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作者：阿尔贝·加缪The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.
If one believes Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of mortals. According to another tradition, however, he was disposed to practice the profession of highwayman. I see no contradiction in this. Opinions differ as to the reasons why he became the futile laborer of the underworld. To begin with, he is accused of a certain levity in regard to the gods. He stole their secrets. Aegina, the daughter of Aesopus, was carried off by Jupiter. The father was shocked by that disappearance and complained to Sisyphus. He, who knew of the abduction, offered to tell about it on condition that Aesopus would give water to the citadel of Corinth. To the celestial thunderbolts he preferred the benediction of water. He was punished for this in the underworld. Homer tells us also that Sisyphus had put Death in chains. Pluto could not endure the sight of his deserted, silent empire. He dispatched the god of war, who liberated Death from the hands of her conqueror.
It is said that Sisyphus, being near to death, rashly wanted to test his wife"s love. He ordered her to cast his unburied body into the middle of the public square. Sisyphus woke up in the underworld. And there, annoyed by an obedience so contrary to human love, he obtained from Pluto permission to return to earth in order to chastise his wife. But when he had seen again the face of this world, enjoyed water and sun, warm stones and the sea, he no longer wanted to go back to the infernal darkness. Recalls, signs of anger, warnings were of no avail. Many years more he lived facing the curve of the gulf, the sparkling sea, and the smiles of earth. A decree of the gods was necessary. Mercury came and seized the impudent man by the collar and, snatching him from his joys, lead him forcibly back to the underworld, where his rock was ready for him.
You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth. Nothing is told us about Sisyphus in the underworld. Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them. As for this myth, one sees merely the whole effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it, and push it up a slope a hundred times over; one sees the face screwed up, the cheek tight against the stone, the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward that lower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. He goes back down to the plain.
It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.
If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn.
If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy. This word is not too much. Again I fancy Sisyphus returning toward his rock, and the sorrow was in the beginning. When the images of earth cling too tightly to memory, when the call of happiness becomes too insistent, it happens that melancholy arises in man"s heart: this is the rock"s victory, this is the rock itself. The boundless grief is too heavy to bear. These are our nights of Gethsemane. But crushing truths perish from being acknowledged. Thus, Oedipus at the outset obeys fate without knowing it. But from the moment he knows, his tragedy begins. Yet at the same moment, blind and desperate, he realizes that the only bond linking him to the world is the cool hand of a girl. Then a tremendous remark rings out: "Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well." Sophocles" Oedipus, like Dostoevsky"s Kirilov, thus gives the recipe for the absurd victory. Ancient wisdom confirms modern heroism.
