"Tantalus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... van Heerden with a bitter laugh. "He knows you are in love with me and he played upon your fears. You poor little fool! Don't cry or I shall do something unpleasant. There, there. Help yourself to some wine, you'll find it in the tantalus." ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... he had so often set little mills for the amusement of Menie while she was a child. One draught of it would have been worth all the diamonds of the East, which of late he had worshipped with such devotion; but that draught was denied to him as to Tantalus. ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... Boundary unlocked his tantalus and took out a full decanter of whisky. Without a word he poured three stiff doses into as many glasses and filled them with soda. Each man was thinking, and thinking after his ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... Tantalus (Od.);' for Prodicus the Cean was at Athens: he had been lodged in a room which, in the days of Hipponicus, was a storehouse; but, as the house was full, Callias had cleared this out and made the room into a guest-chamber. Now Prodicus ...
— Protagoras • Plato
... nation that produced 'Le philosophe sans le savoir.' And now it has added, 'Le philosophe sans le vouloir,' and you have stumbled on him. What a life for an aged man! Fortunatus ille senex qui ludicola vivit. Tantalus handcuffed and glowering over a gambling-table; a ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... he opened one after another of the various volumes, he began to fancy that a feast of Tantalus had been provided for him: one book was English, another German, a third Russian; there was even one in cabalistic letters that seemed Turkish. Was this a polyglottic joke the ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... are embodied in it. It is a subtle analysis of some of the deep problems of life. The history of his own mental state is depicted here. If we consider his malady in its bearing on his life, we have the story of Tantalus told again. Here was a man whose thoughts translated themselves into splendid tone-pictures which the orchestra was to portray. With the mental equipment to create a new era in his art, the medium by which he could apprehend his works was ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... vultures on his liver prey'd, Scooping his entrails; nor sufficed his hands To fray them thence; for he had sought to force 710 Latona, illustrious concubine of Jove, What time the Goddess journey'd o'er the rocks Of Pytho into pleasant Panopeus. Next, suff'ring grievous torments, I beheld Tantalus; in a pool he stood, his chin Wash'd by the wave; thirst-parch'd he seem'd, but found Nought to assuage his thirst; for when he bow'd His hoary head, ardent to quaff, the flood Vanish'd absorb'd, and, at his feet, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... Like Jason, when he sought the fleece of gold, Or change from man to beast three years entire, As King Nebuchadnezzar did of old; Or else have times as shameful and as bad As Trojan folk for ravished Helen had; Or gulfed with Proserpine and Tantalus Let hell's deep fen devour him dolorous, With worse to bear than Job's worst sufferance, Bound in his prison-maze with Daedalus, Who could wish evil ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... impatient patient, lingring vnder the rough hands of a cruell phisitian: his creditor hauing cast his water knowes his disease, and hath power to cure him, but takes more pleasure to kill him. He is like Tantalus, who hath freedome running by his doore, yet cannot enioy the least benefit thereof. His greatest griefe is that his credit was so good and now no better. His land is drawne within the compasse of a sheepe's skin, and his owne hand the fortification that barres him of entrance: hee ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... to send for you. You must go do a message for us now: 'Tis nothing but to woo a wench, which you Can do. You must not woo her for yourself, But me. Tell her, I sit and pine like Tantalus; And, if you can, strain forth a tear for me. Tell her she shall be honoured in my love, And bear a child that one day may be king. Bid her not stand on terms, but send me word, Whether she be resolved to love me, yea or no. If she say no, tell her I can ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... more—encounters with rattlesnakes—the discovery in a great open plain of the cause of a distant roaring sound like water, just at a time when it was once more wanted most. And there it was where they could look down, Tantalus-like, from the brink of a vast crack in the level plain and see a vast river foaming along half-a-mile below them, ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... taken not to confound Attalus with Tantalus,—a blunder which, as Villani observes, [Footnote: Cron. Lib. I. c. vii.] is often committed by ignorant chroniclers. But Tantalus, as we all very well know, was the son of Jupiter, and grandson of Saturn. Now we are quite sure that Noah ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... have followed the same notion, when they allot the islands of the blessed to their brave men, whom they call heroes and demi-gods; and to the souls of the wicked, the region of the ungodly, in Hades, where their fables relate that certain persons, such as Sisyphus, and Tantalus, and Ixion, and Tityus, are punished; which is built on this first supposition, that souls are immortal; and thence are those exhortations to virtue and dehortations from wickedness collected; whereby good men are bettered in the conduct of their life ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... christian measure to his customers, was now a thriving man. When they again inspected the larder, they saw the same spirit, but woefully reduced in size, and in vain attempting to reach at the full plates and bottles, which stood around him; starving, in short, like Tantalus, in the midst of plenty. Honest Heywood ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... of the Tantalus cup of bliss I could read in these traces of love stricken by the thunderbolt remorse—in this visible presentment of a life of luxury, extravagance, and riot. There were faint red marks on her young face, signs ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... For spears and strange men's faces, hast not thou One shaft of all thy sudden seven that pierced Seven through the bosom or shining throat or side, All couched about one mother's loosening knees, All holy born, engrafted of Tantalus? But if toward any of you I am overbold That take thus much upon me, let him think How I, for all my forest holiness, Fame, and this armed and iron maidenhood, Pay thus much also; I shall have no man's love For ever, and no face of children born Or feeding lips ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... and common feeling of humanity. And much good to them with this wise man of theirs; let them enjoy him to themselves, love him without competitors, and live with him in Plato's commonwealth, the country of ideas, or Tantalus' orchards. For who would not shun and startle at such a man, as at some unnatural accident or spirit? A man dead to all sense of nature and common affections, and no more moved with love or pity than if he were a flint or rock; whose censure nothing escapes; that commits no ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... the tantalus and found a syphon in the corner cupboard, and it was a very yellow bumper that he ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... read of a few specified criminals, who had been excessively impious, personally offending Zeus, condemned by his direct indignation to a severe expiation in Tartarus. The insulted deity wreaks his vengeance on the tired Sisyphus, the mocked Tantalus, the gnawed Tityus, and others. Afterwards we meet the statement that condign retribution is always inflicted for the two flagrant sins of perjury and blasphemy. Finally, we discern a general prevalence of the belief that punishment is decreed, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... Harrison and his comrade had spent $5,000, and traveled half way around the world for those sheep, that is in brief the story of how the cup of Tantalus was given them by the Russians, actually at their goal! As spoil-sports, those Russian officers were the champions ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... for I have many prologues to which he cannot possibly fit his catchword: "Pelops, the son of Tantalus, having started for Pisa on ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... wore while living; that there is a hell and a heaven; that hell is below the earth, and heaven above the clouds; that the souls of the wicked sometimes wander the face of the earth, appearing occasionally to mortals. The story of Tantalus is found among the Chippewayans, who believed that bad souls stand up to their chins in water in sight of the spirit-land, which they can never enter. The dead passed to heaven across a stream of water by means of a narrow and slippery bridge, from which many were lost. The Zunis ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... matters; they had never known anything like it before. It was no new thing to Claudius, yet he thought it unfair. There was a long discussion as to the punishment he ought to endure. Some said that Sisyphus had done his job of porterage long enough; Tantalus would be dying of thirst, if he were not relieved; the drag must be put at last on wretched Ixion's wheel. But it was determined not to let off any of the old stagers, lest Claudius should dare to hope for any ...
