Book I: Tartarus — Sisyphus

Then as I passed,
I marked against the hardly dawning sky
A toilsome figure standing, bent and strained,
Before a rocky mass, which with great pain
And agony of labour it would thrust
Up a steep hill. But when upon the crest
It poised a moment, then I held my breath
With dread, for, lo! the poor feet seemed to clutch
The hillside as in fear, and the poor hands
With hopeless fingers pressed into the stone
In agony, and the limbs stiffened, and a cry
Like some strong swimmer's, whom the mightier stream
Sweeps downward, and he sees his children's eyes
Upon the bank; broke from him; and at last,
After long struggles of despair, the limbs
Relaxed, and as I closed my fearful eyes,
Seeing the inevitable doom--a crash,
A horrible thunderous noise, as down the steep
The shameless fragment leapt. From crag to crag
It bounded ever swifter, striking fire
And wrapt in smoke, as to the lowest depths
Of the vale it tore, and seemed to take with it
The miserable form whose painful gaze
I caught, as with the great rock whirled and dashed
Downward, and marking every crag with gore
And long gray hairs, it plunged, yet living still,
To the black hollow; and then a silence came
More dreadful than the noise, and a low groan
Was all that I could hear.
When to the foot
Of the dark steep I hurried, half in hope
To find the victim dead--not recognizing
The undying life of Hell--I seemed to see
An aged man, bruised, bleeding, with gray hairs,
And eyes from which the cunning leer of greed
Was scarcely yet gone out.
A crafty voice
It was that answered me, the voice of guile
Part purified by pain:
"There comes not death
To those who live in Hell, nor hardly pause
Of suffering longer than may serve to make
The pain renewed, more piercing. Long ago,
I thought that I had cheated Death, and now
I seek him; but he comes not, nor know I
If ever he will hear me. Whence art thou?
Comest thou from earthly air, or whence? What power
Has brought thee hither? For I know indeed
Thou art not lost as I; for never here
I look upon a human face, nor see
The ghosts who doubtless here on every side
Suffer a common pain, only at times
I hear the echo of a shriek far off,
Like some faint ghost of woe which fills the pause
And interval of suffering; but from whom
The voice may come, or whence, I know not, only
The air teems with vague pain, which doth distract
The ear when for a moment comes surcease
Of agony, and the sense of effort spent
In vain and fruitless labour, and the pang
Of long-deferred defeat, which waits and takes
The world-worn heart, and maddens it when all--
Heaven, conscience, happiness, are staked and lost
For gains which still elude it.
Yet 'twas sweet,
A King in early youth, when pleasure is sweet,
To live the fair successful years, and know
The envy and respect of men. I cared
For none of youth's delights: the dance, the song,
Allured me not; the smooth soft ways of sense
Tempted me not at all. I could despise
The follies that I shared not, spending all
The long laborious days in toilsome schemes
To compass honour and wealth, and, as I grew
In name and fame, finding my hoarded gains
Transmuted into Power. The seas were white
With laden argosies, and all were mine.
The sheltering moles defied the wintry storms,
And all were mine. The marble aqueducts,
The costly bridges, all were mine. Fair roads
Wound round and round the hills--my work. The gods
Alone I heeded not, nor cared at all
For aught but that my eyes and ears might take,
Spurning invisible things, nor built I to them
Temple or shrine, wrapt up in life, set round
With earthly blessings like a god. I rose
To such excess of weal and fame and pride,
My people held me god-like. I grew drunk
With too great power, scoffing at men and gods,
Careless of both, but not averse to fling
To those too weak themselves, what benefits
My larger wisdom spurned.
Then suddenly
I knew the pain of failure. Summer storms
Sucked down my fleets even within sight of port.
A grievous blight wasted the harvest-fields,
Mocking my hopes of gain. Wars came and drained
My store, and I grew needy, knowing now
The hell of stronger souls, the loss of power
Wherein they exulted once. There comes no pain
Deeper than to have known delight of power,
And then to lose it all. But I, I would not
Sit tame beneath defeat, trimming my sails
To wait the breeze of Fortune--fickle breath
Which perhaps might breathe no more--but chose instead
By rash conceit and bolder enterprise
To win her aid again. I had no thought
Of selfish gain, only to be and act
As a god to those, feeding my sum of pride
With acted good.
But evermore defeat
Dogged me, and evermore my people grew
To doubt me, seeing no more the wealth, the force,
Which once they worshipped. Then the lust of power
Loved, not for sake of others, but itself,
Grew on me, and the pride which can dare all,
Save failure only, seized me. Evil finds
Its ready chance. There were rich argosies
Upon the seas: I sank them, ship and crew,
In the unbetraying ocean. Wayfarers
Crossing the passes with rich merchandise
My creatures, hid behind the crags, o'erwhelmed
With rocks hurled downward. Yet I spent my gains
For the public weal, not otherwise; and they,
The careless people, took the piteous spoils
Which cost the lives of many, and a man's soul,
And blessed the giver. Empty venal blessings,
Which sting more deep than curses!
