Niobe

A queen from Greek myth whose hubris causes the death of her children. Niobe's grief was a standard for mourning in Greek literature and is referenced in //Hamlet//.

In mythology, Niobe, who has fourteen children, insults the goddess Leto because she has only two and proclaims that she, Niobe, should therefore be worshiped instead. To satisfy Leto's anger, her sons Artemis and Apollo murder all of Niobe's offspring. According to legend, Niobe then flees to Mount Sipylus and turns to stone, though the endless flow of her tears still penetrate the rock. The site (in modern day Turkey) contains a rock formation shaped like a human face that leaks water through its porous surface and is known as "Weeping Rock."

"This was the mother, the dead sister Ellen: this Niobe without tears who had conceived to the demon in a kind of nightmare, who even while alive had moved but without life and grieved but without weeping, who now had an air of tranquil and unwitting desolation, not as if she had either outlived the others or had died first, but as if she had never lived at all." --AA, 8-9.

[Casey Levinson]