— Apocolocyntosis • Lucius Seneca
... laugh, and were perfectly happy, never knowing and scarcely caring where we should obtain shelter for the night. Our first day's dinner was some cold meat and bread, eaten in a wood, our horse eating his oats by our side; and we made drinking-cups, in Indian fashion, of birch-tree bark—cups of Tantalus, properly speaking, for very little of the water reached our lips. While engaged in drawing some from a stream, the branch on which I leaned gave way, and I fell into the water, a mishap which amused my companions so much that they ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... might ask her to leave. Not that he believed she would leave them. He had lived long enough to know that an interest by a woman in a man—especially a man beyond the beaten track of her observation—did not necessarily mean that she might marry him if he asked her. And yet—oh, Tantalus! here she was beside him, for one afternoon again his very own, their two souls ringing with the harmony of whirling worlds in sunlit space. He sought refuge in thin thought; he strove, in oblivion, to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... orthodox phonograph and appurtenances. But if he could foresee the future as distinctly as Mr. Punch's Seer has done in the following prophetic visions, he might substitute a biscuit-box, or a fish-slice and fork, a Tantalus spirit-case, or even a dumb-waiter, as likely, on the whole, to inspire a more ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... overanxiety; impetuosity, &c. 825. appetite, appetition[obs3], appetence[obs3], appetency[obs3]; sharp appetite, keenness, hunger, stomach, twist; thirst, thirstiness; drouth, mouthwatering; itch, itching; prurience, cacoethes[Lat], cupidity, lust, concupiscence. edge of appetite, edge of hunger; torment of Tantalus; sweet tooth, lickerish tooth[obs3]; itching palm; longing eye, wistful eye, sheep's eye. [excessive desire for money] greed &c. 817a. voracity &c. (gluttony) 957. passion, rage, furore[obs3], mania, manie|; inextinguishable desire; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... the fates would have it, came lumbering down one of those monster timber rafts; and it was a full half hour before Stangrave could get across, having suffered all the while the torments of Tantalus, as he watched the boat sweep round to the pier, and discharge its freight, to be scattered whither he knew not. At last he got across, and went in chase to the nearest hotel: but they were not there; thence to the next, and the next, till he had hunted half the hotels in the town; ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... proceeded to examine every object in the room. So far as I could see, there was nothing at all unusual about the place. The room was in exactly the same condition as I had observed it hundreds of times before when I had dropped in for a smoke and a chat. On the table, beside the lamp, was a tantalus and a glass, and a half empty syphon. The glass had been used and the ash on the floor, beside an armchair, showed that a cigar had accompanied the drink. A pair of slippers lay on the hearth rug as if they had been carelessly kicked off. ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... pellucid wave; some making the valley vocal with their melodious warblings, and others filling it with harsh, stridulous cries. Burning with thirst, and faint from fatigue, he will fix his gaze on the glistening water, to be tortured as Tantalus, and descry the cool shade, without being able to rest ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... well-nigh intolerable; he kept asking himself if he could swim to land, but, knowing his weakness from long fasting, he curbed his impatience. His eyes grew tired with staring at the longed-for spot; he suffered the torments of Tantalus, and finally could endure them no longer. So making his clothes into a bundle, he tied them around his neck and slipped into ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... rather to be a Tantalus in the same," replied Rodaja; "for if learning reach high to you, you are never able to plunge ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... and some because they are not fit to utter. Again, the wisdom of antiquity, the shadows whereof are in the Poets, in the description of torments and pains, next unto the crime of rebellion, which was the giants offence, doth detest the crime of futility, as in Sisyphus and Tantalus. But this was meant of particulars. Nevertheless, even unto the general rules and discourses of policy and government, [it extends; for even here] there is due a reverent handling.' And after having briefly indicated the comprehension ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... an end to this tragic entertainment, this feast of Tantalus. The few left on the pension-list, the poor remnants that had escaped, were they paid by his administratrix and deputy, Munny Begum? Not a shilling. No fewer than forty-nine petitions, mostly from the widows of the greatest and most splendid houses ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... better than frankincense and myrrh, to mystify a genuine commissioner! Tom rode back to his quarters turning over the taste of brandy in his mouth—he had made a martial raid on Samson's tantalus— and all aglow with ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... of Atreus, and were descended from Tantalus, once a favourite of the gods, who used to come down and feast with him, until once he took his son Pelops and dressed him for their meal. Jupiter found it out, collected the limbs, and restored the boy to life; but Ceres had been so distracted with grief about her daughter, that she had eaten ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... woman can be. She stood and surveyed the people with haughty looks. "What folly," said she, "is this!—to prefer beings whom you never saw to those who stand before your eyes! Why should Latona be honored with worship, and none be paid to me? My father was Tantalus, who was received as a guest at the table of the gods; my mother was a goddess. My husband built and rules this city, Thebes, and Phrygia is my paternal inheritance. Wherever I turn my eyes I survey the elements of my power; nor is my ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... silks and fine array" William Blake The Flight of Love Percy Bysshe Shelley "Farewell! If ever Fondest Prayer" George Gordon Byron Porphyria's Lover Robert Browning Modern Beauty Arthur Symons La Belle Dame Sans Merci John Keats Tantalus—Texas Joaquin Miller Enchainment Arthur O'Shaughnessy Auld Robin Gray Anne Barnard Lost Light Elizabeth Akers A Sigh Harriet Prescott Spofford Hereafter Harriet Prescott Spofford Endymion Oscar Wilde "Love is a Terrible Thing" Grace Fallow Norton ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... his harp in tune with his words. All around him the lifeless ghosts came flocking, and as they heard they wept. Tantalus forgot his hunger and thirst. Ixion's wheel stood still, the Danaids set aside their leaky urns and Sisyphus sat on his stone to listen. Never yet had such sweet strains been heard in the world of gloom. Then, for the first time, tears moistened ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... he played. Tantalus—who, for his crimes, had been condemned to stand up to his neck in water and yet never be able to assuage his thirst—Tantalus heard, and for a while did not strive to put his lips toward the water that ever flowed away from him; Sisyphus—who had been condemned to roll up a hill a stone ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... class, and