Sisyphus and I
By Ilja Kostovski Translated by Jack Hirschman
May 1, 2024, marks the birthday of Macedonian poet and literary scholar Ilja Kostovski. In celebration, we are featuring Sisyphus and I, translated by 2012 San Francisco Poet-Laureate Jack Hirschman. The poem and its translation were first read at the 1978 International Poetry Festival in San Francisco.
Macedonian Poet Ilja Kostovski was born to a family of Macedonian Slavs living in Northern Greece. A refugee from the Greek Civil War, he was illiterate at the age of 14. He eventually established himself in Prague and, by the age of 32, had mastered nine languages and received a Ph.D. from Charles University. He moved to East and then West Germany, and to the United States where he remained for the rest of his life.
Jack Hirschman is a San Francisco poet, translator, and editor. His powerfully eloquent voice set the tone for political poetry in this country many years ago. Since leaving a teaching career in the ’60s, Hirschman has taken the free exchange of poetry and politics into the streets where he is, in the words of poet Luke Breit, “America’s most important living poet.” He is the author of numerous books of poetry, plus some 45 translations from a half a dozen languages, as well as the editor of anthologies and journals. Among his many volumes of poetry are Endless Threshold, The Xibalba Arcane, and Lyripol.
Sisyphus and I
Sisyphus told the river god Asopus that his daughter Aegina had been abducted by Zeus. Sisyphus was punished for telling the secret by being condemned eternally to roll an enormous stone up the slope of a mountain. Each time it nearly reached the summit, it only rolled down again.
In the Black Hills of the Dakotas
Stone masons hammer into my face
I am the one who rolled the stones
Onto the banks of the Chesapeake Bay
No oxen pulled my stones
I had no Egyptian slaves like the pharaohs
No builders like in Greece, like in Rome
From quarries I stole stones
Tore them out by the roots
My hands stone-hard
My muscles stone-hard
Like Robinson Jeffers in Carmel
I wanted to build stairs of stones
To the skies
And down to the seas
Come, gods, one by one
Behold us and compare
Sisyphus the demigod and me
I was born next to your land
They called me the barbarian
Did I steal any secrets
From your sacred shrine?
Did I curse you by my pagan idols?
Did I scorn you?
Did I condemn your holy mind?
Behold the stones, they are not mine
Behold my altars without sacrificial horns
Tell me, gods, which one of you
Bound me to the cliffs?
Why did you place me among the thieves?
Not just the one stone
In the myth of Sisyphus
But thousands of stones
Came pouring down on me
Stones came rolling over me
They whistled above me
They crashed into the sea
I pushed them again and again
And they would fall down
And I would push them again
I do not understand
Why I kept pushing them up
Again and again and again
Up to the top of the hill
And they would fall down
And I would push them again
I do not understand
Why I kept pushing them up
Again and again and again
What did I want?
What end did I desire?
To what Zeus, what Cronus, what Baal
Did I bring sacrifices
On my craggy heights?
What beauty did I worship?
Tired and dispirited
I did not know.
I wept, I roared
And thousands of times
I stained the stones with my blood
Like Christ his cross
Sisyphus, Sisyphus
Did you hear my call?
Our common fate is to push stones
You—only one, and I—thousands
Sisyphus is silent
Zeus and Cronus are silent
The tormented prisoners are silent
On the islands
Of Aistates and Makronisos
And I am silent too
And I still do not understand
Why I push my stones up
Again and again and again