The Greek myth of Tantalus, a man who was punished because he killed his own son to please the gods, which made them aggravated. So for his punishment, the gods tantalized him with both fruits and water, but they made it impossible to get it. Since the gods tempted Tantalus with fruits and water that he could never get, we get the world tantalize from the story of Tantalus. Tantalus was one of Zeus' mortal sons, was the King of Phrygia in Greece. It is said that his name meant the "sufferer and the bearer". So when someone was making the word tantalize, they thought of the story of Tantalus and found that without fruit or water, he was suffering for eternity. However on Earth, Tantalus either obtained two of the following punishments:
1) He was punished by having a stone forever float above his head.
2) He was driven away from his kingdom every time he tried to return.
Knowing this, many things are adapted from the story of Tantalus. A liquor holder where the bottles are held down by a metal bar. It gets the name Tantalus because workers and slaves were tempted by the liquor and when the went to get some, they found out that you needed a key in order to open it.
Knowing the story of Tantalus, What morals does the story of Tantalus teach us? Why do you think we got the word tantalize from the story of Tantalus? Why do you think the gods gave him the punishment that they gave him instead of death in return of killing his own son?
Well, the word tantalize has a verb ending but the same root, Tantal. The morals are not to kill someone just, because someone tells you to. It is interesting that the gods asked Tantalus to kill his son, and God asks Abraham to kill Isaac, and Isaac almost dies before an angel saves him from Abraham. Tantalus' son did not have the same luck. Why would God ask Abraham to kill his son when one of his Ten Commandments is not to kill. Isn't that contradictory. I guess it leads me to think that these were both obviously tests, and the correct answer is being willing to serve the gods or God, but not going through with murderous actions. In the extreme literal, what if a freak wind had stopped the angel from reaching Abraham a split second from killing Isaac?
ReplyDeleteI think that the story of Tantalus teaches us to not do things to please others, but rather do things because its the right thing to do. The word tantalize means to "Torment or tease (someone) with the sight or promise of something unobtainable" which almost perfectly describes what Tantalus has to go through for his punishment. Many times, people have punishments of labor or hardship instead of death because of two different reasons. One could be that they want them to suffer for what they did, or the other which kind of goes along with the first is that death is the easy way out.
ReplyDeleteI personaly think that the story of Tantalus is to not go crazy overboard with gifting guests. As Tantalus does with serving his highly honored guest with his own son as food. I think he deserved his punishment very much because just killing him would not be just. It is horrible that someone would see it acceptable to cut up their son and feed him to a god. Instead he gets a punishment reasonable to his crime, which is geting forced out of his kingdome and being starved and dehydrated.
ReplyDeleteSome of the morals that are shown in this myth is not to do things to gain self pride. In doing this Tantalus did eventually gain self pride. However, this pride was infamous pride. So in his punishment he got the infamous pride of being " the guy who couldn't reach the fruit." It is very clear why we got the word tantalize from this myth. This is because of the connection with the name which was Tantalus and the and the action/punishment he endured.
ReplyDeleteThe story of Tantalus teaches us that we shouldn't do stupid things in order to please other people, because it will usually fail. We got the word "tanatalize" from Tantalus because many of our English words originate from myths or words of past languages. The story of Tantalus was a folk tale passed down from people to people in the time of the Greeks, so it was very famous. The gods gave Tantalus his horrible punishment because they truly wanted to punish him for cooking his son.
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