Ancestral curse of the house of Tantalus · Atlas

spoken of as

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The blessed Tantalus—and I am not now taunting him with his misfortunes—

The idea that the suffering of Orestes, Electra, and Clytemnestra stems from an inherited curse on the house of Tantalus (Agamemnon's lineage).

one ancestral curse has ground down both.

There is no house more pitiable than the race of Tantalus, nor has there ever been.

The notion of an inherited chain of suffering and violence passed down through the descendants of Tantalus.

The blessed Tantalus—and I am not now taunting him with his misfortunes—

all from that one accursed mother, who slew her husband, after snaring him in an inextricable robe.

Tantalus, the reputed son of Zeus, flies in the air, quailing at the rock which looms above his head;