the unwonted experience of being waited upon by a man with a long shirt-front. He grew red; he made the clumsiest and most futile efforts to transport the meat to his plate; food was there before him, but, like a very Tantalus, he was forbidden to enjoy it. Observing with all discretion, I at length saw him pull out his pocket handkerchief, spread it on the table, and, with a sudden effort, fork the meat off the dish into this receptacle. The waiter, aware by this time of the ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... already attained the age of one thousand and twenty-five years. [180] He must by this account have been born about one hundred years after our Saviour. He professed to have visited the infernal regions, and there to have seen Tantalus seated on a throne of gold. He is also said by some to be the same person, whose life has been written by Philostratus under the name of Apollonius of Tyana. [181] He wrote a book on the philosopher's stone, which was ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... interfere with the plan of action decided on by Hilda and Philip; no misadventure came to mock them, dashing the Tantalus cup of joy to earth before their eyes. On the contrary, within forty-eight hours of the conversation recorded in the last chapter, they were as completely and irrevocably man and wife, as a special licence and the curate of a city church, assisted by the clerk and the ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... and soda then and there, for he had both in the cupboard, in his sitting-room. But he was a stickler for the proprieties: he had drunk red wine, Burgundy with his dinner and port after it, and after red wine brandy is the proper spirit. There would be brandy in the tantalus in the ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... to lose In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe, All in one moment, and so near the brink; But Fate withstands, and, to oppose th' attempt, Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards The ford, and of itself the water flies All taste of living wight, as once it fled The lip of Tantalus. Thus roving on In confused march forlorn, th' adventurous bands, With shuddering horror pale, and eyes aghast, Viewed first their lamentable lot, and found No rest. Through many a dark and dreary vale They passed, and many a region dolorous, O'er many a frozen, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... as though it was enough to have chosen one of his fine subjects for it to lose all interest for him. And so all his riches availed him nothing. His thoughts had life only on condition that he did not tamper with them: everything that he succeeded in doing was still-born. It was the torment of Tantalus: within reach were fruits that became stones as soon as he plucked them: near his lips was a clear stream which sank away whenever he ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... and whinnied at the welcome sight, the quartermaster appeared on his piazza, and shouted in wrath to the soldier not to interfere again or he'd "have him in the lock-up." And poor Dandy, like an equine Tantalus, was robbed of the needed fluid. Ray could bear no more. He kept one foot inside the door-way as his arrest demanded, but leaning far out, with blazing eyes and clinching fist he hurled his challenge ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... starved and thirsty in the midst of fruit and wine like Tantalus? Poor fellow? I think I see your face as you are springing up to the branches and missing your aim. Oh Bacchus! ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... he does not acquire his full splendour until the end of the September in the following year.), second, and fourth classes of cases; but they fail in the third, often in the fifth (35. Thus the Ibis tantalus and Grus americanus take four years, the Flamingo several years, and the Ardea ludovicana two years, before they acquire their perfect plumage. See Audubon, ibid. vol. i. p. 221; vol. iii. pp. 133, 139, 211.), and in the sixth small class. They ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... possessor into spending the minutes and the hours which belong to the public, in his own private gratification. The conscientious, the useful librarian, living amid the rich intellectual treasures of centuries, the vast majority of which he has never read, must be content daily to enact the part of Tantalus, in the presence of a tempting and appetizing banquet which is virtually ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... physical, intellectual, or moral; and that it is a morbid, diseased, distorted nature that wears out its allotted years on earth in bitter carping and blasphemous dissatisfaction. The Greeks recognized this immemorial truth— wrapped it in classic traditions, and the myth of Tantalus constituted its swaddling-clothes. You are a scholar, Mr. Murray; look back and analyze the derivation and significance of that fable. Tantalus, the son of Pluto, or Wealth, was, according to Pindar, 'a wanderer from happiness,' and the ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... 545 The glorie of the stock of Tantalus, And famous light of all the Greekish hosts; Under whose conduct most victorious, The Dorick flames consum'd the Iliack posts. Ah! but the Greekes themselves, more dolorous, 550 To thee, O Troy, paid penaunce ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... writing table, with his back to the filing cabinet. Broadbent sits opposite him. Hodson enters emptyhanded; takes two glasses, a siphon, and a tantalus from the cupboard; places them before Broadbent on the writing table; looks ruthlessly at Haffigan, who cannot meet his eye; ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... a traveller who had returned from Hades where he had conversed with Tantalus and with others of the shades. They all agreed that for the first six, or perhaps twelve, months they disliked their punishment very much; but after that, it was like shelling peas on a hot afternoon in July. They began ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... Her husband's suspicions meanwhile had been aroused. She spent so much money in occult ways that he had been impelled to ask her father what he thought L—— was doing with so much money. Fettered thus, with the torments both of Prometheus and Tantalus—the vulture gnawing at her vitals, and the lost joys mocking her out of reach—she had at last in sheer desperation been driven to request her father to procure her the ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... with Hunt's admirers, is an account of the misfortunes of a luckless young man who goes to breakfast with an absent-minded pedagogue, and, being turned away empty, orders successive refreshments at different coffee-houses, each of which proves a feast of Tantalus. The idea is not bad; but the carrying out suits the stage better than the study, and is certainly far below such things as Maginn's adventures of Jack Ginger and his friends, with the tale untold that ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... "It is like the fruits of Tantalus, isn't it? We read about him in Greek mythology—poor fellow! He stood up to his chin in water and over his head hung the loveliest fruits. But when he stooped to get a drink the water receded, and when he stood on tiptoe to reach the fruit, ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... doom preparing for us; whatever might have been the wishes of Sheikh Hamed and the black chief, the voices of the marabouts and the people prevailed. We were doomed to a fate scarcely less terrible than that of