Interpretative. Of this incident Gladstone, in his primer on Homer, says: "One of the greatest branches and props of morality for the heroic age lay in the care of the stranger and the poor.... Sacrifice could not be substituted for duty, nor could prayer. Such, upon the abduction of Chryseïs, was the reply of Calchas the Seer: nothing would avail but restitution."
78. The Dynasty of Tantalus and its Connections. (See also Table I.)
Table F
Jupiter +— Tantalus (k. of Phrygia)
=Dione
+— Niobe
| =Amphion
| +— 7 sons and 7 daughters
+— Pelops
=Hippodamia
+— Atreus
| =Aërope
| +— Agamemnon
| +— Menelaüs
+— Thyestes
| +— Ægisthus
+— Pittheus (k. of Trœzen)
+— Æthra
=Ægeus
+— Theseus
=Antiope
+— Amphion
=Niobe
+— 7 sons and 7 daughters (see above)
Atlas
+— Dione
| =Tantalus (k. of Phrygia)
| +— Niobe (see above)
| +— Pelops (see above)
+— Sterope II
=Mars
+— Œnomaüs
+— Hippodamia
=Pelops
+— Atreus (see above)
+— Thyestes (see above)
+— Pittheus (k. of Trœzen) (see above)
Minos II
+— Aërope
=Atreus
+— Agamemnon (see above)
+— Menelaüs (see above)
Pelops. It is said that the goddess Demeter in a fit of absent-mindedness ate the shoulder of Pelops. The part was replaced in ivory when Pelops was restored to life. Mount Cynthus: in Delos, where Apollo and Diana were born.
Interpretative. Max Müller derives Niobe from the root snu, or snigh, from which come the words for snow in the Indo-European languages. In Latin and Greek, the stem is Niv, hence Nib, Niobe. The myth, therefore, would signify the melting of snow and the destruction of its icy offspring under the rays of the spring sun (Sci. Relig. 372). According to Homer (Iliad, 24, 611), there were six sons and six daughters. After their death no one could bury them, since all who looked on them were turned to stone. The burial was, accordingly, performed on the tenth day after the massacre, by Jupiter and the other gods. This petrifaction of the onlookers may indicate the operation of the frost. Cox says that Niobe, the snow, compares her golden-tinted, wintry mists or clouds with the splendor of the sun and moon. Others look upon the myth as significant of the withering of spring vegetation under the heats of summer (Preller). The latter explanation is as satisfactory, for spring is the child of winter (Niobe).
Illustrative. Pope, Dunciad, 2, 311; Lewis Morris, Niobe on Sipylus (Songs Unsung); Byron's noble stanza on fallen Rome, "The Niobe of nations! there she stands, Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe," etc. (Childe Harold, 4, 79); W. S. Landor, Niobe; Frederick Tennyson, Niobe. On Tantalus, see Lewis Morris, Tantalus, in The Epic of Hades. On Sir Richard Blackmore, a physician and poor poet, Thomas Moore writes the following stanza:
'T was in his carriage the sublime
Sir Richard Blackmore used to rhyme,
And, if the wits don't do him wrong,
'Twixt death and epics passed his time,
Scribbling and killing all day long;
Like Phœbus in his car at ease,
Now warbling forth a lofty song,
Now murdering the young Niobes.