In the Homeric account of the descent of Odysseus to the underworld two other penitents are mentioned in addition to Tantalus: Sisyphus and Tityos. Only the crime of Tityos, the attempted rape of the consort of Zeus, is specified. Bunker shows that the three penitents are one penitent, and reveals the oral stamp of all three punishments. By the lex talionis an oral punishment can only be merited by an oral crime. But the only crime mentioned is an oedipal one. This 'unrepressed' oedipal crime must therefore be a cover for a 'repressed' oral one. Thus oedipality is here used as a defence against pre-oedipality. The story shows the self-condemning, self-torturing tendencies at work in the service of that unconscious masochistic gratification with which, the author thinks, it may be the most important of the analytic tasks to deal.