Miscellaneous Myths: Sisyphus Captures Death

Hey, any of you ever read Sandman? For the purposes of this explanation, I'm gonna pretend you haven't. The precipitating event in the first comic volume is that this guy tries to capture death in order to become immortal. He missed and got her brother Dream instead, which was good, not for Dream, obviously, but for everybody else. See, capturing death always has consequences, usually of the Nobody Dies variety, which is never as much fun as it sounds. Now, personifying death is already a weird concept, especially since death is just the incredibly complex and delicate machinery that drives us, suffering an unrecoverable error. Turning that concept into a person is kind of a leap, but at the very least it's a leap that was taken a very long time ago, although it's not actually culturally universal. More common than the anthropomorphic personification of death is the concept of the psychopomp, a spirit meant to guide already dead souls to the requisite afterlife. Now, Greek mythology has its fair share of psychopomps, the word is even Greek in origin, but it also has a personification of death, the god Thanatos. Now, Thanatos wasn't the most well-liked deity, mostly because people get a little put off by the constant reminders of their own mortality, but we should always remember that just because we don't like the job someone's doing doesn't mean we shouldn't be grateful the job's being done. This is the story of Sisyphus Capturing Death. So, let's talk about Sisyphus. He's mostly known for his eternal punishment in Hades, which is a sure sign that he's gonna be a real character in life. See, Sisyphus is a king, but more importantly, he's also a terrible host, as he's made a habit of murdering his guests in their sleep and taking all their stuff. This is obviously a gross violation of the laws of hospitality, which were kind of a big deal in ancient Greece, and the gods collectively decide that something must be done about this. Hades suggests that they just kill him and move on, points for efficiency, and the gods agree that that's probably the easiest solution. So, Hades calls up Thanatos and tells him to bring Sisyphus in, but he warns him that Sisyphus is really clever and might think of a way to escape. So, just in case, Hades gives him a special set of chains to bind Sisyphus' spirit and ensure that he can't get away. So, Thanatos zips on over to Sisyphus' castle and looms ominously until Sisyphus acknowledges his presence. Now, the problem is, Sisyphus IS clever. So, when he sees the specter of death looming over him with handcuffs and a grumpy expression, he thinks fast and starts oohing and aahing over the craftsmanship of the chains. While Thanatos is distracted and more than a little confused, Sisyphus catches him by surprise and chains him up with his own shackles. Then he stuffs the captured god in a trunk and goes about his day. Now, obviously, Thanatos can't do his job like this, so for the next few days, nothing can die. And this ends up pissing off Ares, since there's no fun in war if nobody dies from it. The gods start looking for Thanatos, but because proper detective procedure hadn't been invented yet, it takes a whole month before they think to look in his last known location. But meanwhile, Sisyphus figures out that he probably doesn't have much time before his shenanigans are discovered, so he makes his wife promise to not do the proper funerary procedures for him when he ends up dead. Shortly thereafter, Ares smashes in, busts out Thanatos, and together they jump Sisyphus and drag him down into Hades. But when they get there, Sisyphus is all, Oh, Persephone, it's awful! My wife didn't even give me a funeral! She just tossed my body onto the street! Can you believe this? And Persephone's like, Oh, that's terrible, you poor thing! And allows him to return to Earth for three days in order to arrange a burial, haunt his wife, etc. Now, obviously, Sisyphus hops right back into his corpse, pops back indoors newly alive, and refuses to return to the underworld. Thanatos cannot be persuaded to try and recollect him, so Sisyphus lives a long, lucrative life until he dies of old age many years later, whereupon he finds himself point-blank on a pissed-off Persephone, a grumpy Thanatos, and a Hades approximately 110% done with his nonsense. Sisyphus is punished by being forced to roll an enormous boulder up a hill. Every time he reaches the top, the boulder falls down the hill again. Hence his punishment in death is to do something useless over and over again, in the same way that cheating death, an ultimately pointless endeavor, was his hobby in life. Fun times! All names have here, but now they're gone. Seasons don't fear the reaper, nor do the wind, the sun, or the rain. We can be like they are, come on baby, don't fear the reaper. Baby, take my hand, don't fear the reaper. We'll be able to fly, don't fear the reaper. Baby, I'm your man. La, la, la, la, la.