Another source of the play[Titus Andronicus] could be the myth of the curse of the Atreides[sic] … this began when Tantalus chopped up his son Pelops and served him in a stew to the Gods. All of the Gods instantly knew what was being attempted, but a distracted Demeter to eat his shoulder … the curse that resulted, and the additional curse passed onto the resurrected Pelops and Hippodamia, fell on the descendants of Tantalus: Menelaus and Agamemnon, and resulted finally in the Trojan Wars and the end of the Heroic Age.
This is also a possibility; thanks for pointing it out!
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Some background on Tantalus, from Wikipedia:
Tantalus (Greek Τάνταλος, Tántalos) was a Greek mythological figure, most famous for his eternal punishment in Tartarus. He was made to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches, with the fruit ever eluding his grasp, and the water always receding before he could take a drink. He was the father of Pelops, Niobe and Broteas, and was a son of Zeus[1] and the nymph Plouto. Thus, like other heroes in Greek mythology such as Theseus and theDioskouroi, Tantalus had both a hidden, divine sire and a mortal one.
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Story of Tantalus
Most famously, Tantalus offered up his son,Pelops, as sacrifice. He cut Pelops up, boiled him, and served him up in a banquet for the gods. The gods became aware of the gruesome nature of the menu, so they didn’t touch the offering; onlyDemeter, distraught by the loss of her daughter,Persephone, absentmindedly ate part of the boy’s shoulder.Clotho, one of the threeFates, ordered by Zeus, brought the boy to life again (she collected the parts of the body and boiled them in a sacred cauldron), rebuilding his shoulder with one wrought of ivory made byHephaestusand presented by Demeter. The revived Pelops grew to be an extraordinarily handsome youth. The godPoseidontook him to Mount Olympus to teach him to usechariots. Later, Zeus threw Pelops out of Olympus due to his anger at Tantalus. The Greeks of classical times claimed to be horrified by Tantalus’s doings;cannibalism,human sacrificeandinfanticidewere atrocities andtaboo.
Tantalus’s punishment for his act, now a proverbial term for temptation without satisfaction (the source of the English word tantalise[17]), was to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches. Whenever he reached for the fruit, the branches raised his intended meal from his grasp. Either he was afraid of drowning[18] or that whenever he bent down to get a drink, the water receded before he could get any. Over his head towers a threatening stone like the one that Sisyphus is punished to roll up a hill.[19] This fate has cursed him with eternal deprivation of nourishment.
So it’s quite possible Shakespeare was making a statement about how immoral the Goths and even Titus’s own society was that they weren’t aware that they were engaging in cannibalism until they were told by Titus (although they aren’t gods, so how could they know?), and that a society that lets rapists get away with no real justice are just as bad as as those who would engage in cannibalism and human sacrifice, and thus just as cursed as Tantalus and the House of Atreus.
Or something. :-P
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Very interesting, walvert. Thanks for the info!
(-Rachel)