Tantalus. We were condemned to be buried alive, with our heads above the sand,—water and food being placed just beyond our reach, so that we might see the means of saving life and yet be unable to profit thereby. Certainly, I think, the vivid imaginations ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... earth from the Holy Land, and fill the area of the Campo Santo with that sacred soil! The old house stood upon about as perverse a little patch of the planet as ever harbored a half-starved earth-worm. It was as sandy as Sahara and as thirsty as Tantalus. The rustic aid-de-camps of the household used to aver that all fertilizing matters "leached" through it. I tried to disprove their assertion by gorging it with the best of terrestrial nourishment, until ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... regards myself I should do myself an injury by being silent, for my heart is like an overloaded beast of burden and talking will relieve it. Ah! Publius, my fate to-day is that of the helpless Tantalus, who sees juicy pears bobbing about under his nose and tempting his hungry stomach, and yet they never let him catch hold of them, only look-in there dwells Irene, the pear, the peach, the pomegranate, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... calculation; foresight &c. 510. contemplation, prospection[obs3], lookout; prospect, perspective, horizon, vista; destiny &c. 152. suspense, waiting, abeyance; curiosity &c. 455; anxious expectation, ardent expectation, eager expectation, breathless expectation, sanguine expectation; torment of Tantalus. hope &c. 858; trust &c. (belief) 484; auspices &c. (prediction) 511; assurance, confidence, presumption, reliance. V. expect; look for, look out for, look forward to; hope for; anticipate; have in prospect, have in contemplation; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... seven-leagued-boot-power of travel, could have anticipated the last great exploit of our generals, whose energies thus far, have been devoted to the achieving of a 'masterly inactivity.' The 'forward movement' has receded and receded, like the cup of Tantalus, but the backward movement came suddenly upon us, like a thief in ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... word, where you may kill fish (and large ones) four days out of five from April to October, instead of having, as you will most probably in the mountain, just one day's sport in the whole of your month's holiday. Deluded friend, who suffered in Scotland last year a month of Tantalus his torments, furnished by art and nature with rods, flies, whisky, scenery, keepers, salmon innumerable, and all that man can want, except water to fish in; and who returned, having hooked accidentally by the tail one salmon—which broke all and ween to sea—why did you not stay at home and take ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... Tantalus lay far out on a spiral arm, well away from the main stream of traffic that flowed through the galaxy. It was a fair planet boasting an equable climate, at least in the tropic zone. But as yet the population was small, consisting ...
— Faithfully Yours • Lou Tabakow
... them out on deck, where they sat feasting their eyes upon the glorious prospect that was gradually unfolding itself before them. To achieve this result I had to expend the very last drop of water that could be coaxed from the breaker; and as I did so I realised to the full what the torments of Tantalus must have been. Not a drop had passed my own lips during the previous twelve hours, and to witness the ecstasy with which the others absorbed the precious liquid was almost more than I could endure in my then ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... standin' now wuz once a volcano and belched forth flames, and that also," sez I, pintin' to Tantalus that riz up two thousand feet. "And," sez I, "they say that the view ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... forward, and put his arm round Jane as she swayed uncertainly. He half carried her into the library, and laid her on the leather couch. From a tantalus on the table he poured out a few drops of brandy, and forced her to drink them. With a sigh she sat up, her eyes ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... TANTALUS, king of Phrygia, was the son of Jupiter and Plota. Whether it was for this cause, the violation of hospitality, or for his pride, his boasting, his want of secrecy, his insatiable covetousness, his imparting nectar ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... must," said Mr. Ratler. "Lord de Terrier wants nothing better, but it is rather hard upon poor Daubeny. I never saw such an unfortunate old Tantalus." ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... unfortunate as to gain flesh, his attractions would diminish in an inverse ratio, so he starved himself almost to death, and was constantly seen anxiously examining the buckle of his belt, to make sure that he had not increased in girth since his last meal. Voluntary Tantalus, he scarcely allowed himself enough to keep life in his attenuated frame, and if he had but fasted as carefully from motives of piety he would ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... table there was a whisky decanter, taken from the tantalus-stand on the sideboard, and one glass. That, by the by," I added, "looked as though only one ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... the burlesque which alone revived his name from its obscurity. The contrast between the two must have been a lesson to the vanity of the one, as pungent as was its triumph. If ever the fate of Tantalus was realized to man, it was in the perpetual thirst and perpetual disappointment of Hamilton for public name. The cup never reached his lips but it was instantly dry; while Burke was seen reveling in the full flow of public renown—buoyant ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... subject, for there is nothing that should cause a fat burgher, accustomed to good living, to open his heart more than a total lack of the victuals which he can see and smell. Did you ever hear the story of an ancient gentleman called Tantalus? These old fables have a wonderful way of adapting themselves to the needs and circumstances of us moderns, ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... all these disquisitions with indolence and indifference. At present they seem to be in a very lamentable condition, and such as the poets have given us but a faint notion of in their descriptions of the punishment of Sisyphus and Tantalus. For what can be imagined more tormenting, than to seek with eagerness, what for ever flies us; and seek for it in a place, where it is impossible ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... a drop-kicker!" exploded the dazed Butch, who could not have been more astounded had Theophilus announced that the sunny youth possessed powers of black magic. "Theophilus Opperdyke, Tantalus himself was never so tantalized as I have been of late. Tell me the whole story, old man—hurry. ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... pair were the long lines of very pale and anxious faces (I really must except my own, for my face never looked anxious till I thought of marrying, or pale till I took to scribbling), the possessors of which were experiencing a little the torment of Tantalus. The palisades, those graves of sand, turned into a rich compost by the ever-recurring burial, were directly under the windows, and the land-breeze came over them, chill and dank, in palpable currents, through ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... reviv'd, Which taught him all that elder lovers know; And now the same gan so to scorch and glow, As in plain terms, yet cunningly, he crave it: Love always makes those eloquent that have it. She, with a kind of granting, put him by it, And ever, as he thought himself most nigh it, Like to the tree of Tantalus, she fled, And, seeming lavish, sav'd her maidenhead. Ne'er king more sought to keep his diadem, Than Hero this inestimable gem: Above our life we love a steadfast friend; Yet when a token of great worth we send, We often kiss it, ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... "Pass the tantalus, Murray," the Tenant said, and the youngest of the four handed the corncob-corked bottle to the eldest. Tenant Jones filled his cup, and then sat staring at it, while Verner Hughes thrust his pipe into the toe of the moccasin and filled it. Finally, he drank about half of the clear ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... enemy. Meanwhile the Athenians landed, and instantly advanced with all their forces and took Thyrea. The town they burnt, pillaging what was in it; the Aeginetans who were not slain in action they took with them to Athens, with Tantalus, son of Patrocles, their Lacedaemonian commander, who had been wounded and taken prisoner. They also took with them a few men from Cythera whom they thought it safest to remove. These the Athenians determined to lodge in the islands: the rest of the Cytherians were to retain their lands ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... spirit tantalus and cigar-box with his wonted deliberation; and on reaching the drawing-room found her absorbed in contemplation of Dick's portrait, hands clasped behind her, the unbroken lines of her grey-green dress lending height and dignity to her natural grace; the glitter ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... brought out in their detachment reports. These reports reveal not only men of ability and insight, but throw light on the kind of people these Police in the north had to guide. Sergeant Frank Thorne, for instance, was in charge at a place called Tantalus. The man who gave that name to the elusive mining prospects of the region had a sense of humour and the fitness of things. Thorne says, "Hundreds of people landed at Tantalus en route to the new White Horse diggings. Most of these people had been misinformed as to the best place to start ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... Tantalus, as the old Greek fable tells us, was King of Lydia. Being invited by Jupiter to his table, he heard secrets which he afterwards divulged. To divulge a secret is to make it vulgar, or ...
— The Nursery, No. 107, November, 1875, Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... pride to a flourishing state to which, as they alleged, they had all belonged long ago on the slopes of Mount Sipylos, between the valley of the Hermos and the Gulf of Smyrna. The traditional capital of this kingdom was Magnesia, the most ancient of cities, the residence of Tantalus, the father of Niobe and the Pelopidae. The Leleges rise up before us from many points at the same time, but always connected with the most ancient memories of Greece and Asia. The majority of the strongholds on the Trojan coast belonged to them—such as Antandros and Gargara—and Pedasos on the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... throat with incredible rapidity. He stood, a large living skeleton, with famine written in his face, and my father christened him 'Calamity.' As Calamity grew to maturity, he was found to be as sluggish in disposition as his master was impetuous; so my father was driven to invent his patent Tantalus, which consisted of a small sieve of corn, suspended on a semicircular bar of iron, from the ends of the shafts, just beyond the horse's nose. The corn, rattling as the vehicle proceeded, stimulated Calamity to ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... Gnathaenium, 'kindling her lamp at evening time,' on the look-out for lovers and inviting them, is often passed by; 'yet, if some sudden whiff arise' of mighty love and desire, it makes this very delight seem equal to the fabled wealth of Tantalus and his domains. So feeble and cloying is the venereal indulgence, if Love inspires it not. And you will see this more plainly still from the following consideration. Many have allowed others to share in their venereal ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... The pangs of Tantalus, of Prometheus, or of Sisyphus are but the types of what his shall be. Let him try to hang, drown, stab himself—his ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... gravitate mones! Si fontes aperire novos, et acumine docto Elicere in scriptis quae latuere sacris, Seu Verum e fictis juvet extricare libellis, Historica et tenebris reddere lumen ope, Aspice conspicuo laetentur ut omnia coelo, Et referent nitidum solque jubarque diem! Centauri, Lapithaeque, et Tantalus, atque Prometheus, Et Nephele, veluti nube soluta sua,— Hi pereunt omnes; alterque laboribus ipse Conficis Alcides Hercule majus opus. Tendis in hostilem soli tibi fisus arenam? Excutis haeretici verba minuta Sophi[2]? Accipit aeternam vis profligata repulsam, ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... accomplished by the association of the working class. Of what avail are all the hoarded wealth and all the fruits of civilization if they exist for only a few, and if the majority of the human race always remains the Tantalus who reaches in vain for these fruits! Worse than Tantalus—for he at least had not produced the fruits for which his parched lips were condemned to pant in vain! This, the mightiest advance of culture which history could know, would justify the helpful intervention of the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... of the enterprise, he would have deemed the object worthy of the price. But ever and anon, he seemed to be close on what he was searching for, and certain to secure it by just a little further effort; while as often, like the cup of Tantalus, it was snatched from his grasp. Moreover, during a life-time of splendid self-discipline, he had been training himself to keep his promises, and to complete his tasks; nor could he in any way see it his duty to break the one or leave ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... with enthusiasm. "Of all vices, indiscriminate hospitality is the most pernicious. It allows us neither conversation nor dinner, and realizing the mythological fable of Tantalus, gives us starvation in ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... agreeable, or that a God who has created all things, every object the most desirable to the nourishment and health of man, should nevertheless forbid him their use? The Christian religion appears to doom its votaries to the punishment of Tantalus. The most part of the superstitions in the world have made of God a capricious and jealous sovereign, who amuses himself by tempting the passions and exciting the desires of his slaves, without permitting them the gratification ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... gratification; it is like the alms thrown to the beggar, that keeps him alive to-day that his misery may be prolonged till the morrow. . . . The subject of willing is thus constantly stretched on the revolving wheel of Ixion, pours water into the sieve of the Danaids, is the ever-longing Tantalus."