Antigone, lines 823-838. ANTIGONE: I’ve heard about a guest of ours, daughter of Tantalus, from Phrygia – she went to an excruciating death in Sipylus, right on the mountain peak. The stone there, just like clinging ivy, wore her down, and now, so people say, the snow and rain never leave her there, as she laments. Below her weeping eyes her neck is wet with tears. God brings me to a final rest which most resembles hers. CHORUS: But Niobe was a goddess, born divine – and we are human beings, a race which dies. But still, it’s a fine thing for a woman, once she’s dead, to have it said she shared, in life and death, the fate of demi-gods.
Antigone, around line 940. ANTIGONE: I’ve heard about a guest of ours, daughter of Tantalus, from Phrygia – she went to an excruciating death in Sipylus, right on the mountain peak. The stone there, just like clinging ivy, wore her down, and now, so people say, the snow and rain never leave her there, [830] as she laments. Below her weeping eyes her neck is wet with tears. God brings me to a final rest which most resembles hers. [940] CHORUS: But Niobe was a goddess, born divine – and we are human beings, a race which dies. But still, it’s a fine thing for a woman, once she’s dead, to have it said she shared, in life and death, the fate of demi-gods.
A. D. Fitton Brown offered a reconstruction of the form of the play, in A. D. Fitton Brown (July 1954). "Niobe". The Classical Quarterly. 4 (3/4): 175–180. doi:10.1017/S0009838800008077. S2CID246875795.
identified by Webster, Der Niobidenmaler, Leipzig 1935; the iconography of the reverse subject and its possible relation to a lost Early Classical wall-painting by Polygnotes was examined in Erika Simon (1963). "Polygnotan Painting and the Niobid Painter". American Journal of Archaeology. 67 (1): 43–62. JSTOR502702.
A. D. Fitton Brown offered a reconstruction of the form of the play, in A. D. Fitton Brown (July 1954). "Niobe". The Classical Quarterly. 4 (3/4): 175–180. doi:10.1017/S0009838800008077. S2CID246875795.
