Lucretius De Rerum Natura 3.995-1006: advises his reader to avoid the search for political office, for returning again and again to the "campus" leads only to unending toils. Lucretius, an Epicurean, famously disbelieves in life after death, but he shows in his apparently original application here that myths of underworld sufferers still have some allegorical application for us rational thinkers: "Those punishments said to have been assigned in the depths of Acheron are all upon us during our lifetimes." (3.978-79)
Sisyphus in vita quoque nobis ante oculos est, 995
qui petere a populo fasces saevasque secures
imbibit et semper victus tristisque recedit.
nam petere imperium, quod inanest nec datur umquam,
atque in eo semper durum sufferre laborem,
hoc est adverso nixantem trudere monte 1000
saxum, quod tamen
volvitur et plani raptim petit aequora campi.*
deinde animi ingratam naturam pascere semper
atque explere bonis rebus satiareque numquam,
quod faciunt nobis annorum tempora, circum 1005
cum redeunt fetusque ferunt variosque lepores...
...We've got Sisyphus also right here in real life, in fact [sc. and you don't have to imagine such a fate for a shade in Acheron!]:
He's the guy that lives on political power and getting administrative prowess from his people
, but he is always rejected and forced to turn away unhappy.
For, he keeps seeking authority that is vain and never bestowed,
and in this pursuit he always endures harsh toil, namely the task of pushing with his might a stone up an opposing mountain — when his burden, though, has been advanced again to the very pinnacle, it rolls back down and quickly finds the flat ground of the broad plain below. Then his anger gnaws ever at his unthankful character
nor is he ever filled or satisfied with benefits (a thing that the changing seasons bring upon us when they come back bearing offspring and dappled charms). We likewise are never satisfied with the fruits we gain in this life tho the seasons bring round their pleasantest fruits.
*The fast dactyls in line 1002 probably replicate Homer's famous line at Od. 9.598.