the myth of sysiphus

albert camus, 1942

“ The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of it's own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.

If one believes Homer, he is accursed of a certain levity in regard to the gods. He stole their secrets. . . He was punished for this in the underworld.

Being near to death, [he] rashly wanted to test his wife’s love. He ordered her to cast his unburied body into the middle of the public square. Sisyphus woke up in the underworld. And there, annoyed by an obedience so contrary to human love, he obtained from pluto permission to return to earth in order to chastise his wife.

But when he had seen again the face of this world, enjoyed the water and sun, warm stones and sea, he no longer wanted to go back to the infernal darkness. A decree of the gods was necessary. Mercury came and seized the impudent man by the collar and snatching him from his joys led him forcibly back to the underworld, where his rock was ready for him.

You have already grasped that sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions and through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hated of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth. . .

If this myth is tragic, that is because it's hero is conscious. The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious.

Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory.

There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. . . if there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. . . at that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which becomes his fate, created by him, combined under his memories eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling. "

the king drinks

jacob jordaens, 17th century