Song of Sisyphus

Peterborough, UK - Jamie - Monday, September 5th, 2005 : goo

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I took the boys to Ferry Meadows, a local nature reserve in my hometown of Peterborough. It was a Bank Holiday Monday and the weather was good. As such it seemed like everyone else had the same idea and the geese were loving it, taking full advantage. These geese aren't shy. You don't so much feed these geese as get mugged by them. Lucky we had some bread.

There's quite a bit of totemic sculpture scattered around the lake. This is Song of Sisyphus.

Sisyphus (also Sísyphos or Sisuphos), in Greek mythology, was the son of Aeolus and Enarete, husband of Merope, and King/Founder of Ephyra (Corinth). According to some (later) sources, he was the father of Odysseus by Anticlea, before she married her later husband, Laertes.

He was the father of the Corinthian king Glaucus by Merope. 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 promoted navigation and commerce, but was avaricious and deceitful. He killed travellers and wayfarers. From Homer onwards, Sisyphus was famed as the craftiest of men. 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.

But Sisyphus was not yet at the end of his resources. For before he died he told his wife that when he was gone she was not to offer the usual sacrifice to the dead. 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. But when he got back to Corinth he positively refused to return, until forcibly carried off by Hermes.

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. As a result, pointless or interminable activities are often described as Sisyphean.

It is suggested that the legend of Sisyphus is symbolic of the vain struggle of man in the pursuit of knowledge

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