Tantalus

Tantalus
Shoulder
Ivory
Gioacchino Assereto
Showbread
Deborah
Keats
Yeats

Rom.8:4
"That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

Gen.1:1
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

"Bond shovelled the great wad of notes on to the table"~~~Ian Fleming

"The American liking for shortcuts in speech"~~~H. L. Mencken

Tantalus, oil painting circa 1640's, by Gioacchino Assereto

Gioacchino Assereto was an Italian painter of the early Baroque period and one of the most prominent history painters active in Genoa in the first half of the 17th century.

Showbread

Carved elephant ivory statuette of the Virgin and Child 1320–30 Victoria and Albert Museum

Tantalus

The House of Atreus begins with Tantalus. Tantalus was a son of Zeus who enjoyed cordial relations with the gods until he decided to slay his son Pelops and feed him to the gods as a test of their omniscience. Most of the gods, as they sat down to dinner with Tantalus, immediately understood what had happened, and, because they knew the nature of the meat they were served, were appalled and did not partake. But Demeter, who was distracted due to the abduction by Hades of her daughter Persephone, obliviously ate Pelops' shoulder. The gods threw Tantalus into the underworld, where he spends eternity standing in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches. Whenever he reaches for the fruit, the branches raise his intended meal from his grasp. Whenever he bends down to get a drink, the water recedes before he can drink. Thus is derived the word "tantalising". The gods brought Pelops back to life, replacing the bone in his shoulder with a bit of ivory, thus marking the family forever afterwards.

Chess: "Tantalus" "Shoulder" "Ivory" "Gioacchino Assereto" "Showbread" "Deborah" "Keats" "Yeats"