Like in character was the punishment inflicted upon Sis'y-phus,
"the most crafty of men," as Homer calls him. Being condemned to
roll a huge stone up a hill, it proved to be a never-ending,
still-beginning toil, for as soon as the stone reached the summit
it rolled down again into the plain. So, also, Ix-i'on, "the Cain
of Greece," as he is expressly called--the first shedder of kindred
blood--was doomed to be fastened, with brazen bands, to an
ever-revolving fiery wheel. But the very refinement of torment,
similar to that inflicted upon Prometheus, was that suffered by
the giant Tit'y-us, who was placed on his back, while vultures
constantly fed upon his liver, which grew again as fast as it was
eaten.


THE DESCENT OF OR'PHEUS.

Only once do we learn that these torments ceased, and that was
when the musician Orpheus, lyre in hand, descended to the lower
world to reclaim his beloved wife, the lost Eu-ryd'i-ce. At the
music of his "golden shell" Tantalus forgot his thirst, Sisyphus
rested from his toil, the wheel of Ixion stood still, and Tityus
ceased his moaning. The poet OVID thus describes the wonderful
effects of the musician's skill:

The very bloodless shades attention keep,
And, silent, seem compassionate to weep;
Even Tantalus his flood unthirsty views,
Nor flies the stream, nor he the stream pursues:
Ixion's wondrous wheel its whirl suspends,
And the voracious vulture, charmed, attends;