Sisyphus - Biography, "Sisyphean task" or "Sisyphean challenge"

In Greek mythology, a Corinthian king who was a famous trickster; in one story he catches and binds Thanatos (Death). In the Underworld he was condemned to roll a large stone up a hill from which it always rolled down again.

Biography

Sisyphus was the son of Aeolus and Enarete, husband of Merope, and King/Founder of Ephyra (Corinth), but some later sources say Sisyphus was the father of Odysseus by Anticlea, just before she married her later husband, Laertes.

Sisyphus promoted navigation and commerce, but was avaricious and deceitful, killing travellers and guests in violation of the laws of hospitality. Zeus then ordered Hades to chain Sisyphus in hell. Sisyphus slyly asked Thanatos to try the chains to show how they worked, and when Thanatos did so, Sisyphus secured them and threatened Hades. This caused an uproar, and no human could die till Ares (who was annoyed that his battles had lost their fun because his opponents would not die) intervened, freeing Thanatos and sending Sisyphus to Tartarus.

However, before Sisyphus died, he had told his wife that when he was dead she was not to offer the usual sacrifice. When Sisyphus got back to Corinth, he refused to return and was eventually carried back to the underworld by Hermes.

"Sisyphean task" or "Sisyphean challenge"

As a punishment from the gods for his trickery, Sisyphus was compelled to roll a huge rock up a steep hill, but before he reached the top of the hill the rock always escaped him and he had to begin again (Odyssey, xi. This punishment was because Sisyphus told the river god Asopus the whereabouts of Asopus' daughter, Aegina. Zeus had taken her away, and was then angry at Sisyphus (Edith Hamilton's Mythology, 312–313).

According to the solar theory, Sisyphus is the disk of the sun that rises every day in the east and then sinks into the west. Reinach (Revue archéologique, 1904) that his punishment is based on a picture in which Sisyphus was represented rolling a huge stone up Acrocorinthus, symbolic of the labour and skill involved in the building of the Sisypheum.