SISYPHUS (etymology uncertain), son of Aeolus and En arete, and king of Ephyra (Corinth). He was the father of the sea-god Glaucus and (in post-Homeric legend) of Odysseus. 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. From Homer onwards Sisyphus was famed as the craftiest of men. When Death came to fetch him, Sisyphus put him into fetters, so that no one died till Ares came and freed Death, 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 sacri fice 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 punish her. But when he got back to Cor inth he did no such thing and so lived until he died of old age (Pherecydes, frag. 119,
Jacoby). 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 (Odyssey, xi. 593).
The way in which Sisyphus cheated Death is not unique in folk tales. For several examples, see T. F. Crane, Italian Popular Tales (1885). The German parallel is Gambling Johnny, who kept Death up a tree for seven years, during which no one died (Grimm 82, see the commentary of Bolte-Polivka). The Norse parallel is the tale of the Master Smith (E. W. Dasent, Popular Tales from the Norse). For a Lithuanian parallel, see A. Schleicher, Litauische Mdrchen, Sprich worte, R,dtsel und Lieder (1857) ; for Slavonic parallels, F. S. Krauss, Sagen und Miirchen der Siidslaven, ii., Nos. 125, 126; see also Frazer's Pausanias, p. 33 ; 0. Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie (1906), ii. p. 1021, note 2.