Extract from ‘The
Myth of Sisyphus’ (abridged)
The
gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a
mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought
with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and
hopeless labor.
If
one believes Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of mortals.
Opinions differ as to the reasons why he became the futile laborer of the
underworld. To begin with, he is accused of a certain
levity in regard to the gods. He stole their secrets. Egina,
the daughter of Esopus, was carried off by Jupiter.
The father was shocked by that disappearance and complained to Sisyphus. He,
who knew of the abduction, offered to tell about it on condition that Esopus would give water to the citadel of
It
is said that Sisyphus, being near to death, 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 water and sun, warm stones and
the sea, he no longer wanted to go back to the infernal darkness. Re-calls,
signs of anger, warnings were of no avail. Many years more he lived facing the
curve of the gulf, the sparkling sea, and the smiles of earth. A decree of the
gods was necessary. Mercury came and seized the impudent man by the collar and,
snatching him from his joys, lead 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 as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred 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. Nothing is told us about Sisyphus in
the underworld. Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them.
As for this myth, one sees merely the whole effort of a body straining to raise
the huge stone, to roll it, and push it up a slope a hundred times over; one
sees the face screwed up, the cheek tight against the stone, the shoulder
bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with arms
outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very
end of his long effort measured by skyless space and
time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone
rush down in a few moments toward that lower world whence he will have to push
it up again toward the summit. He goes back down to the plain.
It
is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus
interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I
see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment
of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which
returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each
of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the
lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.
If
this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his
torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The
workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his 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 fate that can not be surmounted by scorn.
If
the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in
joy. This word is not too much. Again I fancy Sisyphus returning toward his
rock, and the sorrow was in the beginning. When the images of earth cling too
tightly to memory, when the call of happiness becomes too insistent, it happens
that melancholy arises in man's heart: this is the rock's victory, this is the
rock itself. The boundless grief is too heavy to bear. These are our nights of
All
Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is
a thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences
all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad
wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls,
invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of
victory. There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night.
The absurd man says yes and his efforts will henceforth be unceasing. For the
rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. 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 become
his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's 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.
I
leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden
again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and
raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth
without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that
stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a
world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.
One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
Written by Albert Camus, 1941
Translation by Justin O'Brien, 1955