sisyphus

[SHATOUSHKA]

*the following is my explication of the
fate of sisyphus. it is not necessary to
contest what i have explicated since it is
merely background for the question i have
at the end*

******************************************

sisyphus wanted to test his wife's love. so,
just before his death, he told his wife to
toss his unburied body in the town's square.
when this was done, sisyphus awoke in hades
and became angered at his wife because she
had obeyed his command as opposed to burying
him in love.
sisyphus received permission from pluto to
return to earth in order to punish his wife,
but when he returned to earth... he was
more caught up in the beauty he had remembered.
sisyphus prefered the water and spent many
days in walking around in the forgotten
beauty of the world... the beaches, the
sunshine, the sounds and smells.... he did
not want to return to the underworld.

the gods were angered by this... and dispatched
mercury to take sisyphus back to hades.
upon his arrival, there awaited his fate:

the proverbial boulder he was to push to
the top of a hill. once reaching the top
of the hill, the boulder would then roll
back down due to its own weight, and
sisyphus would then have to push it back up.
the stone would again roll back down...
and sisyphus was doomed to repeat this
act of futile labor for all of time.

************************************

how do you feel about sisyphus' actions in
regards to his wife?

how do you feel about his punishment?

how do you relate both to your own life?
(his actions/thoughts of his wife's blind
obedience over her love for him... AND his
punishment)

[zelazny]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Tempus Sans ITC, Tahoma">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#000000"><font size=2 face="Tempus Sans ITC, Tahoma">Originally posted by shatzy:
*the following is my explication of the
fate of sisyphus. it is not necessary to
contest what i have explicated since it is
merely background for the question i have
at the end*

******************************************
*snip*
************************************

how do you feel about sisyphus' actions in
regards to his wife?

how do you feel about his punishment?

how do you relate both to your own life?
(his actions/thoughts of his wife's blind
obedience over her love for him... AND his
punishment)</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

1) the idiot, first of all, if you're not sure about the love of your wife at the end of your life, what kind of a marriage did you have and why would you get mad if she does something you want! I can imagine that throwing a body on a town square is a very.. humiliating thing to do, showing the mortality (and i'd imagine the 'fault' of being that) of the person, but if you can hear this from the underworld, how can you still relate to that body that is no longer yours?
And third: If you ask her something, why get mad at her that she is does what you say?
*(Since nothing makes sense, he can damn well do as he like, in fact he needs no explanation for it, but heck, looking at it from a logical perspective gets me to those three points)

2) As far as the punishment goes, it's pretty.. tough. Then again, i'm not quite sure what afterlife is like in the underworld, the only thing that comes to mind is gloomy grayness, with loss of memory, for some reason. but that's probably wrong.
So i'm not able to determine the punishment since i cannot put it in context.
There's a nice parable in there though, he wants to punish his wife for obeying in love, while he is punished for not obeying out of love for the world. I bet there's a lesson for him in there somewhere, too bad a lesson is kind of useless if you are A) dead, without a chance of ever coming back B) in perpetual punishment.

and 3) i still have to ponder over this one,
gimme some time, it was a long day and i'm dead tired, really dead tired. And soaked.

[Moniker]

I wonder how long this will stay a real topic...

[Moniker]

1. Sisyphus was weak. He gave a test to his wife, then whined and complained when the test that he gave ended in a result that he did not like. Then, when given the opportunity to fix the 'probem' that he created, he couldn't do it. He knew that he had a limited time, but instead of doing what he wanted, he ran away and tried to hide from the gods.
2. That punishment would really suck. Alot worse than being sent to one's room.
3. One may feel that the gods had won, they got Sisyphus back, and had punished him in a way that they felt would be that ultimate torture. But, as the stone rolls down the hill, and Sisyphus walks down to start pushing again, Sisyphus is free from the gods. He can do whatever he wants while he is walking down the mountain. During that period, he is greater than the gods.

[TastinGood]

We are all constantly pushing a boulder up a hill.

...it's just sometimes the walk back down is more enjoyable that others.