The Seba library treats Sisyphos in 8 passages, across 5 authors (including Edinger, Edward F., A.A. Long and D.N. Sedley, Rohde, Erwin).
mortal Sisyphus is burdened with a task beyond his power to consummate. Because he has seen God, Sisyphus becomes a carrier of the divine burden.
Edinger reinterprets the myth entirely: Sisyphos's torment is not mere punishment but the consequence of divine insight, making him an agent of God's incarnation and the transformation of consciousness.
, The Creation of Consciousness Jung's Myth for Modern Man, 1984thesis
the struggle of pushing uphill a stone which, in spite of all, at the very peak rolls back and hurtles downward to the level ground below.
Lucretius, as presented by Long and Sedley, demythologises the Sisyphos figure as an allegory of the insatiable and self-defeating desire for accumulation, transferring the myth's meaning from eschatology to ethics.
, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987thesis
It is less easy to discover what was the exact misdeed for which the crafty Sisyphos is punished.
Rohde argues that the Homeric Sisyphos passage reflects divine power rather than moralising eschatology, and that the precise transgression remains genuinely indeterminate even within the tradition.
, Psyche: The Cult of Souls and the Belief in Immortality among the Greeks, 1894thesis
This is a parody, half humorous, half pathetic, of the Homeric figures of Sisyphos and Tantalos; a sort of bourgeois counter-part of that Homeric aristocracy of the enemies of heaven, whose punishment, as Goethe remarked, is a type of ever-unrewarded labour.
Rohde frames Sisyphos and Tantalos as an aristocratic archetype of futile eternal labour, against which later comic underworld figures like Oknos represent a democratised and desacralised counterpart.
, Psyche: The Cult of Souls and the Belief in Immortality among the Greeks, 1894supporting
How little anyone thought of S. as a criminal, even with the Homeric story in his mind, is shown by the Platonic Sokrates who rejoices (Apol., 41 C) over the fact that in Hades he will meet, amongst others, Sisyphos.
Rohde documents a significant counter-tradition in which Sisyphos is viewed without moral condemnation, citing Platonic testimony as evidence that criminal interpretation was by no means universal.
, Psyche: The Cult of Souls and the Belief in Immortality among the Greeks, 1894supporting
misguided Sisyphos, who in vain pushed a great stone uphill
Kerényi situates Sisyphos within the standard Homeric underworld tableau, characterising him as 'misguided' rather than wicked, in keeping with a mythographic rather than moralising register.
, The Gods of the Greeks, 1951supporting
Sisyphos, 248
A bare index entry confirming Sisyphos's catalogued presence in Kerényi's mythographic compendium of the Greeks.
, The Gods of the Greeks, 1951aside
Glaucus, (i) s. of Sisyphus and f. of Bellerophon
An index reference establishing Sisyphos's genealogical role as father of Glaukos and grandfather of Bellerophon within the Hesiodic mythographic tradition.
, Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica, -700aside