Le supplice de Tantale

Literally: The torment of Tantalus

Example: “Au régime devant la vitrine de la pâtisserie : le supplice de Tantale.” — On a diet in front of the bakery window: so near and yet so far.

English equivalent: So near and yet so far

Origin: Tantalus was a son of Zeus and the nymph Plouto, and king of Lydia, and it was his own father who sent him to the underworld. Accounts of what he did to deserve it vary. In one, having been admitted to the table of the gods, he stole nectar and ambrosia so that mortals could taste them. In the other, he killed his son Pelops, cooked him, and served him to the gods at dinner — which does rather settle the question of whether the punishment fit. The punishment: standing in a stream that drew back whenever he stooped to drink, under branches the wind lifted away whenever he reached for the fruit. One version has the fruit turning to stone once picked, which seems like gilding the lily. Everything he wanted was permanently within reach and permanently unobtainable, which is the whole of the expression. Despite the age of the story, French only produces the phrase in the middle of the 19th century — and English takes the verb tantalize from the same man without usually noticing.