Thread:Mediawatcher/@comment-3581997-20150905032118/@comment-3581997-20150905080639

Ok a small bit of back-tracking to explain that one. See before the Gods were their parent, uncles aunt etc The Titans, the Gods of Gods and overseers of primitive earth. Back in the bad old days the Titans accepted mortal prayer in blood offerings, human sacrifice. When the gods dethroned their Titan fore-bearers and remade the human race they remade society into a less barbaric one.

The King Tantalus wanted to honor the Gods and so he made them a huge feast and offered prayers to every single one of them to invite them each as his dinner guests where he honored them all. As he made his toast to his divine dinner guests he mentioned how much the food represented his patronage to them because it was made out of his son, who he had slaughters and served to them as food. The gods were so disgusted with the notion that a mortal was still treating them the way mortals were expected to treat the Titans that they struck him down on the spot, made a special exception to the rules of death and brought his son back to life and invited him to live on Olympus for a few years to make up for his father's misplaced faith.

We get the word "Tantalize" from old Tantalus because as punishment Hades tied him to a tree in a lake where the water would drain whenever he bent hi head to get a drink and where the fruit would lift up whenever he reached up to get something to eat, so he was kept perpetually hungry and thirsty for all eternity.