Niobē

Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.146-315

All Lydia rang; the story raced abroad
Through Phrygia’s towns and filled the world with talk.
Before her marriage Niobe had known
Arachne, when she lived in Lydia,
Near Sipylus, while still a girl. Even so
She took no warning from the punishment
Of her compatriot to give the gods
Their proper place and moderate her tongue.
Much made her haughty. Yet her husband’s skill,
The high birth of them both, their kingdom’s power,
Though all indeed gave pleasure, none could give
Such pleasure as her children. Niobe
Must have been thought the happiest of mothers,
Had she not thought so too. The prophetess,
Manto, Tiresias’ daughter, had been spurred
By heavenly promptings. Through the city’s streets
She cried her holy call: ‘Women of Thebes,
Come in your throngs, with bay wreaths round your hair,
And give Latona and her children twain
Incense and reverent worship. Through my lips
Latona calls!’ And, in obedience, all
The Theban women wreathe their brows and bring
Their prayers and incense to the holy shrine.
But here, escorted by a multitude
Of courtiers, comes Niobe, superb
In a shining Phrygian gown of woven gold.
Lovely she was, as far as rage allowed,
Tossing her graceful head and glorious hair
That fell upon her shoulders either side.
She stopped, and in her full height cast her gaze,
Her haughty gaze, around. ‘What lunacy
Makes you prefer a fabled god’, she said,
‘To gods you see? Latona, why should her
Shrine be revered, when my divinity
Lacks incense still? My father’s Tantalus,
The only mortal gods in heaven allowed
To share their banquet-board. My mother ranks
As sister of the Pleiads. That great giant,
Atlas, whose shoulders bear the circling sky,
Is one grandfather; Jupiter the other,
My husband’s father too I’m proud to say.
The Phrygian nation fears me. I am mistress
Of Cadmus’ royal house; our city’s walls,
Built by my husband’s music, and our people
Are ruled by him and me. Enormous wealth
I see throughout my home wherever I turn
My gaze; and godlike beauty too is mine.
Then add my seven sons and seven daughters
And soon my sons’ wives and my sons-in-law.
Now ask yourselves the reason for my pride,
And dare prefer me to that Titan’s child,
Whom Coeus sired, whoever he may be,
Latona whom the great globe once refused
The smallest spot to give her children birth.
Not earth, nor sky, nor water would accept
Your goddess, outcast from the world, until
Delos took pity on her wanderings
And said, “You roam the land and I the sea,
Homeless”, and gave her drifting refuge there.
She bore two children; so her womb was worth
A seventh part of mine, O happy me!
(Who would deny it?) and happy I’ll remain
(Who could doubt that?). My riches make me safe.
Yes, I’m too great to suffer Fortune’s blows;
Much she may take, yet more than much she’ll leave.
My blessings banish fear. Suppose some part
Of this my clan of children could be lost,
And I bereft, I’ll never be reduced
To two, Latona’s litter—near enough
Childless! Away with you! Enough of this!
Remove those laurels from your hair!’ With wreaths
Removed, they left the ritual unfinished.
They worshipped, as they might, in silent words.
The goddess was outraged; upon the peak
Of Cynthus she addressed her pair of twins:
‘I, here, your mother, proud to have borne you both,
I, who will give no goddess precedence
Save Juno, find that my divinity
Is doubted and unless you children help
I’m barred from shrines and altars evermore.
Nor is this all that hurts. To injury
Tantalus’ child adds insults. Yes, she dares
Set her own children above you, and calls
Me childless—may that fall on her own head!
Her wicked tongue shows her paternity!’
To this sad tale Latona had in mind
To add too her entreaties, when ‘Enough!’
Said Phoebus, ‘Long complaints do but delay
The punishment’, and Phoebe said the same.
Then clothed in cloud they glided swiftly down
And reached the citadel of Cadmus’ town.
Beside the walls there spread a practice-ground,
A broad flat level, trampled endlessly
By horses, all the surface sandy-soft
Beneath the hard hooves and the thronging wheels.
Some of Amphion’s seven sons had there
Mounted their mettled chargers, reining them
With bright gold-studded bridles, and astride
Caparisons of purple pageantry.
The first-born son, Ismenus, with tight rein
And foaming bit, was circling round the ring,
When suddenly he cried in pain—an arrow
Had pierced him to the heart. His dying hands
Let the reins fall and slowly he sank down,
Collapsing sideways from his mount’s right flank.
