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Philosophy, never daunted, rolls her Sisyphus stone to the very summit of the mountain and then, when victory seems assured, back it tumbles to the starting point. It builds its imposing temples on foundations of sand, and no sooner is the capstone planted in triumph than the entire superstructive falls into ruin. Round and round it moves in a fatal circle from which there is no exit. Twenty centuries of herculean labors, performed by the greatest intellects the race produced during that period, and philosophy ends where philosophy began - the will-o'-the-wisp it pursues is as far beyond the reach of Kant as it was of Plato.
#GREEK MYTH SISYPHUS SERIES#
The history of philosophy records a series of defeats, resulting in final and complete disaster.In Greek mythology Sisyphus (Greek: Σίσυφος) was punished for his self-aggrandizing craftiness and deceitfulness by being forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, repeating this action for eternity. Only every time Sisyphus, by the greatest of exertion and toil, attained the summit, the darn thing rolled back down again.The fight itself towards the summits suffices to fill a heart of man it is necessary to imagine Sisyphus happy. For his assignment was to roll a great boulder to the top of a hill. For a crime against the gods - the specifics of which are variously reported - he was condemned to an eternity at hard labor. Eventually he was hauled down to Hades, where his indiscretions caught up with him. But even this paramount trickster could only postpone the inevitable. Kindly Persephone assented, and Sisyphus made his way back to the sunshine, where he promptly forgot all about funerals and such drab affairs and lived on in dissipation for another good stretch of time. Surely her highness could see that Sisyphus must be given leave to journey back topside and put things right. What's more, as an unburied corpse he had no business on the far side of the river Styx at all - his wife hadn't placed a coin under his tongue to secure passage with Charon the ferryman. He simply told his wife not to bury him and then complained to Persephone, Queen of the Dead, that he had not been accorded the proper funeral honors. But the wily one had another trick up his sleeve. Finally Hades was released and Sisyphus was ordered summarily to report to the Underworld for his eternal assignment. A soldier might be chopped to bits in battle and still show up at camp for dinner. Hades had brought along a pair of handcuffs, a comparative novelty, and Sisyphus expressed such an interest that Hades was persuaded to demonstrate their use - on himself.Īnd so it came about that the high lord of the Underworld was kept locked up in a closet at Sisyphus's house for many a day, a circumstance which put the great chain of being seriously out of whack. His greatest triumph came at the end of his life, when the god Hades came to claim him personally for the kingdom of the dead. He was notorious as the most cunning knave on earth.
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Sisyphus was founder and king of Corinth, or Ephyra as it was called in those days. Sinner condemned in Tartarus to an eternity of rolling a boulder uphill then watching it roll back down again. Encyclopedia of Greek Mythology: Sisyphus Search.