text: " So if the shade of Pelops will receive our counsel we advise him to abstain from vouching any of the family of Tantalus to testify to the reality of his existence; for he has to deal with a Bickerstaff by whom it has been demonstrated that Tantalus is nothing but _tain tal ais_ "water receding backwards " or an incarnation of those fabulous times when water was supposed to run uphill whence it appears that the whole race of Atreus is a mere series of non-existences