Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece

Not confident that any words of his would be received with the respect and awe they deserved, Thanatos showed Sisyphus his manacles and shook them threateningly in his face.

‘So you’ve brought shackles along. Iron?’

‘Steel. Unbreakable steel. Fetters forged in the fires of Hephaestus by Steropes the Cyclops. Enchanted by my lord Hades. Whomsoever they bind cannot be unbound save by the god himself.’

‘Impressive,’ Sisyphus conceded. ‘But in my experience nothing is unbreakable. Besides, there isn’t even a lock or catch.’

‘The hasp and spring are too cunningly contrived to be seen by mortal eyes.’

‘So you say. I don’t believe for a second that they work. I bet you can’t close them round even your skinny arm. Go on, try.’

Such open ridicule of his prized manacles could not be borne. ‘Foolish man!’ cried Thanatos. ‘Such intricate devices are beyond the understanding of a mortal. See here! Round my back once and pass in front. Easy. Bring my wrists together, then close up the bracelets. And if you would be good enough to press just here, to engage the clasp, there’s an invisible panel and … behold!’

‘Yes, I see,’ said Sisyphus thoughtfully. ‘I do see. I was wrong, quite wrong. What superb workmanship.’

‘Oh.’

Thanatos tried to wave the manacles, but his whole upper body was now constrained and immobile. ‘Er … help?’

Sisyphus sprang from his bed and opened the door of a large wardrobe at the end of the room. It was the simplest thing in the world to send the hovering, tightly bound Thanatos across the room. With one push he had glided in and bumped his nose on the back of the closet.

Turning the key on him Sisyphus called out cheerily. ‘The lock to this wardrobe may be cheap and manmade, but I can assure you that it works as well as any fetters forged in the fires of Hephaestus.’

Muffled despairing cries came, begging to be let out, but with a hearty ‘Mwahahaha’ Sisyphus skipped away, deaf to Death’s entreaties.

Life without Death

The first few days of Thanatos’s imprisonment passed without incident. Neither Zeus nor Hermes nor even Hades himself thought to verify that Sisyphus had been checked in to the infernal regions as arranged. But when a whole week passed without the arrival of any new dead souls, the spirits and demons of the underworld began to murmur. Another week went by and not a single departed shade had been admitted for processing, save one venerable priestess of Artemis, whose blameless life merited the honour of a personal escort to Elysium by Hermes, the Psychopomp. This sudden stemming of the flow of souls quite perplexed the denizens of Hades, until someone remarked that they hadn’t seen Thanatos in days. Search parties were sent out, but Death could not be found. Such a thing had never happened before. Without Thanatos the whole system collapsed.

In Olympus opinion was divided. Dionysus found the whole situation hilarious and drank a toast to the end of lethal cirrhosis of the liver. Apollo, Artemis and Poseidon were more or less neutral on the subject. Demeter feared that Persephone’s authority as Queen of the Underworld was being flouted. The seasons over which mother and daughter had dominion required that life be constantly ended and begun again, and only the presence of death could achieve this. The impropriety of such a scandal made Hera quite indignant, which made Zeus restive in turn. The usually merry and irrepressible Hermes was anxious too, for the smooth running of the underworld was partly his responsibility.

But it was Ares who found the situation most intolerable. He was outraged. He looked down and saw battles being fought in the human realm with their customary ferocity, yet no one was dying. Warriors were being run through with javelins, trampled by horses, gutted by chariot wheels and beheaded by swords but they would not die. It made a mockery of combat. If soldiers and civilians did not die, why then – war had no point. It settled nothing. It achieved nothing. Neither side in a battle could ever win.

Lesser deities were as divided over the issue as the Olympians. The Keres continued to drink the blood of those felled in battle and could not care less what happened to their souls. Two of the Horai, Diké and Eunomia, agreed with Demeter that the absence of death upset the natural order of things. Their sister Eirene, the goddess of peace, could barely contain her delight. If the absence of Death meant the absence of war then surely her time had come?

Ares nagged his parents Hera and Zeus with such incessant clamour that at last they could bear it no longer. They declared that Thanatos must be found. Hera demanded to know when he had last been seen.

‘Surely, Hermes,’ said Zeus, ‘it wasn’t so long ago that you sent him to fetch the soul of that black-hearted villain Sisyphus?’

‘Damn!’ Hermes slapped his thigh in annoyance. ‘Of course! Sisyphus. We sent Thanatos to chain him up and escort him to Hades. Wait here.’