How futile were the attempts of the
old Greeks and Romans to lay before us any plausible conception of
eternal torture. What were the Danaids doing but that which each one of
us has to do during his or her whole life? What are our bodies if not
sieves that we are for ever trying to fill, but which we must refill
continually without hope of being able to keep them full for long
together? Do we mind this? Not so long as we can get the wherewithal to
fill them; and the Danaids never seem to have run short of water. They
would probably ere long take to clearing out any obstruction in their
sieves if they found them getting choked. What could it matter to them
whether the sieves got full or no? They were not paid for filling them.
Sisyphus, again! Can any one believe that he would go on rolling that
stone year after year and seeing it roll down again unless he liked
seeing it? We are not told that there was a dragon which attacked him
whenever he tried to shirk. If he had greatly cared about getting his
load over the last pinch, experience would have shown him some way of
doing so. The probability is that he got to enjoy the downward rush of
his stone, and very likely amused himself by so timing it as to cause the
greatest scare to the greatest number of the shades that were below.
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