CHAP. VII
the light-crowned cloud. But the commoner version which represents
her as a daughter of Tantalos is still more significant. Here Niobe, v_ : — ■
the bride of the Theban Amphion, a being akin to Orpheus, Pan,
and Hermes, becomes the mother of beautiful children, whose number
varies as much as that of the sons and daughters of Endymion, or of
the mystic Kouretes and Telchines. Then follows the rivalry of the
proud mother with the mightier parent of Artemis and Phoibos —
the presumption of the mist or the ice which dares to match the
golden-tinted clouds with the sun and moon in their splendour.
The children of Leto are but two in number ; her own cluster round
her, a blooming troop of sons and daughters.^ But Leto had only
to carry the story of her troubles to her children, and the unerring
arrows soon smote the unconscious causes of her anger. Niobe her-
self sat down overcome with woe on the summits of Sipylos, and there
her grief turned her into stone, as the water turns into ice on the cold
hill-side.^ Local tradition so preserved the story that the people
fancied that they saw on the heights of Sipylos the actual figure of
N iobe mourning for her children ; but, in fact, there were many
Niobes in many lands, and the same luckless portion was the lot
ofall.^
In the Vedic hymns, the cloud myths are inextricably intermingled The cattle with those of the dawn and the light. The very enemy of Indra ° ^ °^" hiding the stolen herds in his horrid den is but the storm-cloud which shuts up the rain-clouds ready to refresh the parched earth. He is Cacus who drags the cattle of Geryon into his cave, and the Sphinx which plagues the Kadmeians with drought. Of the beautiful
' The number of these children is seat, point to the melting or weeping variously given in almost ever}' account. of the petrified or frozen winter earth. The clouds are never the same. Professor Max Miiller compares this
- Sophokles, Atitig. 830, speaks ex- myth with that of Chione [xi.u>v-, hiems,
pressly of the snow which never leaves winter), who for presumption much like her, and thus shows that he is dealing that of Niobe is slain by Artemis, with the phenomena of congelation. Preller, Gr. Myth. ii. 383, takes a dif- ' With many other names, that of ferent view. " Niobe ist selbst die Niobe may be traced back to a root snu, Rhea dieser Bergen und dieser Thaler " to flow, which yields the Sanskrit Xyava, [of Sipylos], " tlie fruchtbare Mutter snow, as from Dyu we have Dyava, i.e. und doch so traurig, im Friihlinge pran- A77ci. Hence Professor Max Miiller gend in dem Schmucke bluhender sees in Niobe the goddess of winter, Kinder, im Sommer, wenn die heissen whose children are smitten by the arrows Pfeile der Cotter des Lichtes treffen, of Phoibos and Artemis, as the winter verwaist, und wie Rachel, die iiber den gives place to summer. Thus the myth Leichen ihrcr Kinder sitzt und ' will that there were none to bury them be- sich nicht trosten lassen, denn es ist aus cause all who might have done so had mil ihnen.' " He adds that the petri- been turned into stone, is explained as faction of Niobe seems to indicate the indicating .the power of frost which tradition of some catastrophe. The congeals everything : and thus also the catastrophe is simply that of every tears of Niobe, as she sits on her stony northern winter.
