Greg Nagy
Last updated at
Jan. 14, 2021, 9:11 p.m.
{"blocks":[{"key":"3k58b","text":"The picturing of Niobe as a rock exuding the tears of a fresh-water mountain stream is attested in the Homeric Iliad 24.614–617:","type":"unstyled","depth":0,"inlineStyleRanges":[{"offset":111,"length":5,"style":"ITALIC"}],"entityRanges":[{"offset":111,"length":8,"key":0}],"data":{}},{"key":"dicc3","text":"νῦν δέ που ἐν πέτρῃσιν ἐν οὔρεσιν οἰοπόλοισιν","type":"unstyled","depth":0,"inlineStyleRanges":[],"entityRanges":[],"data":{}},{"key":"b5dr6","text":"ἐν Σιπύλῳ, ὅθι φασὶ θεάων ἔμμεναι εὐνὰς","type":"unstyled","depth":0,"inlineStyleRanges":[],"entityRanges":[],"data":{}},{"key":"3dpve","text":"νυμφάων, αἵ τ’ ἀμφ’ Ἀχελώϊον ἐρρώσαντο,","type":"unstyled","depth":0,"inlineStyleRanges":[],"entityRanges":[],"data":{}},{"key":"a1qgm","text":"ἔνθα λίθος περ ἐοῦσα θεῶν ἐκ κήδεα πέσσει.","type":"unstyled","depth":0,"inlineStyleRanges":[],"entityRanges":[],"data":{}},{"key":"dech","text":"And now, somewhere amidst the rocks, on the desolate heights,","type":"unstyled","depth":0,"inlineStyleRanges":[],"entityRanges":[],"data":{}},{"key":"5io7v","text":"in Sipylos, where they say goddesses have places to sleep,","type":"unstyled","depth":0,"inlineStyleRanges":[],"entityRanges":[],"data":{}},{"key":"9a561","text":"the goddess nymphs, the ones who dance on the banks of the Akhelōios,","type":"unstyled","depth":0,"inlineStyleRanges":[],"entityRanges":[],"data":{}},{"key":"7fusj","text":"there does she [= Niobe], though she has been turned into stone, digest her sorrows inflicted by the gods.","type":"unstyled","depth":0,"inlineStyleRanges":[],"entityRanges":[],"data":{}},{"key":"56nua","text":"I offer some detailed comments on this passage in HC 1§34. Relevant is the use of the word tēkesthai ‘dissolve’ in Sophocles’ Antigone (828) picturing a weeping Niobe in a state of petrifaction. This word, as I analyze it in HC 2§§254–255 and 2§§346–348, comparing parallel wording elsewhere in Greek poetry, conjures the image of a cold mountain stream that flows without interruption from the heights where Niobe turned into stone; her tears are the uninterrupted source of that eternal stream.","type":"unstyled","depth":0,"inlineStyleRanges":[{"offset":91,"length":9,"style":"ITALIC"}],"entityRanges":[{"offset":50,"length":4,"key":1},{"offset":126,"length":8,"key":2},{"offset":225,"length":4,"key":3}],"data":{}},{"key":"4fcb5","text":"Here is an epitome from my interpretation of other passages referring to the ‘dissolving’ of Niobe in Greek poetry (HC 1§34):","type":"unstyled","depth":0,"inlineStyleRanges":[],"entityRanges":[{"offset":116,"length":4,"key":4}],"data":{}},{"key":"82lm9","text":"The sorrows of Niobe are so overwhelming that she continues to weep eternally even after the gods turn her into stone. A petrified figure should be drained of emotion, as we read in the framing narrative of Iliad 24.601–620: when the population in the land of Niobe is petrified, there can be no weeping, no mourning, and therefore no funeral, so that the gods themselves must conduct a funeral and bury the children of Niobe. But Niobe, even after she is petrified, is like a human figure in that she continues to dissolve into tears. So overwhelming are her sorrows. Unlike the dissolving of a human in mourning, however, this petrified figure takes forever to dissolve because the tears that pour out of her sunken eyes flow out of an inexhaustible source of sorrows.","type":"unstyled","depth":0,"inlineStyleRanges":[{"offset":207,"length":5,"style":"ITALIC"}],"entityRanges":[{"offset":207,"length":8,"key":5}],"data":{}}],"entityMap":{"0":{"type":"LINK","mutability":"MUTABLE","data":{"href":"https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/5286#24t","url":"https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/5286#24t"}},"1":{"type":"LINK","mutability":"MUTABLE","data":{"href":"https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/3241","url":"https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/3241"}},"2":{"type":"LINK","mutability":"MUTABLE","data":{"href":"https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/6475","url":"https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/6475"}},"3":{"type":"LINK","mutability":"MUTABLE","data":{"href":"https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/3242","url":"https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/3242"}},"4":{"type":"LINK","mutability":"MUTABLE","data":{"href":"https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/3241","url":"https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/3241"}},"5":{"type":"LINK","mutability":"MUTABLE","data":{"href":"https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/5286#24t","url":"https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/5286#24t"}}}}