Tantalus

Lydian king of Sipylus, son of Zeus by the Oceanid nymph Plouto, and father — by a daughter of Atlas — of Pelops and Niobe. Admitted to the table of the gods and entrusted with their secrets, he betrayed the trust in ways the sources disagree about: Pindar's *Olympian* 1 has him steal nectar and ambrosia to share with mortal companions and repudiates as unworthy the older story that he butchered his son Pelops and served him boiled to the gods to test their omniscience; the pre-Pindaric tradition keeps the cauldron-sacrifice as canonical, with only the absent-minded Demeter eating from Pelops's shoulder before the gods catch what has happened. For the offence Zeus hung him in Tartarus with food and drink always just out of reach — the pool that recedes as he stoops to drink, the fruit that rises as he lifts his hand. Pindar substitutes a great stone hanging over his head, always about to fall.

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