A Triptych of Torment: Tantalus (I)
A taut treaty to turn tragedy into trial, triumph and treasury
A triptych (/ˈtrɪptɪk/ TRIP-tik; from the Greek adjective τρίπτυχον (tríptychon, "three-fold"), from tri- "three" and ptyssō "to fold" or ptyx "fold")is a work of art (usually a panel painting) that is divided into three sections, or three carved panels that are hinged together and can be folded shut or displayed open. It is therefore a type of polyptych, the term for all multi-panel works. The middle panel is typically the largest and it is flanked by two smaller related works, although there are triptychs of equal-sized panels.
Beyond its association with art, the term is sometimes used more generally to connote anything with three parts, particularly if integrated into a single unit.
Welcome to “Into the Antiquity”:
In times of turmoil, it’s the turn of terrific torments; of the tormented, and their tormentors. It’s a time of tragedy, and trial, and triumph.
Through this temporal prism we carve out three panels of tragic narrative, threaded from the totality of the Antiquity, specifically Greek mythology. Three freeze-frames where the triumvirate taking center stage is composed of the following: Tantalus, Prometheus, Sisyphus. A thief of ambrosia, a titan, and a traitor to travelers.
Primary Panel: Tantalus
The Greeks used the proverb "Tantalean punishment" (Ancient Greek: Ταντάλειοι τιμωρίαι: Tantáleioi timōríai) in reference to those who have good things but are not permitted to enjoy them. His name and punishment are also the source of the English word tantalize, meaning to torment with the sight of something desired but out of reach; tease by arousing expectations that are repeatedly disappointed.
The Torment: Tragedy of Perpetual Retraction and Trial of Infinite Thirst
The king, tyrant to his own son, offering him up to the Gods as sacrifice. The trickster testing the omniscience of the Olympians cut up his son, boiled him, and served him up in a banquet to the Gods.They found out. And the tormentor became the tormented. Enter the turn, step two of any magic-trick system (abra . . . cadabra). The cannibal chef his days of parading recipes of hubris and flesh and blood and bones were over.
The tyrant was condemned to Tartarus, the Underworld of Greek Myth. Now we dive deeper into the true tinges of our first panel; here our first tragedy and trial starts.Tantalus's punishment was to stand tall in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches. Whenever he tried to reach for the fruit, the branches raised his intended meal from his grasp. Whenever he bent down to get a drink, the water retracted itself before he could get any. Long-hanging fruit and thirst is always laced with trials, and tragedy.
“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for?”
—Robert Browning, a poet
Notice the parallels with the “sour grapes (perhaps the Tantalean fruit in question)” of the fable of Aesop (vulpine); which is also metaphor for cognitive dissonance.
Over Tantalus his head towers a threatening stone like a totem, token and talisman of torrential tribute. If you dare to defy deities, relinquishing your life won't be enough, not even your soul would suffice; torment with no time limit is a start. Notice the boulder, which is very much like the one that other king who shared his never-ending toil was charged to roll up a hill stretching through infinity.
But this primary tale of Tantalean torment is not terminated yet. Two things stand left to be discussed. Two questions to be precise. First, like in any homicide (albeit self-inflicted..) case, the motive: Why did Tantalus commit the heinous first act himself, commit the first crime? Was it just hubris, or was it perhaps some warped joke which turned into a trick (Loki seeking brotherly and fatherly approval and validation and love)?
A trick to tempt fate perhaps…? Across the pantheon of Greek heroes, and martyrs, and fools hubris always comes to mind. And to talk of this means to bring up none other than Icarus; Sun-defier, primordial trailblazer, original scorched-sky skirmisher. Icarus went against the sun, and some might dare to say, he lost the bout.
Tantalus in his never-ending ingratitude—or perhaps having taken the guise of the Olympian Gods themselves, after ingesting copious amounts of ambrosia and presenting lavishly decorated spreads and dining tables with the sickness of supreme arrogance—went against the tribunal of Greek Gods. A fight Time, Chronos, father of Zeus the Upper-god, did not even come out the better end of (castration and patricide). Be grateful, the Gods reward; be ingrateful, the Gods taketh away.
In antiquity, there was a temple in honor of Zeus; in front of it, there were two jars, symbolizing Zeus’s blessings and gifts from one jar (most likely the right, dexter in Latin, whilst looking at the entrance dead one) and his curses upon man and earth from the other (the left: sinister in Latin).
“No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”
― Socrates
Perhaps Tantalus as a Socratic precursor..
No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of spiritual, fatal training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the grace and serenity of which his spirit is capable.
..a dialectic more spiritual prototype (if that is possible in relation to Socrates..), or successor of sorts in terms of arrogance, hubris and supremacy who dared to defy gods merely as a vile act of will to fate (An ubermensch who gazed too long in the sun and lost balance and fell of the tightrope into the abyss into the underworld).
The jury is not out on this one, there will be a second sitting for this trial..
Second and finally, if there was tyrannical tragedy and trial, where is the triumph? Ah, but the triumph was not Tantalus his own, not directly, not witnessed first hand. This triumph came downstream of a temporal torrent. The droplets of the pool of Tartarus muddied with damned tyrant’s tears transmuted into a stream across time. The second if not tertiary order effect, which the king himself could not compute and the gods themselves had discounted; which Clotho, one of the trio of Fates, the threadster, herself of course had counted on. Create the present, predict the future, total temporal control. This mad king’s triumph was not of his own making, but of his blood’s torrent and so sic semper tyrannis takes a different turn altogether.
The Triumph: House Atreus
Clotho seeing Fate, knowing it, spinning threads of it, willed Pelops, son of Tantalus back to life. Pelops fathered Atreus; thus grandson of Tantalus; thus the fallen, mad king was founder of this well-known House. This house, from Atreus to the next generation, sired the dyad belligerent brother kings Agammemnon and Menelaus. Known of the Iliad, of Troy, of their entanglement with Helen and Paris and Hector and Achilles and again, The Gods.
This accursed House of Atreus suffered an onslaught of atrocities across time and space, across generations. The sacrifice for trial and tragedy is not satiated merely with the blood of one generation (the generational curse and trauma: Etymologically From Ancient Greek τραῦμα (traûma, “wound, damage”).
Tantalus was tormented; but became the tormentor of his blood (the turn of torment). Agamemnon and Menelaus were tormented. Iphigenia tormented. Elektra tormented. And so on, and so forth. Torment begets torment.
Fiction is not real. Fiction is hyperreal. It might not be real, but it can be true. And since platonically speaking what is real, what is reality, what is more than reality, that is to say, truth is always real; even more so, above reality; and thus more than real, beyond that which is real. In other words, that which is true; which holds value, nonetheless, no matter if one is speaking ontologically or epistemologically.
Fiction houses truth. Mythic fiction houses House Atreus; fiction houses House Atreides, the Great House of Frank Herbert's Dune who claim to be descendants of line Atreus..
Full spectrum analysis of the primary panel presents the following: Tantalus’ tormenting led to torment, which lead to tragedy and trial across time. Which was laced with trinkets of triumph, like in Troy, and trophies only worthy for those most esteemed legendary tales of total war. This entwinement of trinkets and trophies form the treasury which is like some dark tree of life sprouted and watered, all the way from the depths of Tartarus.
On the Next Installment of Triptych of Torment: