What this project is about.
This one is from Book 6.
How long it took to read this (aloud): 15 mins 14s
What it’s “about”: Niobe is proud of her wealth, her seven sons and daughters and says “what’s the worst that can happen?’ The goddess she has tried to get the peasants to stop workshipping shows her.
Words I didn’t know: none
Quotable quotes: Lots!!
Niobe stops people worshipping Latona. Very Big Mistake.
But look! The tall Niobe came surrounded
By crowds of her retainers, she herself
Dressed in a purple cloak, threaded with gold,
Handsome as angry women sometimes look,
She shook her graceful head until her hair
Had fallen like a veil on either shoulder
Then still and standing taller than before,
She turned round eyes upon the crowd and shouted:
“Is everybody mad? To primp and pray
To heavenly creatures that no one has seen?
Why is Latona praised at altars here,
And my divine right to these prayers ignored?
I see the signs of luxury everywhere.
I know I am as handsome as a goddess,
But more than that, look at my seven daughters,
Look at my seven sons, all fit to bring me
Daughters- and sons-in-law. These are the reasons
For ride, and you may share them, placing me
Above that Titaness (daughter of Coeus —
But who was he? ) Latona, fugitive,
Who scarcely found a place for lying-in.
That trash talking is just tempting the fates
I am too rich in making
Boys and girls, too rich for Fortune to outwit
Me now if she takes many, I have more;
Latona is PISSED, goes to get help
Then sacred Latona became indignant
And, rising to the very top of Cynthus,
She spoke to the twin deities who ruled it,
To her Diana and the young Apollo:
“I am your mother and you are my pride,
No one but Juno is a greater goddess,
And even now someone presumes to doubt
The sacred power of my gifts and name.
Unless you act, my dears, the altars raised
To me will fall in ruins,
The boys get killed in a montage of death
Unlucky Phaedimus and that poor boy who had
The name of Tantalus from his grandfather
(Since they were done with all their daily chores)
Drifted into a boyish turn at wrestling,
And as they came together, breast to breast,
Swift from the bow, an arrow ran them through,
And made them one: they groaned together, fell
Together in one twisting fatal wound —
The same last look from dying eyes, the same
Last gasp of breath.
Niobe finds out
News of disaster, the sad faces of the people,
Tears of her friends brought home to Niobe
Quick sight of ruin; she stood lost in stupor,
Flushed with dark rage at what had come upon her,
And marvelled at the power of the gods.
Husband Amphion fell by his own hand,
Sword thrust within his heart; dying he brought
An end to life, to grief.
Niobe STILL hasn’t learned to keep her damn mouth shut. STFU already!
Crying to skies, “Then drink my tears, Latona,
Eat of my sorrow: gorge your bloody heart!
With seven sons I die my seven deaths;
Take pleasure in your dirty victory!
But have you won? Even in my loss, my grief,
I have much more than what you’ve made or own:
After my many deaths, there’s victory!
And her daughters go the same way as her sons.
Then like a stone the childless matron sat —
Around her the dead bodies of her sons,
Her daughters, and her husband. There no motion
Of the wind stirred through her hair, her colour gone,
Bloodless her melancholy face, her eyes
Stared, fixed on nothingness, nor was there any
Sign of life within that image, her tongue
Cleaved to her palate and the pulse-beat stopped:
Her neck unbending, arms, feet motionless,
Even her entrails had been turned to stone.
Then we get a flashback to some of Latona’s greatest hits.
“Why grudge me water — water the pleasure
Of everyone to drink? Nature has not
Made sun, air, and vivacious water gifts
For few alone.
Some frogs get made
Even now as then they speak a dirty language:
They try to croak their underwater curses,
Their voices rough and deep — their flabby throats
Swell into bags and all their quarrelling makes
Wide mouths grow bigger; and as they stretch their faces
Necks seem to disappear, their backs are green,
A filthy whiteness is their underside,
Which is the larger part of their round bodies;
As newly fashioned frogs they dance in mud.
How it lands to my eco-sensibility: this is brilliant stuff!
Obvious allusions, ways it was used (that I am aware of already) : xx
What I know I didn’t ‘get’: xx
To my knowledge, who’s used it why/how (RACC): xx
Further research questions: xx
Anything else: xx
marchudson.net 
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