breaking the ice

Sisyphos tells Aiginas father that he witnessed the abduction of his daughter by Zeus. This upsets Zeus and he sends Thanatos to collect Sisyphos – but Sisyphos captures Thanatos, after a while Ares frees him and Thanatos eventually gets Sisyphos. Then Merope skipped the proper funeral rites this lack of protocol offended Hades and he sends Sisyophos back to tell her off – so they lived happily ever after. Maybe he is even the father of Odysseus…
Only when he finally gets to the underworld he has to take care of the eternally rolling stone.
And still many people only recognise Sisyphos as the symbol of the man forever rolling a rock uphill, only to have it roll back down again. Sisyphos has become a symbol for futility. Despite all the tricks and smartness, despite pissing off the father of all gods, despite all the cleverness, despite outthinking the god of the underworld - all that remained about him in common knowledge is the eternally rolling stone. Obviously Sisyphos was not French – otherwise he would have invented the strike.