Then Sisyphus in torment I beheld
Being roustabout to a tremendous boulder.
Leaning with both arms braced and legs driving,
He heaved it toward a height, and almost over,
But then a Power spun him round and sent
The cruel boulder bounding again to the plain.
Whereupon the man bent down again to toil
Dripping sweat, and the dust rose.
Homer, The Odyssey, translated by Richard Lattimore, 1968. Book XI, 1, 593
