Immersed in a veritable ocean of accumulated liturgical material, she is as helpless as tantalus to moisten her lips with so much as a single drop.
"A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer"
William Reed Huntington
He walked as swiftly as he might to take the full advantage of the lesser heat of the earlier hours, but his way led him through loose sand, down into cuts and gorges, up their steep sides, across fields of loose stones, which, shifting underfoot, made his striving for haste a pure work of tantalus.
"The Desert Valley"
Jackson Gregory
And from time to time he suffered all the pangs of tantalus, and left his office to look after itself for weeks at a time, while he went to Vienna to look up some of his father's old acquaintances.
"St. Peter's Umbrella"
Kálmán Mikszáth