A Book of Myths, by Jean Lang - Umnet

But the gods laughed. Like a harsh note of music sounded the twang of
Diana's bow. Pierced by a silver arrow, the little girl lay dead. The
dignity of Latona was avenged.
Overwhelmed by despair, King Amphion killed himself, and Niobe
was left alone to gaze on the ruin around her. For nine days she sat, a
Greek Rachel, weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted,
because they were not. On the tenth day, the sight was too much even
for the superhuman hearts of the gods to endure. They turned the bodies
into stone and themselves buried them. And when they looked on the
face of Niobe and saw on it a bleeding anguish that no human hand
could stay nor the word of any god comfort, the gods were merciful.
Her grief was immortalised, for Niobe, at their will, became a stone,
and was carried by a wailing tempest to the summit of Mount Sipylus,
in Lydia, where a spring of Argos bore her name. Yet although a rock
was Niobe, from her blind eyes of stone the tears still flowed, a clear
stream of running water, symbol of a mother's anguish and
never-ending grief.
HYACINTHUS
... "The sad death Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath Of Zephyr slew
him--Zephyr penitent Who now, ere Phoebus mounts the firmament,
Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain."
Keats.
"Whom the gods love die young"--truly it would seem so, as we read
the old tales of men and of women beloved of the gods. To those men
who were deemed worthy of being companions of the gods, seemingly
no good fortune came. Yet, after all, if even in a brief span of life they
had tasted god-given happiness, was their fate one to be pitied? Rather
let us keep our tears for those who, in a colourless grey world, have
seen the dull days go past laden with trifling duties, unnecessary cares
and ever-narrowing ideals, and have reached old age and the grave--no
narrower than their lives--without ever having known a fulness of