[300:24] ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... her revenues, and, among her other accomplishments, my aunt is a very fair accountant. She has found out that the girl cannot eat figs and candies in a year to the amount of sixty thousand florins, so she is not over-willing to part with her at all. But I am not going to play the Tantalus for years, and run the risk of having the girl snatched from me by some jackanapes or rascal or ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... such as tying two Chinamen's tails together, the effect of the relation of which is melancholy in the extreme, but there is no approach to fun in the whole penny library. And yet it attracts, it is calculated, four millions of readers—a fact which makes my mouth water like that of Tantalus. ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... bell rang, and my state of mind became agonizing. It was maddening to think that someone, a friend, was virtually within reach of me, yet actually as far removed as if an ocean divided us! I tasted the hellish torments of Tantalus. I cursed fate, heaven, everything; I prayed; I sank into bottomless depths of despair and rose to dizzy pinnacles of hope, when a footstep sounded on the landing and a thousand wild possibilities, vague possibilities of rescue, poured ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... north—I winna say whaur—that wantit the han' o' a man that kenned what he was aboot, to pit in dacent order, sae that a body cud lay his han's upon a buik whan he wantit it, and no be i' the condition o' Tantalus, wi' watter at the mou, but nane for the hause (throat). Dinna imaigin' it was a public library. Na, na. It belonged to a grit an' gran' hoose—the Lord hae respec till't, for it's no joke o' a hoose that—as ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... that there are two groups of Sirens, one noble and saving, as the other is fatal. But there are no animating or saving Harpies; their nature is always vexing and full of weariness, and thus they are curiously connected with the whole group of legends about Tantalus. ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... end, but his resources are infinite. His eye falls on the sugar basin standing beside my teacup, and he immediately takes it up and, coming round to my left side, holds it to my nose. All this time sit I, like Tantalus, with the savoriest of Domingo's "beefysteaks" before me and am not allowed to taste it. But I know that in every operation he is animated by an exalted sense of blended duty and prerogative, and if I could really open his mind to the thought that the least of his attentions was ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... ten miles which we took two weeks later with Governor Frear and his wife, up the new Castle trail to the mountain-top behind Tantalus, had some features in common with the first walk,—the increasing mist and coolness as we entered the mountains, the dripping bushes, and the slippery paths,—but we got finer views, and found a better-kept trail. Our walk ended on the top of a narrow ridge of the mountain, where ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... of wretched men, each an epistolary Tantalus, who, with eyes fixed on the wooden grating, implore the clerk for a post-marked deception. 'Tis a sad spectacle, and I am sure that there is a post-office in purgatory, where tortured souls go to inquire if their deliverance has ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... he asked, looking at her with the wistful eyes of Tantalus gazing at the luscious fruits which the wrathful winds wafted ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... have troubled my brain this many a day, and just now, when I was laying hold on the invention of them, your sudden call made them, like Tantalus's apples, fly ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... many most beautiful engravings on wood and on copper; on wood, after Tiziano, many landscapes, a Nativity of Christ, a S. Jerome, and a S. Francis; and on copper the Tantalus, the Adonis, and many other plates, which have been engraved by Giulio Bonasone of Bologna, together with some others by Raffaello, by Giulio Romano, by Parmigiano, and by all the other masters whose drawings he has ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... for sketching, the Highlands on the Hudson were paradise. But though she saw in profusion what once would have delighted her, and what she now felt ought to be the source of almost unmingled happiness, she was still thoroughly wretched. It was the old fable of Tantalus repeating itself. Her sin and its results had destroyed her receptive power. The world offered her pleasures on every side; she longed to enjoy them, but could not, for her heart was preoccupied—filled and overflowing with fear, remorse, and a ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... however, to what more immediately concerns the grower, I do not know that the oppressive genius of fiscal laws has, in any country of the globe, invented one more refinedly tyrannic, than to condemn a man, to a certain degree at least, as has hitherto been the case, to the punishment of Tantalus; for the law forbids the Filipino to touch the fruit of the tree planted with his own hands, and which hangs in tempting and luxuriant abundance round his ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... arrogance and contempt that had marked them in life! The poor were allowed half-time in their tortures, respite and punishment alternating. Those with whom legend is so busy I saw with my eyes—Ixion,[116] Sisyphus, the Phrygian Tantalus in all his misery, and the giant Tityus—how vast, his ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... etymologist, is ateros (destructive), ateires (stubborn), atreotos (fearless); and Pelops is o ta pelas oron (he who sees what is near only), because in his eagerness to win Hippodamia, he was unconscious of the remoter consequences which the murder of Myrtilus would entail upon his race. The name Tantalus, if slightly changed, offers two etymologies; either apo tes tou lithou talanteias, or apo tou talantaton einai, signifying at once the hanging of the stone over his head in the world below, and the misery which he brought upon his country. And the name of his father, Zeus, Dios, Zenos, ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... round with snakes. The queen through clouds of midnight gloom they see, And instant rise. Here dwell the suffering damn'd. Here Tityus, stretcht o'er nine wide acres, yields His entrails to be torn. Thou, Tantalus, Art seen, the stream forbid to taste;—the fruit Thy lips o'erhanging, flies! Thou, Sisyphus, Thy stone pursuing downwards; or its weight Straining aloft, with oft exerted power! Ixion whirling, too; with swift pursuit, Thou follow'st, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... you will say. It is admirable, no doubt; it must be Divine, because it is impracticable for men. But does not this sublime morality tend to render virtue despicable? According to this boasted morality of the man-God of the Christians, His disciples in this lower world are, like Tantalus, tormented with burning thirst, which they are not permitted to quench. Do not such morals give us a wonderful idea of nature's Author? If He has, as we are assured, created everything for the use of His creatures, by what strange ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... she in the very lists of love, Her champion mounted for the hot encounter: 596 All is imaginary she doth prove, He will not manage her, although he mount her; That worse than Tantalus' is her annoy, To clip Elysium and to lack her ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... of the earlier hours, but his way led him through loose sand, down into cuts and gorges, up their steep sides, across fields of loose stones, which, shifting underfoot, made his striving for haste a pure work of Tantalus. At the end of the first hour the heat was already intense; at the end of the second he felt that his skin was as dry as the desert sands and that the moisture of his body was being sucked out of it by the thirsty air and that at every stride the day grew drier and hotter. ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... it shall not be serv'd like Tantalus any more: he was doom'd to behold; and, beholding, to wish and languish for the tempting draught, in vain: but a better doom awaits the happy Harriet;—what she desires is not thus interdicted, but will ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low
