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The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, |
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Whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. |
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They had thought with some reason |
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that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor. |
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Nothing is told us about Sisyphus in the underworld. |
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Myths are made for the imagination. |
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As for this myth, one sees merely the whole effort |
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of a body straining to raise the huge stone |
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To roll it and push it up a slope a hundred times over; |
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One sees the face screwed up, the cheek tight against the stone, |
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The wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. |
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At the very end of his long effort, the purpose is achieved. |
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Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments |
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Toward the lower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. |
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He goes back down to the plain. |
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It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. |
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A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself. |
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I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step |
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Toward the torment of which he will never know the end. |
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That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, |
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That is the hour of consciousness. |
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At each of those moments when he leaves the heights |
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And gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, |
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He is superior to his fate. |
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He is stronger than his rock. |
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The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, |
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And his fate is no less absurd. |
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But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. |
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Sisyphus knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: |
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It is what he thinks of during his descent. |
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There is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn. |
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If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, |
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It can also take place in joy. |
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When the images of earth cling too tightly to memory, |
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It happens that melancholy arises in man's heart: |
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This is the rock's victory. |
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But crushing truths perish from being acknowledged. |
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Thus, Edipus at the outset obeys fate without knowing it. |
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But from the moment he knows, his tragedy begins. |
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Yet at the same moment, he realizes that the only bond |
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linking him to the world is the cool hand of a girl. |
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Then a tremendous remark rings out: |
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"Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age |
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And the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well." |
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"I conclude that all is well," says Edipus. |
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And that remark is sacred. |
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It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. |
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It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. |
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All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. |
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His fate belongs to him. |
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The rock is still rolling. |