisyphus is alone. No one helps him, but
they distract him with all sorts of petty problems. Worn down with fa–
tigue, he perches on the stone, as on a throne. Suddenly, the boulder
gives way and tilts backward, poised over the edge of the cliff. An un–
known abyss gapes below. Sisyphus sets his back against the boulder,
barely managing to steady it. What lies in that precipice beyond, which is
like the other side of the moon? Who would have thought that the real
uphill task, rife with dangers, would be there, at the summit? In his long
sleepless nights, Sisyphus talks to the stone, "Can you hear me? Answer
my question! Where did I go wrong? People used to love and trust me.
Now they call me "power-hungry" and shun me. I used to have a
dream, and now I have a great burden. What shall I do? Why are you
silent?"
"It's absurd!" echoes the stone that is not a stone, but a piece of
petrified national fate.
How can you breathe life into that stone, Sisyphus? Now you
weight it on the scales of anxiety and measure it on the crucifix of
thought. Where are you, wise owls? The world has become a thousand–
headed dragon. Fix your tie! Smile! There is nowhere to hide. Micro–
phones snake toward you, intent on sucking you in, word by word. If
you steal a moment for introspection, probing for that poem pushing up
inside you, you might miss a crucial turn of events. Leave that poem
alone, it's fatal! You have been transformed into a living caryatid. If you
lift your head from the stone and follow where the orphan laughter is
crying and calling to you, and if you look from a distance at this theater
of the absurd, at these burlesques of power - oh, then, beware of the
rock that will crush you with compunctions, roll over you and send you
down into the abyss! Instead of poetry, you are faced with appeals and
grievances, stacks of documents and compromising dossiers, memoranda,
urgent decisions. Congratulations! Keep smiling! From the bottom of
the hill, the sky had looked small to Sisyphus, like the gorge of a well
full of bright azure which made him thirsty. As he had scrambled uphill,
