Tantalus

King Tantalus
Biographical Information
Real Name:	Tántalos
Species:	Mythical
Age:	Immortal
Affiliations:	The Underworld
Physical Description
Gender:	Male
Hair color:	Brown
Eye color:	Green
Height:	5'2
Character Information
First appearance:	Tantalize This

        

Tantalus is most famous for his eternal punishment for cannibalism. He was made to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches, with the fruit ever eluding his grasp, and the water always receding before he could take a drink.

Physical Appearance

In his debut, Tantalus is a ghoulish looking man with pale white skin, messy brown hair, and wearing a brown loin cloth.

Personality

Tantalus appears to not fully care about the crimes he committed when he was alive as he had pleaded for Atlanta to help him eat and drink and became vengeful when she refused to help as she felt he was getting his just punishment. In his anger, he cursed Atlanta to try to obtain what she could not have.

Role in the Series

Tantalize This-Tantalus was shown floating on a broken tree branch making his way to Atlanta asking for help to let him eat and drink. He was being punished and was unable to eat or drink as the apples and water were always out his reach. Atlanta told him he deserved it for his cannibalism and walked off. Tantalus then decided to curse her, wanting something she couldn't have.

Mythology

King Tantalus was the father of Pelops, Niobe and Broteas, and was a son of Zeus and the Nymph Plouto. Tantalus became one of the inhabitants of Tartarus, the deepest portion of The Underworld, reserved for the punishment of evildoers; there Odysseus, a visitor saw him.

Tantalus is known for having been welcomed to Zeus' table in Olympus. For the dinner, Tantalus offered up his son, Pelops, as a sacrifice. He cut him up, boiled him, and served him up in a banquet for the gods. The Gods became aware of the gruesome nature of the menu, so they did not touch the offering; only Demeter, distraught by the loss of her daughter, Persephone, absentmindedly ate part of the boy's shoulder.

Clotho, one of the three Fates, was ordered by Zeus to bring the boy to life again. She collected the parts of the body and boiled them in a sacred cauldron, rebuilding his shoulder with one wrought of ivory made by Hephaestus and presented by Demeter.

The revived Pelops grew to be an extraordinarily handsome youth. The god Poseidon took him to Mount Olympus to teach him to use chariots. Later, Zeus threw Pelops out of Olympus due to his anger at Tantalus.

Tantalus partook in cannibalism, abused Zeus' hospitality and stolen ambrosia and nectar to bring it back to his people, and revealed the secrets of the gods. Tantalus's punishment for his act 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 he bent down to get a drink, the water receded before he could get any. Over his head towers a threatening stone like the one that Sisyphus is punished to roll up a hill. This fate has cursed him with eternal deprivation of nourishment.

In a different story, Tantalus was blamed for indirectly having stolen the dog made of gold created by Hephaestus for Rhea, to watch over the infant Zeus. Tantalus's friend Pandareus stole the dog and gave it to Tantalus for safekeeping. When asked later by Pandareus to return the dog, Tantalus denied that he had it, saying he "had neither seen nor heard of a golden dog."

Tantalus was also the founder of the cursed House of Atreus in which variations on these atrocities continued. Misfortunes also occurred as a result of these acts, making the house the subject of many Greek tragedies. Tantalus's grave-sanctuary stood on Sipylus but honors were paid him at Argos, where local tradition claimed to possess his bones. In Lesbos, there was another hero-shrine in the small settlement of Polion and a mountain named after Tantalos.

Now his name is a proverbial term for temptation without satisfaction, tantalise.