As a result, pointless or interminable activities are often described as Sisyphean. In the underworld Sisyphus was compelled to roll a big stone up a steep hill but before it reached the top of the hill the stone always rolled down, and Sisyphus had to begin all over again (Odyssey, xi. 'Sisyphean task' or 'Sisyphean challenge' But when he got back to Corinth he positively refused to return, until forcibly carried off by Hermes.ĭetail of a vase painting from a vase now in Munich, one of the Erinyes and Sisyphus in the underworld So in the underworld he complained that his wife was neglecting her duty, and he persuaded Hades to allow him to go back to the upper world and expostulate with her. For before he died he told his wife that when he was gone she was not to offer the usual sacrifice to the dead. When Thanatos came to fetch him, Sisyphus put him into fetters, so that no one died till Ares came, freed Thanatos, and delivered Sisyphus into his custody.īut Sisyphus was not yet at the end of his resources. From Homer onwards, Sisyphus was famed as the craftiest of men. He promoted navigation and commerce, but was avaricious and deceitful. He was said to have founded the Isthmian games in honour of Melicertes, whose body he found lying on the shore of the Isthmus of Corinth. He was the father of the Corinthian king Glaucus by Merope.
According to some (later) sources, he was the father of Odysseus by Anticlea, before she married her later husband, Laertes.
Sisyphus ( Σίσυφος )(also Sísyphos or Sisuphos), in Greek mythology, was the son of Aeolus and Enarete, husband of Merope, and King/Founder of Ephyra (Corinth). When Asopus granted this request Sisyphus turned informer, and on this account he receives- if anyone believes the story-punishment in Hades. The latter knew (Sisyphus), so runs the legend, that Zeus had ravished Aegina, the daughter of Asopus, but refused to give information to the seeker before he had a spring given him on the Acrocorinthus.
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