Sisyphus

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. He saw Zeus as kidnapper and rapist, and it was this insight into divine darkness that imposed the intolerable burden upon him.

Edinger argues that Sisyphus’s endless labour is not mere punishment but the consequence of witnessing divine darkness, making him an incarnate carrier of the transformation of God.

Edinger, Edward F., The Creation of Consciousness Jung’s Myth for Modern Man, 1984thesis

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Albert Camus’s rehandling of the Myth of Sisyphus is really an essay on suicide and makes a clear link between the referential value of myth and mental health. Greek myth frequently chooses anti-authoritarian figures: Prometheus, Sisyphus, Oedipus, Orestes and Hercules challenge fathers and tyrants and monsters.

The passage situates Sisyphus within an existentialist-clinical framework via Camus, while simultaneously reading the myth as one of a cluster of anti-authoritarian Greek archetypes relevant to mental health.

Jung, C. G., Visions: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1930-1934, 1997thesis

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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 transmitted through Sedley, presents Sisyphus as an allegory for the insatiable, self-defeating pursuit of political ambition and ungratified desire.

A.A. Long and D.N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987supporting

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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 places Sisyphus within the Homeric aristocracy of divine enemies whose punishment epitomises unceasing, futile toil as a universal human type.

Rohde, Erwin, Psyche: The Cult of Souls and the Belief in Immortality among the Greeks, 1894supporting

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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 notes the philological difficulty of moralising Sisyphus, observing that even Socrates anticipated meeting him in Hades without condemnation, which complicates any purely punitive reading.

Rohde, Erwin, Psyche: The Cult of Souls and the Belief in Immortality among the Greeks, 1894supporting

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There is a city, Ephyra, nestled among the horse pastures of Argos, where Sisyphus, the sneakiest of men, was born and raised.

Homer provides the primary mythological genealogy of Sisyphus as ancestor of Bellerophon, establishing his canonical characterisation as the most cunning of mortals.

Homer, The Iliad, 2023supporting

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Camus, A. The Myth of Sisyphus. London, 1955.

Hillman’s bibliography for his study of suicide cites Camus’s Myth of Sisyphus, marking it as a recognised reference point within depth-psychological engagement with death and meaninglessness.

Hillman, James, Suicide and the Soul, 1964aside

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Sisyphus 57

A brief index reference places Sisyphus within a discussion of early Greek economic and social thought, without elaborating a psychological argument.

Seaford, Richard, Money and the Early Greek Mind: Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy, 2004aside

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