... that King, and the old spear laid low That Tantalus wielded when the world was young. Aegisthus hath his queen, and reigns among His people. And the children here alone, Orestes and Electra, buds unblown Of man and womanhood, when forth to Troy He shook his ...
— The Electra of Euripides • Euripides
... negro, only there is no hope at the bottom. The wretchedness of his fate is not a little increased by being a constant witness of the unbounded freedom enjoyed by others: the slave's labor must necessarily be like the labor of Sisiphus; and here the torments of Tantalus are added. ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... visit to the National Gallery was made in company with A——. It was the repetition of an attempt at a draught from the Cup of Tantalus. I was glad of a sight of the Botticellis, of which I had heard so much, and others of the more recently acquired paintings of the great masters; of a sweeping glance at the Turners; of a look at the well-remembered Hogarths and the memorable portraits ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... pale, beheld that breast and cried and agonized; the executioner said to the woman, a mother and a nurse, 'Abjure!' giving her her choice between the death of her infant and the death of her conscience. What say you to that torture of Tantalus as applied to a mother? Bear this well in mind sir: the French Revolution had its reasons for existence; its wrath will be absolved by the future; its result is the world made better. From its most terrible blows there ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... to enumerate as many as I can remember of the words which have by this method been introduced into our language. To begin with mythical antiquity—the Chimaera has given us 'chimerical', Hermes 'hermetic', Tantalus 'to tantalize', Hercules 'herculean', Proteus 'protean', Vulcan 'volcano' and 'volcanic', and Daedalus 'dedal', if this word may on Spenser's and Shelley's authority be allowed. Gordius, the Phrygian king who tied ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... this volume we shall glance at some of the influences which the Tantalus toil of the European nations has exerted on the life of our age. It is not for nothing that hundreds of millions of men are ever striving to provide the sinews of war, and that rulers keep those sinews in a state of ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... word. Like Tantalus, the tempting fruit had been within reach, and his evil destiny had come in to dash it from his lips. Was it wonderful if he felt disposed to give it up and in sheer ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... feel right to indulge in the despondency which, in spite of all reason to the contrary, creeps over me when I think of returning. I know the feelings of Tantalus perfectly. All my prospects in regard to the Telegraph are bright and encouraging, and so they have been for months, and they still continue to be so; but the sober now is that I am expending and not acquiring; it ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... far easier than to suffer; yet we every day see the progress of life retarded by the vis inertiae, the mere repugnance to motion, and find multitudes repining at the want of that which nothing but idleness hinders them from enjoying. The case of Tantalus, in the region of poetick punishment, was somewhat to be pitied, because the fruits that hung about him retired from his hand; but what tenderness can be claimed by those who, though perhaps they suffer the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... shawl? I feel as if I should die if I don't get there," for the hour was late, and the time for closing the registry lists was near at hand. To have lost this opportunity would have placed her in the position of a second Tantalus, the cup withdrawn just as it touched her lips. But she was in time, and the important act of registering accomplished, she had but to possess her soul in patience until the following Tuesday. Who shall say how long the two intervening ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... 1) Nay, but the piteous tale I've heard men tell Of Tantalus' doomed child, Chained upon Siphylus' high rocky fell, That clung like ivy wild, Drenched by the pelting rain and whirling snow, Left there to pine, While on her frozen breast the tears aye flow— Her ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... with mythical antiquity—the Chimaera has given us 'chimerical,' Hermes 'hermetic,' Pan 'panic,' Paean, being a name of Apollo, the 'peony,' Tantalus 'to tantalize,' Hercules 'herculean,' Proteus 'protean,' Vulcan 'volcano' and 'volcanic,' and Daedalus 'dedal,' if this word, for which Spenser, Wordsworth, and Shelley have all stood godfathers, may find allowance with us. The demi-god Atlas ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... have believed on any other evidence that the classical people had a gloomy Calvinism of their own time. True, as early as Homer, we hear of the shadowy existence of the souls, and of the torments endured by the notably wicked; by impious ghosts, or tyrannical, like Sisyphus and Tantalus. But when we read the opening books of the "Republic," we find the educated friends of Socrates treating these terrors as old-wives' fables. They have heard, they say, that such notions circulate among the people, but they seem ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... by that occult secret of her own, to get the locked tantalus open and it isn't consequently convenient or possible to have any dinner at home, you remain calm, and break it to your lord on the telephone, for can he not feast royally—yet economically—at the club? And when ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... rolling thing is fortune. Sisyphus, with immense labour, pushing the stone up the lofty hill, which ever, his labour lost, rolls back from the top, shows that men's miseries are endless. When Tantalus is athirst, standing in the midst of the river, the greedy are described, whom a sufficiency of blessings surrounds, but none can they enjoy. The wicked Danaids carry water in urns, and cannot fill their pierced vessels; just so, whatever you bestow on luxury, will flow out beneath. Wretched ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... him what seemed the bitterest memories of all. It was the thought of that first too fragile happiness which slowly but implacably merged into discontent, still hidden and tacit, but none the less evident. That interregnum of peace had been a Tantalus-like taste of a draught which he all along knew was to be denied him. Yet, point by point, he recalled their first quiet and hopeful weeks in England, when their old ways of life seemed as far away as the America they had left behind, when they still had unbounded faith ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... TANTALUS. A proud king, who suffered in Hades the agonies of hunger and thirst, with food and drink always in ...
