The closeness in time of “Fabula de Tantalo” with the other ironic Fabula, dedicated to Thales, confirms the particular interest of early Skovoroda to the images and destinies of the pre-Socratic philosophers and his undoubtful acquaintance with the antic testimonies about them. In the “Fabula de Tantalo” Skovoroda presents his poetic interpretation of that particular version of the old myth about Tantalos, which is conserved in “Orest” by Euripides (whose teacher was Anaxagoras), in Scholia on the I Olympic ode of Pindar and in “Vitae philosophorum” by Diogen Laertius. It allows us to put forward a hypothesis that under the mentioned great rock, which was hanging over the head of Tantalos just when he was at the celestial banquet of the gods, Skovoroda meant the Sun, explained by Anaxagoras of Clazomene as the incandescent masse (Ð μÚδρος) equal to the island of Peloponnese. For such ideas Anaxagoras was condemned by the court of Athens and exiled, while according to other testimonies the first among the physiologoi, who presented the same knowledge, was Tantalos. It permits supposing that the special punishment by the fear of the Sun-rock in the sky over the head of Tantalos could be prescribed to him just for the similar to Anaxagoras attempt of revelation of the divine knowledge about the mysteries of cosmos.
