Tearing Rock--Niobe's Grief

Seven is the great number two times seven is even greater, Niobe lost all fourteen. Niobe once was a proud woman not because she was an Olympian nor for her beauty excelling to Leto. Although Niobe was queen of Thebes the mighty city-state Amphion rules, she forgot she was a mortal. Niobe saw the crowd gathering to honor goddess Leto and her only two offspring, she irritated and dispensed them with anger. Atop Mount Cynthus, the mortified goddess spoke her indignation to her children nevertheless, and they darted through air on chariot. When their chariot alighted on the city’s gateway Apollo drew a bow to drive Niobe’s sons away to the darkness where Hades reigns. Each time an arrow pierced Niobe’s son the mother cried out with great sorrow in the pool of blood her sons shed. When Niobe’s heartbreaking grief was overwhelmed with anguish the mortal’s curse went against the immortal goddess for death wish, in not of extended miserable life, but for graves where sons lie. However, Niobe’s death wish fell upon her daughters instead, she cried, “spare me one, and death be mine to cease this heart’s dread,” before her appeal ended alas, the last one sank to the earth lifeless. For Niobe buried all her proud children in her bosom without a tomb stone, the heap of her condensed grief became a mass of rock, the great stone. The stone is, though, totally lifeless her never-ending grief well up as renewed tears, and her tears will continuously flow to the ocean until the day Cynthian Mountain would erupt to become ashes.