One does not discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of happiness. "What! by such narrow ways--?" There is but one world, however. Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd discovery. It happens as well that the felling of the absurd springs from happiness. "I conclude that all is well," says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile suffering. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.
All Sisyphus" silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is a thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his efforts will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which become his fate, created by him, combined under his memory"s eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.
I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one"s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man"s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
西西弗斯的神话
作者 阿尔贝·加缪（法）
神祇们处罚西西弗斯,叫他不停地把一块巨石推上山顶去，由于它本身的重量，巨石又从山顶上滚下来。他们是有一些理由认为没有更可怕的处罚过从事徒劳无功和毫无希望的工作。
假使我们相信荷马，西西弗斯就是一个最聪明和最谨慎的凡人了。然而，根据另一个传说，他却喜欢干强盗这一行业。我认为这并没有什么矛盾。意见的分歧却在于他为什么被罚在冥间做这种徒劳无功的工作。先是，他冒犯了神祇，他偷去了他们的秘密。河神伊索柏斯的女儿爱琴娜被天神丘比特掳去了，她的父亲焦急万分，就把这事向西西弗斯述说。西西弗斯知道内情，愿望说出爱琴娜失踪的真实情形，但是，附有一个条件，那就是请求伊索柏斯给柯林斯城堡一个水源。他宁愿要取水的恩惠而不要天上的雷霆。因此，他就在下界受罚。荷马说西西弗斯曾用铁链锁住了死神，冥王普罗图无法忍受他王国诈中这种寂寞的景象，就派战神去把死神从她征服者的手中解放出来。
又据说，西西弗斯行将断气的时候，他轻率地去考验他妻子的爱情。他叫她把他的尸体抛弃在公共广场的中央。西西弗斯在冥间醒来，他对如此不合人间的顺从感到非常的懊恼。于是，他在获得了普罗图的允许之后，就回到人间来惩罚他的妻子。但是当他重新见到这地面的景象，享用了水和阳光，温暖的石头和海洋，他就不愿再回到冥府的阴暗里去。冥王的召唤，愤怒的警告都归于无效。面对着海湾的曲线，闪烁的海洋和微笑的大地，他又活了几年。神祇们不得不予以处罚。使神麦丘利来了，抓住这胆大妄为者的衣领，攫去他的欢乐，强迫他回到下界，那里他的石头已经给准备妥当了。
你已经领会出西西弗斯是一个荒谬的英雄，他的热情之多一如他的苦难之大。他对神祇的轻视，对死亡的憎恶，以及对生命的热爱，使他赢得这种不可言喻的处罚；他必须拼命做一件无所成就的事情。这就是对人世热爱所必须付出的代价。我们没有听到西西弗斯去下界的情形。神话就是靠想象来赋予生命的。至于这个神话，我们只能看到一个人使劲全身推动着石头，把它推向一个斜坡，我们看见扭曲了的脸，紧贴着石头的面颊，肩膀顶着全是泥巴的石头，插入石头下面的脚，张开的臂，沾着尘土的手。经过他那用无天际的空间和无深度的时间来衡量的漫长的努力，他终于达到了目的。但他转顺就看到那石头朝山下滚去，他要从那里把它重新推到山顶。他又回到平原。
于是他回来，他停顿的那一刻，使我发生了兴趣。紧贴着石头的把张脸已经变成了一块石头！我看着他踏着沉重而匀整的步伐走向永远不知何时才会结束的磨难。供他喘息的这一刻，就像他的苦难一样确定地回来，这是他具有意识的一刻。在他每一次从山顶上下来，渐渐地走向神祇的住所，他胜过了他的命运。他比他的石头更为坚强。
如果这个神话是悲剧性的，知因为他的英雄是具有意识的。的确，如果他每跨一步都有成功的希望在鼓励他，那么他的苦刑又算得了甚么呢？今天的工人，在他的一生中，每日都做着同样的工作，这种命运夜也是同样的荒谬的。但是只有当它偶然成为一种意识的行为时，它才具有悲剧的性质。西西弗斯是神祇的贱民，没有权力，却有反叛性格，他十分了解他那悲惨的境况：当他下山的时刻他就思索着这种境况。这种清明的心智构成了他的痛苦，同时也使他赢得了胜利。没有什么命运能不被轻篾所克服。
如果西西弗斯下山有时会感到悲伤，他也能感到快乐。这样说并不算过分。我再一次想象西西弗斯从山上下来，走向他的巨石，他的悲愁正在开始。当世间的情景深深地留在记忆中，当幸福的召唤频频不断，这时，忧愁的情绪自心中涌起：这就是巨石的胜利，这就是巨石本身了。无边的悲苦，沉重的无法忍受。这就是我们的蒙难之夜。但是一旦认清楚之后，
沉重的真象就消失了。所以，奥狄柏斯毫无所觉地服从命运。但是当他自决的刹那，他的悲剧就开始了。他眼睛瞎了，心灰意懒，这时他发现唯一使他和这世界还有联系的是一双少女的手。于是他惊人的宣称：“不管这么多的磨难，我的晚年和我崇高的灵魂，使我得到一个结局：一切都很好。”索福克利斯的奥狄柏斯和陀斯妥也夫斯基的克离洛夫，提出了荒谬的制胜方法。古代的智慧肯定了现代的英雄思想。
一个人不会发现了这种荒谬的情况尔不去写一部寻求快乐的手册。“什么！由这样狭窄的途径—？”然而，世界只有一个。快乐和荒谬是同属大地的两个儿子。他们使不可分的。如果说快乐必然由荒谬的发现而产生，则是错误的。荒谬的感觉也能因快乐而产生。“我的结论是一切都很好。”奥狄柏斯说，这个宣说是神圣的。它不会走上绝境。它把神祇赶出了这个世界。它使命运成为人的事务，必须由人自己来解决。
西西弗斯所有沉默的欢乐都在这里。他的命运属于他，他的巨石也属于他。此外，当荒谬的人体味了他的苦难时，他会使得一切偶像都沉默下来。宇宙突然恢复了它的沉静，大地上无数诧异的小小的声音就会升起。无意识的，秘密的传唤，从所有的脸上发出邀请，这些都是胜利的必然的回转和必须付出的代价。没有太阳就没有阴影，而且有其必要去认识夜晚。当荒谬的人肯定时，他的努力就永不停止了。如果有个人的命运，就没有更高一层的命运，或者只有一个他认作不可避免和应予轻蔑的命运。关于其余的一切，他知道自己是他生命的主宰。当人在回顾他一生中那微妙的瞬间，西西弗斯从山上走向他的巨石，在这微小的枢轴上，他想着一连串不相关连的行为，它们由他构成，成为他的命运，在他记忆的眼中结合，不久就由他的死亡加以封锁。因此，凡是相信人的一切故事都是属于人的本身，一个瞎子很想看得见，他知道黑夜是没有完结的时候，他还是继续努力。巨石还在滚动。
我让西西弗斯留在山下！一个人永远会一再发现他的重负。但西西弗斯揭示了更崇高的真诚，这真诚举起了巨石而否定了神祇。他也下结论说一切都很好。此后，这没有主宰的宇宙，在他看来，即非有益的，也不是徒劳的。这石头的每一颗原子，在这充满了夜色山上的每一片矿石，它的本身就形成一个世界。挣扎着上山的努力已足以充实人们的心灵。人们必须想象西西弗斯是快乐的。
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