Episode 180: Tantalising

(Intro & piano music)Welcome to the last episode of the season! I have a little gruesome myth for you today, so we can leave all the ugliness behind and step into the summer care free. Thant's what Greek myths do, no? He was one of the first humans, son of Zeus, King of Sipylus and of mythical wealth. He is also the one that kickstarted the rage and murder-curse that runs through the mythical families we see in Greek Dramas; by committing Hubris. Doubting that the Olympian gods knew everything , he decided to test them by killing his son, cooking him in stew and serving him up to the gods for dinner. They all, immediately, realised what they were eating of course, apart from Demeter who, absent minded from deep grief for her lost daughter Persephone, took a bite from the child's shoulder. Anyway, the gods brought the child back to life, replaced his shoulder with an ivory one moulded by Hephaestus himself, Zeus cursed all the King's descendants and of course, killed him by lightning. But that punishment wasn't enough. When the King got to Hades, he was placed standing on a river, surrounded by trees bearing fruit. Whenever he got hungry and reached up the branches would go just out of reach; and whenever he got thirsty and bent down to drink the water would vanish under his feet. His name became a verb for a form of psychological torture and the word came to England in the end of the 16th century from France. ΤΑΝΤΑΛΟΣ/TANTALISING.

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