— The Foolish Dictionary • Gideon Wurdz
... x. 114: (ll. 1-6) 'Straightway Lynceus, trusting in his swift feet, made for Taygetus. He climbed its highest peak and looked throughout the whole isle of Pelops, son of Tantalus; and soon the glorious hero with his dread eyes saw horse-taming Castor and athlete Polydeuces both hidden within a ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... Why, let them hug their misery if they please, Like the Athenian miser, who was wont To meet men's curses with a hero's front: "Folks hiss me," said he, "but myself I clap When I tell o'er my treasures on my lap." So Tantalus catches at the waves that fly His thirsty palate—Laughing, are you? why? Change but the name, of you the tale is told: You sleep, mouth open, on your hoarded gold; Gold that you treat as sacred, dare not use, In fact, that charms you as a picture does. Come, will you hear what wealth ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... a cigarette from the case his host held out, and Major Carstairs made a gesture towards the tantalus on ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... Buonaparte was officially struck from the list of general officers on duty, "in view of his refusal to proceed to the post assigned him." It really appeared as if the name of Napoleon might almost have been substituted for that of Tantalus in the fable. But it was the irony of fate that on this very day the subcommittee on foreign affairs submitted to the full meeting a proposition to send the man who was now a disgraced culprit in great state and with a full suite to take service at ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... to enter the feasting hall, where we found the "ticket men" washed but unfed. All told, there must have been nearly seven hundred of us who sat down—not to meat or bread, but to speech, song, and prayer. From all of which I am convinced that Tantalus suffers in many guises this side of the infernal regions. The adjutant made the prayer, but I did not take note of it, being too engrossed with the massed picture of misery before me. But the speech ran something like this: "You will feast in Paradise. No matter ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... Whales flesh from lumps of earth, nor know the slippery skin of a Whale from the vpper part of the ground: with out doubt they are woorthy to haue Munster for a Pilot. Verily in this place (as likewise before treating of the land-miracles of Island) he gathereth fruits as they say, out of Tantalus his garden, and foloweth hard after those things which will neuer and no where be found, while he endeuoureth to proule here and there for miracles, perusing sea and land to stuffe vp his history where notwithstanding he cannot hunt out ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... the AEolids, the sons and daughters of AEolus, among which are those which record the feats of Atalanta, and turn to those which relate to the Pelopids, who gave to the Peloponnesus its early poetic interest. Of this remarkable race were Tantalus, Pelops, Atreus, Thyestes, Agamemnon, Menelaus, Helen, and Hermione, all of whom figured in the ancient ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... up his gold Is plagued with cramps, and gouts, and painful fits; And scarce hath eyes his treasure to behold, But like still-pining Tantalus he sits, And useless barns the harvest of his wits; Having no other pleasure of his gain But torment that it ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... frequently uses as a general appellation for the Greeks. Another colony was the one led from Asia by Pelops, from whom the southern peninsula of Greece derived its name of Peloponnesus. Pelops is represented as a Phrygian, and the son of the wealthy king Tantalus. He became king of Mycenae, and the founder of a powerful dynasty, one of the most renowned in the Heroic age of Greece. From him was descended Agamemnon, who led the Grecian host ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... story of Prometheus chain'd? The vulture—the inexhaustible repast Drawn from his vitals? Say what meant the woes By Tantalus entail'd upon his race, And the dark sorrows of the line of Thebes? Fictions in form, but in their substance truths— Tremendous truths!—familiar to the men Of long past ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... sizes and numbers and their authors' names? Here you have a science that turns a philosopher into a librarian. This is not feeding the soul with wisdom: it is the crushing it under a weight of riches or torturing it in the waters of Tantalus. ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... lookout; prospect, perspective, horizon, vista; destiny &c 152. suspense, waiting, abeyance; curiosity &c 455; anxious expectation, ardent expectation, eager expectation, breathless expectation, sanguine expectation; torment of Tantalus. hope &c 858; trust &c (belief) 484; auspices &c (prediction) 511; assurance, confidence, presumption, reliance. V. expect; look for, look out for, look forward to; hope for; anticipate; have in prospect, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... its way in a deep channel through rocky mountains, destitute of brooks or springs. Its banks were so high and precipitous, that there was rarely any place where the travellers could get down to drink of its waters. Frequently they suffered for miles the torments of Tantalus; water continually within sight, yet fevered with the most parching thirst. Here and there they met with rainwater collected in the hollows of the rocks, but more than once they were reduced to the utmost extremity; and some of the men had ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... not possess, the partaker of the illustrious blood of Douglas, but which in his veins is sullied with illegitimacy. Paint him the ruthless, the daring, the ambitious—so nigh greatness, yet debarred from it; so near to wealth, yet excluded from possessing it; a political Tantalus, ready to do or dare anything to terminate his necessities and assert his ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott |
