SisyphusANCIENT_Euripides

Ovid is the only extant ancient author who crafts a respite from Sisyphus' laborious wrestling with the rock. In Metamorphoses 10.44, Orpheus' comeppling elegy for lost Eurydice distracts Sisyphus from his rock.

talia dicentem nervosque ad verba moventem
exsanges flebant animae: nec Tantalus undam
captavit refugam stupuitque Ixionis orbis,
nec carpsere iecur volucres, urnisque vacarunt
Belides, inque tuo sedisti, Sisyphe, saxo.


As Orpheus persuaded the nether-gods to relinquish Eurydice...
He sang his song and pucked the lyre-strings to his lyrics, and the bloodless shades began to weep; Tantalus stopped reaching for his recoiling shadow, and Ixion's wheel stood in awe, nor did the vultures pick at (Tityus') liver; even the Danaids turned away from their urns and you, Sisyphus, took a seat on your stone.*

*Perhaps Ovid's last line echoes the famous Homeric assonance (Od. 11.598).

In Metamorphoses 4.447-63, Juno ventures into Pluto's realm and sees Sisyphus among others. Ovid's grouping of Tityus, Tantalus, Sisyphus, and the Danaids is standard sequencing.
Sustinet ire illuc caelesti sede relicta
(tantum odiis iraeque dabat) Saturnia Iuno;
quo simul intravit sacroque a corpore pressum
ingemuit limen, tria Cerberus extulit ora
et tres latratus semel edidit; illa sorores
Nocte vocat genitas, grave et inplacabile numen:
carceris ante fores clausas adamante sedebant
deque suis atros pectebant crinibus angues.
quam simul agnorunt inter caliginis umbras,
surrexere deae; sedes scelerata vocatur:
viscera praebebat Tityos lanianda novemque
iugeribus distentus erat; tibi, Tantale, nullae
deprenduntur aquae, quaeque inminet, effugit arbor;
aut petis aut urgues rediturum, Sisyphe, saxum;
volvitur Ixion et se sequiturque fugitque,
molirique suis letum patruelibus ausae
adsiduae repetunt, quas perdant, Belides undas.


Saturnian Juno decides to abandon her heavenly home and descend into Hell. So much did she indulge her hateful wrath. The moment she entered there, her body's holy weight made the trodden threshold groan, Cerberus raised his three heads and barked three times at once. She summoned the three sisters born of Night, an auspicious and frightening presence they: for they were sitting before the adamantine doors of a prison and combing black viper-knots from their hair. The moment they recognized Juno immediately among the gloomy shades, the goddesses stood up straight; this incriminated home was invoked by oath. — Tityos was nearby offering his entrails for grazing, stretched across nine acres; to you, Tantalus, no water was reachable and that tree overhead escaped your touch; o Sisyphus, you either chase after that rock or you work it, though it soon will go back to where it came; Ixion revolves, and both follows and escapes himself at once; and the daughters of Belus who dared to plot the death of their own cousins persistently fetch the waters that they are spilling away. — trans by RTM