Notes on Friedrich Maier, 1995, “Sisyphus: eine europäische Metapher in Texten und Bildern,” in Antike aktuell: eine humanistische Mitgift für Europa, Kleine Schriften von Friedrich Maier (C.C. Buchner, Bamberg), 105-118.

— The article is saved on laptop as PDF in ScannedArticles as “SisyphusREFERENCE_Maier.pdf”.

The article is identified as an “expanded and revised version of the article in F. Maier (1992), Stichwörter der europäischen Kultur: Lehrerkommentar (Buchner, Bamberg), 50-61.

Franz Josef Görtz (1988), “Gesucht: ein Thema,” Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung 10 April 1988, cited as prologue to Maier’s piece:

  “The unwearied, but pointlessly directed Sisyphos is a type for the intellectual in the late 20^th-century: without dreams of the future,

Maier, p. 106: “The image is a symbol (zur Chiffre geworden), obviously not merely for endless exertion, but also for the purposeless of the doing, which one raises ironically to a metaphysical milieu. … The human who seeks to understand himself and to confirm his purpose in ever new challenges, but who falters often enough, has a rolemodel (Symbolfigur) in Sisyphus.”

Maier gives a number of examples of how broadly the Sisyphus myth is applied.

   Of many, this: Boris Becker was striving to achieve no. 1 ranking in professional tennis, and was called “Der Sisyphus unserer Zeit (The Sisyphus of our Age) in a newspaper headline.

Maier dissects Hyginus Fab. 50 briefly, without translating it. (See now http://ogcma.byu.edu/SisyphusANCIENT_Hyginus.htm

A 6^th-century black-figure vase — Munich, Antikenslg no. 1493 = LIMC Sisyphos6=Amyetoi2=Herakles2604[A] —  shows Sisyphus raising a brilliant white orb to a mountain top: “He lifts it to the mountain top with a blithe ease. The mythological hero is appointed to daily raise and lower the Sun, thereby bringing day and night to mankind.” This figure is not included in LIMC, at least not s.v. “Sisyphos” [Oakley]. But its interpretation is potentially challenging. Oakley says the vase depicts “Four psychai pouring water into leaky pithos, S. moves stone up hill to r.”

NB: the ArtStor description observes that here “Sisyphus struggles with an enormous boulder over which he seems to have no control.” However, the description goes on to say that “Sisyphus himself is related to the Hittite sun god… thus, the boulder which he lifts is the sun pushed around heaven. (Graves suggests that in his tricking death he may be the Sacred King who refuses to abdicate.)” SO, Graves is behind this reading. [See file SisyphusREFERENCE_Graves.pdf in ScannedArticles.]

 I have ordered through ILL two articles cited in the metadata by Beazley.ox.ac.uk
[ad LIMC Amyetoi 2 clarified by Kossatz-Deissmann “rechts Sisyphos abmüht sich mit seinem Stein…”]

This (from Maier p.109) is from Munich, Antikensammlung no. 1493.

Beazley.ox.ac.uk: javascript:setActionInner('viewPageDetailedImage4_%2FVases%2FSPIFF%2FImages200%2F010516%2F301639%2F')

LIMC s.v. “Sisyphos” 6: “Munich Antikenslg. 1493. From Vulci. — ABV 316, 7: Bucci P.,; Para 137;  Add2 85: CVA 7 pls 355 and 356, 1 — About 530-520 B.C. — B: Four psychai pouring water into leaky pithos, S. moves stone up hill to r.”

= http://ogcma.byu.edu/SisyphusANCIENT_Munich.htm

Lucr. DRN 3.995-1002 — “Sisyphus has become a metaphor, a rationalistic clarification torn from the religious-mythological sphere”