Next Sipylus who heard in the empty air
A quiver’s rattling sound, shook out his reins,
As when a master of a ship has seen
Storm-clouds and runs for safety, crowding on
All canvas to catch every breath of wind.
He shook the reins, but inescapable
The arrow followed him and in his nape
Stuck quivering, and from his throat in front
The bare steel thrust. Hunched forward as he was,
Over the flying mane and racing legs
He pitched and fouled the ground with his hot blood.
Then ill-starred Phaedimus, and Tantalus
Endowed with his grandfather’s name, had made
An end to their habitual exercise
And turned to wrestling, shining sport of youth,
And now were locked and struggling breast to breast,
When, sped from the taut string, an arrow pierced
The pair of them, close clinching as they were.
Both gave a groan, both writhed in pain and fell;
Both, as they lay there, rolled their dying eyes,
And both together breathed their lives away.
Alphenor saw them, beat and bruised his breast,
And flew to lift their cold limbs in his arms,
And in that loyal service fell. Apollo
Severed his vitals with a shaft of doom,
And, as it was withdrawn, part of his lung
Was dragged out on the barbs and life and blood
Streamed forth into the air. But Damasichthon,
A long-haired lad, was wounded more than once,
Struck first just where the lower leg begins,
That soft and sinewy spot behind the knee,
And while he struggled to extract the shaft,
The fatal shaft, a second arrow struck
And drove right to the feathers through his throat:
The blood expelled the arrow, spurting high
In a long leaping jet that bored the air.
Ilioneus, last, held out his arms in prayer,
Prayer profitless, crying ‘All ye Gods in heaven’,
Not knowing that he need not ask them all,
‘Have mercy!’ and the Archer-god was moved—
Too late: the shaft was now beyond recall.
Yet was the wound that laid Ilioneus low
The least; the arrow barely pierced his heart.
Rumours of havoc, sorrow in the streets,
Her household’s tears brought Niobe the news,
News of her sudden ruin. She was shocked
That it could happen, angry that the gods
Had dared so far, that they possessed such power.
(The father, Amphion, had already plunged
A dagger in his heart and by his death
Ended both life and grief.) Ah, Niobe!
Alas! how unlike now that Niobe
Who drove the Thebans from Latona’s shrine,
Who walked her city’s streets with head so high,
The envy of her friends—whom now her foes,
Even her foes, must pity! On the cold
Corpses she threw herself and gave her last
Kisses convulsively to all her sons.
Then raising her bruised arms to heaven, she cried
‘Feast, cruel Latona, feast upon my grief!
Yes, glut your savage heart! On seven biers
I’m borne. Exult! Triumph in victory!
Even so, why victory? My wretchedness
Still gives me more than you your happiness:
After so many deaths I triumph still!’
Hard on her words a bowstring twanged, and all
Were terrified, save only Niobe.
Disaster made her bold. In robes of black,
With hair unbound, beside their brothers’ biers
The sisters stood. One of them, as she wrenched
An arrow from her vitals, swooned away,
Her cheek upon her brother. One, who tried
To comfort her poor mother, suddenly
Was silent, doubled by an unseen wound.
One, in vain flight, collapsed; another died
Upon her sister. One concealed herself,
One trembled there for all to see. So six
With one wound or another met their deaths.
The last was left. Her mother shielded her
With her whole body, her whole dress, and cried,
‘Leave me my one, my littlest! Of them all
I crave this one, my littlest!’ As she begged,
The one she begged for fell. She sat bereft
Amid her sons, her daughters and her husband,
All lifeless corpses, rigid in her ruin.
Her hair no breeze can stir; her cheeks are drained
And bloodless; in her doleful face her eyes
Stare fixed and hard—a likeness without life.
So too inside; that tongue of hers congeals;
Her palate’s hard; no pulse beats in her veins;
No way for neck to bend nor arms to wave
Nor feet to walk; and all within is stone.
Yet still she weeps, and in a whirling wind
Is swept back to her homeland. Fastened there
Upon a mountain peak she pines away,
And tears drip from that marble to this day.
Then every man and woman, all of them,
Dreaded the goddess’ wrath made manifest,
And worshipped more devoutly the divine
Power of the mother of the heavenly pair.
Translation by A. D. Melville