The New International Encyclopædia/Sisyphus

SIS′YPHUS (Lat., from Gk. Σίσυφος). In Greek legend, the son of Æolus and Enarete. According to the earlier myth he was married to Merope, but later tradition made him the father of Odysseus by Anticlea. From this the patronymic Sisyphides was applied to the hero of the Odyssey. He is said to have been the founder and King of Ephyra, afterwards Corinth, and became notorious as a fraudulent, avaricious, and wicked ruler. For this wickedness during life he was punished in the lower world by being condemned to roll from the bottom to the summit of a hill an immense boulder which, whenever it reached the top, rolled down again, and compelled him to begin his task anew.