Tantalus

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Meet is it for a man that concerning gods he speak honourably; for the reproach is less. Of thee, son of Tantalos, I will speak contrariwise to them who have gone before me, and I will tell how when thy father had bidden thee to that most seemly feast at his beloved Sipylos, repaying to the gods their banquet, then did he of the Bright Trident, his heart vanquished by love, snatch thee and bear thee behind his golden steeds to the house of august Zeus in the highest, whither again on a like errand came Ganymede in the after time.

But when thou hadst vanished, and the men who sought thee long brought thee not to thy mother, some one of the envious neighbours said secretly that over water heated to boiling they had hewn asunder with a knife thy limbs, and at the tables had shared among them and eaten sodden fragments of thy flesh. But to me it is impossible to call one of the blessed gods cannibal; I keep aloof; in telling ill tales is often little gain.

Now if any man ever had honour of the guardians of Olympus, Tantalos was that man; but his high fortune he could not digest, and by excess thereof won him an overwhelming woe, in that the Father hath hung above him a mighty stone that he would fain ward from his head, and therewithal he is fallen from joy.

This hopeless life of endless misery he endureth with other three, for that he stole from the immortals and gave to his fellows at a feast the nectar and ambrosia, whereby the gods had made him incorruptible. But if a man thinketh that in doing aught he shall be hidden from God, he erreth.


- Pindar, Olympian Ode 1


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For Kleandros in his prime let some of you, ye young men, go stand before the shining portal of his father Telesarchos, and rouse a song of triumph, to be a glorious recompense of his toils, for that he hath achieved reward of victory at Isthmos, and hath showed his strength in the games of Nemea.

For him I also, albeit heavy at heart, am bidden to call upon the golden Muse. Yea since we are come forth from our sore troubles let us not fall into the desolation of crownlessness, neither nurse our griefs; but having ease from our ills that are past mending, we will set some pleasant thing before the people, though it follow hard on pain: inasmuch as some god hath put away from us the Tantalos-stone that hung above our heads, a curse intolerable to Hellas.

But now hath the passing of this terror ended my sore disquietude, and ever it is better to look only on the thing hard by. For the guile of time hangeth above the heads of men, and maketh the way of their life crooked, yet if Freedom abide with them, even such things may mortals cure.


- Pindar, Isthmian Ode 7


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“Aye, and I saw Tantalus in violent torment, standing in a pool, and the water came nigh unto his chin. He seemed as one athirst, but could not take and drink; for as often as that old man stooped down, eager to drink, so often would the water be swallowed up and vanish away, and at his feet the black earth would appear, for some god made all dry. And trees, high and leafy, let stream their fruits above his head, pears, and pomegranates, and apple trees with their bright fruit, and sweet figs, and luxuriant olives. But as often as that old man would reach out toward these, to clutch them with his hands, the wind would toss them to the shadowy clouds.


- Homer, The Odyssey, Book 11


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Tantalus is punished in Hades by having a stone impending over him, by being perpetually in a lake and seeing at his shoulders on either side trees with fruit growing beside the lake. The water touches his jaws, but when he would take a draught of it, the water dries up; and when he would partake of the fruits, the trees with the fruits are lifted by winds as high as the clouds. Some say that he is thus punished because he blabbed to men the mysteries of the gods, and because he attempted to share ambrosia with his fellows.


- Pseudo-Apollodorus, The Library, Epitome, Chapter 2


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