Sisyphus in Erebus
So Sisyphus from then on started pushing the huge stone up the steep hill using an inclined plane. It took more time than before and he was happy. Ixion was still tied to the burning wheel of fire; Tantalus was still tantalised by hunger and thirst in the midst of plenty; the Danaids were still pouring water into a leaky jar; but Sisyphus got his inclined plane. Minos, Rhadamanthys and Aeacus had to give in to the arguments and neither Persephone nor Hades could object to it. Infact Sisyphus argued that he was doing more work than before in pushing the same stone through a greater distance and the question of time should not be involved because this is not a case of power but only of work. We have to apply the laws of mechanical energy and to some extent the laws of friction. The arguments were put by Sisyphus thus. Persephone and Hades were strictly against the idea of the inclined plane. Once the idea struck Sisyphus, he stuck to it. It was Pirithous who passed on the idea to Sisyphus in his anger to do something that wont be pleasant to Hades who had tricked him into sitting in one of those magical chairs from which he was unable to rise. The origin of the idea was from Prometheus from whom Hercules got the knowledge and when Hercules descended into the underworld on his twelfth Labour, and tore Theseus from one of the magical chairs of Hades, he mentioned it to him. Theseus while parting from his close friend Pirithous in Erebus imparted the idea of the inclined plane to him. Sisyphus was to push a huge stone up a steep hill in Tartarus which will roll back as it is about to reach the top and he will have to do the work over and over again. The punishment given by the Gods to him was an eternal, perpetual, ardous, monotonous, frustrating work in the underworld. Sisyphus commited a trick one too many that enraged the Gods and their wrath was to come for sure. Sisyphus had got away with his trickery a number of times being a king but his tricks became endless, laborious and futile and hence serious, so ... The king of Corinth, Sisyphus by name, became infamous all over the world and underworld as a trickster and famous for introducing the inclined plane in Erebus. ____________________________________________________________ Now read the whole story in the reverse ie. from the last sentence to the first. Which way you liked it better? Copyright: Amit Shankar Saha (2003)