Speaker 1: Hello, Welcome to a very special mini myth. This is
Speaker 1: let's talk about myths, baby. I thought about trying to
Speaker 1: sing that in a spookier way, but I can't sing
Speaker 1: at all, so it seems like an awful idea. Stick
Speaker 1: with what you know, which is this one tune Happy Friday,
Speaker 1: my Friends, and a Friday the thirteenth in October no less.
Speaker 1: Could it be any creepier. Now that I've gotten my
Speaker 1: Chandler impression out of the way, I want to tell
Speaker 1: you what we have coming up in this spooky month
Speaker 1: that is October. Now. I love October. I love Halloween.
Speaker 1: I love everything spooky and scary, except haunted houses because
Speaker 1: funck that shit. I don't want anyone jumping out at me. Ever,
Speaker 1: for the first time since this podcast started, I've actually
Speaker 1: made a plan for upcoming episodes, and that is specifically
Speaker 1: because I wanted to fit them into an October theme.
Speaker 1: Organization is something I do only when I have a
Speaker 1: really good reason. So today I have a very special
Speaker 1: mini myth, but details on that to come in the
Speaker 1: coming weeks. We'll have episodes in mini Myths, complete with murder, abandonment,
Speaker 1: trips to the underworld, monsters, monsters, monsters, and let's not
Speaker 1: forget lots and lots of magic. Now, with that out
Speaker 1: of the way, let's delve right in mini myth Tantalus
Speaker 1: is tantalizing test. It starts in the city of my scene, A,
Speaker 1: one of them most ancient cities of Greek history and mythology,
Speaker 1: home to Agamemnon and his House of Horrors. But timely
Speaker 1: as it may seem, we're not delving into Agamemnon's house
Speaker 1: quite yet. No, He's part of a much larger story
Speaker 1: still to come. It will need episodes upon episodes upon episodes,
Speaker 1: so not quite going there yet. But for now, How
Speaker 1: did Agamemnon's House of Horrors come to be? Well, it
Speaker 1: all started with a curse. One of Zeus's many, many,
Speaker 1: many children was a man by the name of Tantalus.
Speaker 1: Tantalus was Zeus's son, but also king of Mount Sipolis
Speaker 1: in Lydia. Lydia was the ancient region of Turkey. Tantalus
Speaker 1: was king of Mount Zippolis, and he was a friend
Speaker 1: of the gods. Quite familiar are actually, which was not
Speaker 1: exactly common for normal people on Earth even when their
Speaker 1: father was Zeus. He had so many kids I'm not
Speaker 1: sure he gave a good goddamn about most of them.
Speaker 1: But Tantalus was different. He hung out with the gods
Speaker 1: quite often, He hosted them, he could talk to them
Speaker 1: about his problems. They were really tight. But Tantalus became
Speaker 1: so comfortable, so familiar with the gods, that he started
Speaker 1: to question just how powerful they really were. They became
Speaker 1: real to him, which led him to believe that it
Speaker 1: might be a good idea to test to them. I
Speaker 1: think you could probably tell this would not be the
Speaker 1: greatest plan. But you know your practice now listening to
Speaker 1: me has its perks. My friends, you will never get
Speaker 1: caught up with Zeus, and if you do, it's all
Speaker 1: your tamn fault, because my god, I've taught you better.
Speaker 1: But sure, maybe you could foresee that you shouldn't test
Speaker 1: the gods. But I don't know that any one would
Speaker 1: think to do what he does. At least I hope
Speaker 1: if you do what I think, you need to go away.
Speaker 1: But we're not there yet. No, Tantalus starts small. First,
Speaker 1: he steals some ambrosia from the gods and he distributes
Speaker 1: it to some mortals. Now ambrosia isn't any old thing,
Speaker 1: just last week, we learned that Psyche drank it to
Speaker 1: become immortal. This is powerful ship. Ambrosia is a powerful thing,
Speaker 1: and it is meant only for the gods. They like
Speaker 1: their power exclusive. It's their thing. But tantalus is real
Speaker 1: test of the gods was not Ambrosia. His real test
Speaker 1: for what powers they did or did not have came
Speaker 1: when he invited them all to dinner. All the Olympians
Speaker 1: were invited and Tantalus hosted them in his palace for
Speaker 1: a special dinner. Tanta to serve them a dish, a
Speaker 1: Tantalus original, you might say, something he made exactly for
Speaker 1: the gods, made just right, just to suit their needs.
