{Prometheus and Man} {Pandora's Box} {Apple of Discord} {Achilles' Heel} {The Trojan Horse}
{Echo} {Golden Touch} {Sisyphus's Stone} {Labors of Hercules} {The Man Who Loves a Statue}
Sisyphus's
Stone 西西佛斯的石頭
Sinner condemned in Tartarus to an eternity of rolling a boulder uphill then watching it roll back down again. Sisyphus was founder and king of Corinth, or Ephyra as it was called in those days. He was notorious as the most cunning knave on earth. 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. 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.
And 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. Nobody could die. A soldier might be chopped to bits in battle and still show up at camp for dinner. Finally Hades was released and Sisyphus was ordered summarily to report to the Underworld for his eternal assignment. But the wily one had another trick up his sleeve.
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. 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. Surely her highness could see that Sisyphus must be given leave to journey back topside and put things right.
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. But even this paramount trickster could only postpone the inevitable. Eventually he was hauled down to Hades, where his indiscretions caught up with him. For a crime against the gods - the specifics of which are variously reported - he was condemned to an eternity at hard labor. And frustrating labor at that. For his assignment was to roll a great boulder to the top of a hill. Only every time Sisyphus, by the greatest of exertion and toil, attained the summit, the darn thing rolled back down again.
據說西西佛斯是建立希臘城邦科林斯的一位偉大人物。他也是個很聰明的人；因為他知道偷牛賊奧托利克斯能將牛改變顏色，使主人無法分辨是否為自己的牛，於是他為了防止牛再度被偷，就在牛蹄上烙下特殊的印子。後來他的牛果然又被偷了，他就去奧托利克斯的家中，說要檢查牛群，特果找到了烙有印子的牛，奧托利克斯也只有認罪了。可是西西佛斯不計前嫌，反而和他成為好朋友。當西西佛斯快要去世的時候，他心裏想著：「我還不想死丫！我還要在人世間多待些時候，盡情的玩樂和生活。怎麼樣才不會死呢？對了，到時將死神給綁起來，這樣他就無法帶我到陰間去了。對！就這樣辦。」後來等到死神要來帶西西佛斯去陰間的時候，他就設法用鐵鍊把死神綁住，並且把他關起來。如此一來，西西佛斯就不會死了。西西佛斯高高興興的在人間快樂的生活著，可是他沒有想到死神最後被偷偷的救出來了，並且向冥王報告西西佛斯的惡行，冥王聽了非常惱怒。等到西西佛斯去世後，來到了陰間，冥王就罰他到地獄去，將一塊巨石推上一座陡峭的斜坡頂上，然後巨石又會滾下來，他又必須將岩石推上去，如此不停的重覆著，而且日以繼夜，沒有休止。