For awhile
I was content with this, but at the last
A great contempt and hatred of them took me,
The base, vile churls! Why should I stain my soul
For such as those--dogs that would fawn and lick
The hand that fed them, but, if food should fail,
Would turn and rend me? I would none of them;
I would grow rich and happy, being indeed
Godlike in brain to such. So with all craft,
And guile, and violence I enriched me, loading
My treasuries with gold. My deep-laid schemes
Of gain engrossed the long laborious days,
Stretched far into the night. Enjoy, I might not,
Seeing it was all to do, and life so brief
That ere a man might gain the goal he would,
Lo! Age, and with it Death, and so an end!
For all the tales of the indignant gods,
What were they but the priests'? I had myself
Broken all oaths; long time deceived and ruined
With every phase of fraud the pious fools
Whom oath-sworn Justice bound; battened on blood
And what was I the worse? How should the gods
Bear rule if I were happy? Death alone
Was certain. Therefore must I haste to heap
Treasure sufficient for my need, and then
Enjoy the gathered good.
But gradually
There came--not great disasters which might crush
All hope, but petty checks which did decrease
My store, and left my labour vain, and me
Unwilling to enjoy; and gradually
I felt the chill approach of age, which stole
Higher and higher on me, till the life,
As in a paralytic, left my limbs
And heart, and mounted upwards to my brain,
Its last resort, and rested there awhile
Ere it should spread its wings. But even thus,
Tho' powerless to enjoy, the insatiate greed
And thirst of power sustained me, and supplied
Life's spark with some scant fuel, till it seemed,
Year after year, as if I could not die,
Holding so fast to life. I grew so old
That all the comrades of my youth, my prime,
My age, were gone, and I was left alone
With those who knew me not, bereft of all
Except my master passion--an old man
Forlorn, forgotten of the gods and Death.

So all the people, seeing me grow old
And prosperous, held me wise, and spread abroad
Strange fables, growing day by day more strange--
How I deceived the very gods. They thought
That I was blest, remembering not the wear
Of anxious thought, the growing sum of pain,
The failing ear and eye, the slower limbs,
Whose briefer name is Age: and yet I trow
I was not all unhappy, though I knew
It was too late to enjoy, and though my store
Increased not as my greed--nay, even sunk down
A little, year by year. Till, last of all,
When now my time was come and I had grown
A little tired of living, a trivial hurt
Laid me upon my bed; and as I mused
On my long life and all its villanies,
The wickedness I did, the blood I shed,
The guile, the frauds of years--they came with news,
One now, and now another; how my schemes
Were crushed, my enterprises lost, my toil
And labour all in vain. Day after day
They brought these tidings, while I longed to rise
And stay the tide of ill, and raved to know
I could not. At the last the added sum
Of evil, like yon great rock poised awhile
Uncertain, gathered into one, o'erwhelmed
My feeble strength, and left me ruined and lost,
And showed me all I was, and all the depth
And folly of my sin, and racked my brain,
And sank me in despair and misery,
And broke my heart and slew me.
Therefore 'tis
I spend the long, long centuries which have come
Between me and my sin, in such dread tasks
As that thou sawest. In the soul I sinned:
In body and soul I suffer. What I bade
My minions do to others, that of woe
I bear myself; and in the pause of ill,
As now, I know again the bitter pang
Of failure, which of old pierced thro' my soul
And left me to despair. The pain of mind
Is fiercer far than any bodily ill,
And both are mine--the pang of torture-pain
Always recurring; and, far worse, the pang
Of consciousness of black sins sinned in vain--
The doom of constant failure.
Will, fierce Will!
Thou parent of unrest and toil and woe,
Measureless effort! growing day by day
To force strong souls along the giddy steep
That slopes to the pit of Hell, where effort serves
Only to speed destruction! Yet I know
Thou art not, as some hold, the primal curse
Which doth condemn us; since thou bearest in thee
No power to satisfy thyself; but rather,
The spring of act, whereby in earth and heaven
Both men and gods do breathe and live and are,
Since Life is Act and not to Do is Death--
I do not blame thee: but to work in vain
Is bitterest penalty: to find at last
The soul all fouled with sin and stained with blood
In vain; ah, this is hell indeed--the hell
Of lost and striving souls!"
Then as I passed,
The halting figure bent itself again
To the old task, and up the rugged steep
Thrust the great rock with groanings. Horror chained
My parting footsteps, like a nightmare dream
Which holds us that we flee not, with wide eyes
That loathe to see, yet cannot choose but gaze
Till all be done. Slowly, with dreadful toil
And struggle and strain, and bleeding hands and knees,
And more than mortal strength, against the hill
He pressed, the wretched one! till with long pain
He trembled on the summit, a gaunt form,
With that great rock above him, poised and strained,
Now gaining, now receding, now in act
To win the summit, now borne down again,
And then the inevitable crash--the mass
Leaping from crag to crag. But ere it ceased
In dreadful silence, and the low groan came,
My limbs were loosed with one convulsive bound;
I hid my face within my hands, and fled,
Surfeit with horror.