The tone of this myth needless to say is very distressing or harrowing. For example the very first sentence of the poem is him saying his fate is cruel going on to explain that while in Tartarus he can't eat or drink. Making it possible to conclude that this poem has a very distressed tone.

Tantalus was the son of Zeus (shocker right) and the nymph Plouto in Greek mythology, who was punished after death in Tartarus. According to the full myth, Tantalus was welcomed in the table of the deities in Olympus; however, he stole ambrosia and nectar, thinking he could take it back to his people, in order to make them immortal and reveal the divine secrets. He later decided to sacrifice his son to his gods; so, he cut Pelops in pieces, and served him to the gods. The gods found out what happened and didn't eat at all.

Tantalus was thrown out of Olympus. After he died he was made to stand in a pool of water, right under the branches of a fruit tree. However, when he tried to reach for a fruit, the branches would go higher and out of reach, while when he tried to drink a sip of water, the waters of the pool would recede.

A simple value from this is don't cut your children up into stew for gods to eat because that is a bad idea. Seriously it shows values of why not to just think you can take what you want especially from gods.

One of the few allusions for Tantalus was in Final Fantasy 9 as the Tantalus Theater Troupe, a traveling group of thieves that appear as actors and performers to cover there trails.

As Tantalus was known for attempting to hoodwink the gods of Olympus the Tantalus thieves were known for hoodwinking the people of Gaia.