The Specter of Tantalus: Didactic Latency in De rerum natura

Abstract

At the end of his third book, Lucretius concludes his arguments against the fear of death and the neurotic desires brought on by this fear with a metaphor that has been difficult for interpreters to fathom: et sitis aequa tenet vitai semper hiantis (3.1084). This paper offers a new reading of this passage as a tacit reference to the myth of Tantalus, which functions as a latent mythological allegory for chronic psychological dissatisfaction. This reading solves local problems of interpretation and, more significantly, provides insight into the didacticism of Lucretius’s sub-surface polemic against myth.