Dying Niobid

Even fair-haired Niobe remembered food,
with twelve of her own children murdered in her home,
her six young daughters and her six strong sons.
Apollo was so enraged at Niobe,
with his silver bow he killed the sons.  The daughters
Artemis the Archer slaughtered, for Niobe 
had compared herself to lovely Leto,
saying the goddess only had two children,
while she had given birth to many.  Even so,
though only two, those gods killed all her children.
For nine days they lay in their own blood, 
for there was no one there to give them burial.
Cronos' son had turned the people all to stone.
The tenth day, the gods in heaven buried them.
That's when, worn out with weeping,  Niobe   0
had thoughts of food.  And now, somewhere in the rocks
in Sipylus, among the lonely mountains,
where, men say, the goddess nymphs lie down to sleep,
the ones that dance beside the Achelous,
there Niobe, though turned to stone, still broods,
thinking of the pain the gods have given her.