Tantalus
Tantalus, also Tántalos, in Greek mythology became a famous inhabitant of Tartarus, the portion of the Underworld reserved for the punishment of evildoers.He was the father of Pelops and Niobe.
Tantalus was a son of Zeus and the nymph Plouto (not to be confused with the Roman name for Hades). Thus he was a king in the primordial world. He was associated with Phrygia or Lydia in Asia Minor. Like Lycaon, Tantalus tried to trick the Olympian gods back into their older identities by offering them a sacrifice-banquet of human flesh. Already blamed for having stolen the dog of Hephaestus (god of metals) (alternatively, he convinced his friend, Pandareus to do so), Tantalus killed his own son Pelops just to test the powers of the gods. He mutilated the dead body to make it unrecognisable, and served it as meat for the gods. The gods were aware of his plan, so they didn't touch the offering; only Demeter, disturbed by the rapture of her daughter Persephone, (or Dionysus) did not realise what it was and had a little of the baby's shoulder. Hermes, ordered by Zeus, brought the baby to life again (he collected the parts of the body and boiled them in milk) and rebuilt his shoulder in dolphin's ivory.
The kernel of myth embodied in this tale reinforces Olympian suppression of human sacrifice, which had apparently been offered in earlier times, especially to Demeter in her earlier embodiment as the Great Goddess, but which was now taboo.
Tantalus' punishment, now proverbial for endless efforts to achieve results, was to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches. Whenever he reached for the fruit, the branches raised his intended meal from his grasp. Whenever Tantalus bent down to get a drink, the water receded before he could get any.
Tantalus is the origin of the English word "tantalize." The idea being that when a person tantalizes someone else, that person is making them like Tantalus: there is something desirable that is always just out of that person's reach.
A Tantalus, by an obvious analogy, is also the term for a type of drinks decanter stand in which the bottle stoppers are firmly clamped down by a locked metal bar, as a means of preventing servants from stealing the master's liquor.
Homer. Odyssey XI, 582-92; Apollodorus. Bibliotheke III, v, 6; Apollodorus. Epitome II,1-3; Ovid. Metamorphoses IV, 458-9; VI, 172- 76 & 403-11.
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