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Niobe (Νιόβη) is a mortal woman in Greek mythology, daughter of Tantalus and Euryanassa, Eurythemista, Clytia, Dione, or Laodice, and the wife of Amphion of Thebes. She boasted of her superiority to Leto because while the goddess had only two children, the twins Apollo and Artemis, Niobe had fourteen children (the Niobids), seven male and seven female,[1] Apollo killed her sons as they practiced athletics, with the last begging for his life (Apollo would have spared his life, but had already released the arrow), and Artemis killed her daughters. Apollo and Artemis used poisoned arrows to kill them, though according to some versions a number of the Niobids were spared (Chloris, usually). Amphion, at the sight of his dead sons, either killed himself or was killed by Apollo after swearing revenge. A devastated Niobe fled to Mount Sipylus of Lydia in Anatolia and turned into stone as she wept, or committed suicide.
Spil Mount has a rock resembling a female face on it that the locals attributed to Broteas and claimed was Niobe,[2] though it was probably originally intended to be Cybele. The stone is said to have wept tears during the summer. The rock appears to weep because it is porous limestone and rainwater seeps through the pores.
There are various accounts about how and where Niobe perished; the story that returns Niobe from Thebes to her Lydian homeland is recorded in Bibliotheke 3.46.
The story of Niobe is an ancient one among Greeks: Niobe is mentioned by Achilles to Priam in Homer's Iliad book XXIV, as a stock type for mourning. Priam is like Niobe in that he is grieving for his son Hector, who was killed and not buried for several days. Niobe is also mentioned in Sophocles' Antigone: as she is marched toward her death, Antigone compares her own loneliness to that of Niobe. The Niobe of Aeschylus, set in Thebes, survives in fragmentary quotes that were supplemented by a papyrus sheet containing twenty-one lines of text.[3] From the fragments it appears that for the first part of the tragedy the grievining Niobe sits veiled and silent. Sophocles too contributed a Niobe that is lost. The subject of Niobe and the destruction of the Niobids was part of the repertory of Attic vase-painters and inspired sculpture groups and wall frescoes as well as relief carvings on Roman sarcophagi.
Niobe's iconic tears were also mentioned in Hamlet's soliloquy (Act 1, Scene 2), in which he contrasts his mother's grief over the dead King his father— "like Niobe, all tears"— to her unseemly hasty marriage to Claudius.
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[edit] Other Niobes in Greek myth
Aedon was the queen of Thebes who attempted to kill the son of her rival, Niobe, also her sister-in-law.[4] and accidentally killed her own daughter, Itylus instead and thus, the gods again changed her into a nightingale.
Another Niobe was a daughter of Phoroneus, and the first mortal woman to attract the love of the god Zeus. By Zeus, this Niobe was the mother of Argus, legendary founder of the Greek city of Argos. Another child named Pelasgus is sometimes mentioned as the twin of Argus. This Niobe lived many generations before Niobe, daughter of Tantalus.
[edit] Notes
- ^ The number varies. According to Iliad XXIV, there were twelve, six male, six female. Aelian (Varia Historia xii. 36): "But Hesiod says they were nine boys and ten girls— unless after all the verses are not Hesiod but are falsely ascribed to him as are many others." Nine would make a triple triplet, triplicity being character of numerous sisterhoods (J.E. Harrison, A Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903), "The Maiden-Trinities" pp 286ff). Ten would equate to a full two hands of male dactyls.
- ^ Pausanias i.21.2.
- ^ A. D. Fitton Brown offered a reconstruction of the form of the play, in "Niobe" The Classical Quarterly New Series, 4.3/4 (July 1954), pp. 175-180.
- ^ Aedon was married to Zethus)
[edit] References
- Cook, Robert Manuel, 1964. Niobe and Her children (Cambridge University Press). Summary of the most recent research on ancient Niobid representations, pp. 6-30.
- Shakespeare, William. 1597ish. "The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark". Act I, scii, l 149, of Queen Gertrude, "...Like Niobe, all tears..."
- Virginia Brown's translation of Giovanni Boccaccio’s Famous Women, pp. 33-35; Harvard University Press 2001; ISBN 0-674-01130-9
- Ovid, Metamorphoses VI.145-310.
[edit] External links
- Theoi.com, Wrath of Artemis: Niobe Excerpts of Niobe's story from Greek and Latin authors in translation.
- More on the “weeping stone" simulacrum of Niobe in Turkey
