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.
Copyright © Su Ben | Year Posted 2015
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