Niobe
Family: Thebes · Role: queen and mother · First appears: Fable 56
Niobe, queen and mother of Thebes, was the daughter of Taygete and Tantalus, granddaughter of Atlas and Jupiter, and the wife of Amphion. She governed the people with him behind the walls formed by his lyre, and was the mother of Ismenus, Sipylus, Alphenor, Damasicthon, and Ilioneus. Though Arachne’s punishment had shown the consequences of refusing to yield to the inhabitants of Heaven, Niobe halted Latona’s sacrifice, ordering the Theban women: “Go from the sacrifice; hasten away from the sacrifice, and remove the laurel from your hair!”
In answer to the affront against their mother, Apollo and Diana killed Niobe’s children. While she entreated for them, the one for whom she was pleading was slain, and she became childless among her dead sons, daughters, and husband. She continued to weep until her body hardened into stone: “Her tongue itself, too, congeals within, together with her hardened palate,” and her neck, arms, feet, and entrails could no longer move.
Relationship record
Life events
- Niobe halts the sacrifice to Latona and orders the Theban women to remove their laurel.(Fable56)
- With: Latona
- “Go from the sacrifice; hasten away from the sacrifice, and remove the laurel from your hair!” They remove it, and the sacrifice they leave unperformed”
- Apollo and Diana kill Niobe's daughters, leaving her childless.(Fable56)
- Niobe's body hardens into stone after the deaths of her family.(Fable56)
- “Her tongue itself, too, congeals within, together with her hardened palate, and the veins cease to be able to be moved. Her neck can neither be bent, nor can her arms give any motion, nor her feet move. Within her entrails, too, it is stone.”
Fable 56
- parent: Tantalus (Niobe's father) “Tantalus was my father, who alone was allowed to approach the tables of the Gods above.”
- married with Amphion “the walls that were formed by the strings of my husband’s {lyre}, together with their people, are governed by me and my husband”
- with Tantalus (Niobe's father) (father-daughter relationship) “The daughter of Tantalus has added abusive language to her shocking deeds”
- with Atlas (grandfather-granddaughter relationship) “the most mighty Atlas is my grandsire, who bears the æthereal skies upon his neck.”
- with Jupiter (father-in-law relationship) “Jupiter is my other grandsire; of him, too, I boast as my father-in-law.”
- with Arachne (interaction) “And yet by the punishment of her countrywoman, Arachne, she was not warned to yield to the inhabitants of Heaven”
- enemies with Latona “The daughter of Tantalus has added abusive language to her shocking deeds, and has dared to postpone you to her own children”
- enemies with Apollo “Apollo and Diana, to avenge the affront offered to their mother, destroy all the children of Niobe”
- enemies with Diana “Apollo and Diana, to avenge the affront offered to their mother, destroy all the children of Niobe”
- child: Ismenus “Ismenus, who had formerly been the first burden of his mother”
- parent: Taygete (footnote 34) “Taygete, one of the Pleiades, was the mother of Niobe.”
- child: Sipylus “Childless, she sat down among her dead sons and daughters and husband.”
- child: Alphenor “Childless, she sat down among her dead sons and daughters and husband.”
- child: Damasicthon “Childless, she sat down among her dead sons and daughters and husband.”
- child: Ilioneus “Childless, she sat down among her dead sons and daughters and husband.”
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Extracted from the original text of The Metamorphoses of Ovid. Made with Rho MD.