Speaker 1: They sit down to dinner and they examine what's just
Speaker 1: been presented in front of them. For the most part,
Speaker 1: they're unsure. They don't touch it, except Demeter. See this
Speaker 1: is the time of year when Persephone was spending her
Speaker 1: time with Hades in the underworld, and so Demeter was distracted.
Speaker 1: Without paying attention, she ate a bite of the meal,
Speaker 1: not noticing that all her godly pals hadn't touched their own.
Speaker 1: They were all in shock. See, they were staring at
Speaker 1: their plates in horror. This was not a stew, certainly
Speaker 1: not any stew that should be eaten by the gods. Tantalus,
Speaker 1: who frankly was a sick fuck, had killed his own son,
Speaker 1: Pelops and cut him up into live old pieces and
Speaker 1: cooked him up real nice in a rich sauce tasty. Now,
Speaker 1: it seems odd to have to clarify, but the gods
Speaker 1: did so much fucked up shit. But the ship that
Speaker 1: was too fucked up even for the gods was cannibalism
Speaker 1: and infanticide phil aside, whatever you wanna call the act
Speaker 1: of killing your children, in this case, killing your children
Speaker 1: and eating them and all to make a point that
Speaker 1: really doesn't seem worth making, like you killed your kid
Speaker 1: and cooked him and served him to the gods to
Speaker 1: what prove the gods did have powers? It seems a
Speaker 1: bit over the top to me, but I mean, what
Speaker 1: do I know. I don't have kids. Now, this may
Speaker 1: sound tragic in addition to gross and insane, but actually
Speaker 1: this turned into a rare moment when the gods were
Speaker 1: helpful and nice, even if it was in response to
Speaker 1: something super weird and tragic and generally just gross. The
Speaker 1: gods banded together around this murderous dinner table and they
Speaker 1: put Pelops together again, piece by piece. The only piece
Speaker 1: of pea Ops that would never again be whole was
Speaker 1: the little bite that Demeter took before she realized it
Speaker 1: was a little piece of peel Ops's shoulder, and the
Speaker 1: god Festus would make him an ivory shoulder to put
Speaker 1: in place, which I assume was otherwise just a weird,
Speaker 1: gaping hole in the middle of his shoulder. I'm picturing
Speaker 1: like a cartoon, Like it's not bloody or anything. There's
Speaker 1: just a hole, like a big bite mark out of it,
Speaker 1: you know. And for Tantalus's punishment, Tantalus was sent down
Speaker 1: to Hades. But not just to the underworld, No, Tantalus
Speaker 1: is one of the rare few that was sent to
Speaker 1: live forever in tardar Us, the darkest depths of the underworld,
Speaker 1: for the worst and most awful among us. I think
Speaker 1: ted Bundy's there too. They play cards sometimes. In Tartarus,
Speaker 1: Tantalus is forced to spend every moment seeking food and
Speaker 1: water that he'll never have. Tantalus stands in a pool
Speaker 1: of water beneath a fruit tree with low hanging branches.
Speaker 1: Low hanging fruit, you might even say, But whenever he
Speaker 1: raises an arm to grab a piece of fruit from
Speaker 1: the tree, the branches pulled just out of his grasp,
Speaker 1: and whenever he bends down to get a drink, the
Speaker 1: water recedes just so far as to make it so
Speaker 1: that he will never get a sip. And that, my friends,
Speaker 1: is the origin of the English word cantalyze, and one
Speaker 1: of the worst stories of murder and cannibalism in Greek mythology,
Speaker 1: just one of them, though there are more. Don't fret. Well,
Speaker 1: that's our first stop on the road that is October.
Speaker 1: And yes, that's an awful metaphor, But what do you
Speaker 1: want from me? I just wrote the whole damn thing,
Speaker 1: and I can only be so clever and creative until
Speaker 1: it all runs out and need more wine. Thank you
Speaker 1: ever so much for listening. I'll be back next week
Speaker 1: with a man whose wife is arguably more famous than him,
Speaker 1: even if she is utterly bat shit fucking crazy. I'm live,
Speaker 1: and if it's not already very very obvious, I fucking
Speaker 1: love this ship.