Learning some lessons from Greek mythology – and my laundry basket

I am not sure what has reignited my interest in the lives, loves and activities of the classical deities, heroes and creatures, although it is surely not in any way connected to the fact that I am currently sporting a full and formidable white beard and flowing silver locks. No, it cannot be that.

Regardless, coming to the tales afresh, I have been struck by the abundance of suffering within. More specifically, never-ending suffering. Even more specifically, never-ending suffering centred around repetitive ordeals or tasks.

Think of poor Atlas. He had the misfortune to pick the wrong side in the Titanomachy – the 10-year war between the Olympians and the Titans. When the Olympians were victorious, mighty Zeus punished Atlas by condemning him to stand at the western end of the earth holding up the sky on his shoulders for eternity. Giving his name to books of maps was surely scant consolation.

Then there was noble Prometheus. He incurred the wrath of the gods by stealing fire and giving it to humanity. Zeus (known for coming up with inventive methods of torture, if not for clemency) punished him with yet more eternal torment.

Unfortunate Prometheus was bound to a rock and an eagle (or vulture, depending on your source) then ate his liver. The liver would grow back overnight only to be eaten again the next day in on ongoing cycle.

And to Sisyphus. His fate was not quite as gruesome, although perhaps more monotonous. He cheated death twice and was punished by Hades, the underworld god, by being forced to roll a huge boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down each time he neared the top. This task, you guessed it, had to be repeated for eternity.

I could go on like this for a long time, but I hope you are beginning to appreciate the broad theme. The Danaides were the 50 daughters of the ancient king Danaus (I know, but just go with it). They were pledged to marry the 50 sons of their father’s twin brother.

But, it seemed, the sisters were not happy about this ancient form of matchmaking because 49 of them killed their husbands on their wedding night. Their bloody deeds saw them sent to the dungeon of torment that was Tartarus where they were condemned to spend eternity filling with water a vessel that had no bottom.

I love all these stories as, well, stories. I do not regard them as containing relevant lessons for how to lead my life. The punishments given to the Danaides and Sisyphus represent the futility of a repetitive task which can never be completed. Perhaps they work as metaphors for the unending struggle that is life and the inevitability of failure.

I am walking around my house with my head in the clouds somewhere above Mount Olympus when I notice something which rapidly brings me back down to earth.

Outside the bathroom I see that the laundry basket is overflowing.

I haul the basket down the stairs, fill the washing machine and set the cycle. A little later I see, once again, that the basket is overflowing with laundry. The washing machine has finished its cycle just in time for me to reload it.

That same evening, I am preparing for bed when I again notice the laundry basket. Once more it is overflowing. Now I become contemplative. Surely there can be no mortal explanation. I think of the Danaides and Sisyphus, their repetitive tasks which can never be completed. I look again at my overflowing laundry basket. I fall to my knees.

“Mighty Zeus!” I roar.”How have I displeased you to be so cursed with the eternal torment of the laundry basket?”

Of course, the suffering is largely of my own making. When my wife and I were settling into a domestic routine, I suppose I took charge of laundry because I believed it was easy, leaving her with some of the messier cleaning jobs. But I am temperamentally unsuited for it. When I do a job, I like to know that it is finished. But the laundry never ends, it just keeps coming - relentless, insatiable, menacing like the minotaur.

I have difficulty in understanding where all the laundry comes from. There are only three of us in the house. I, to be frank, change my clothes as little as I can decently get away with.

But yet, despite it all, every time I walk past the laundry basket, and I really do mean every time, it is full to overflowing.

There is another myth I am fond of. The ancient Greeks attempted to explain the changing of the seasons through the story of the abduction of Persephone by Hades. Persephone was the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of the harvest. For six months of every year Persephone had to stay in the underworld, causing Demeter to become depressed and the plants to wither. When the daughter returned to her mother’s side, the Earth once again bloomed.

I measure the seasons through my attempts to dry laundry. For six months of the year I can hang the garments outside. In the winter, when Demeter is displeased, I find myself stuffing socks and pants over radiators and hanging shirts on chairs.

I think of brave Odysseus, wandering from country to country, trying to find his way home following the Trojan war.

I undertake a similar odyssey, wandering from room to room, trying to find somewhere to dry the clothes.