A woman
turned to a spider! Whoever heard of such a thing?
All the
towns in Lydia trembled at the horror of it. It spreads
through
Phrygia, the shattered pride of Arachne, daring to spin
and
embroider in contest with Pallas Athena. Self-hanged
in
spite, she is doomed to six-leggedness, to sit hungry always
at the
heart of a dread weaving all know to be a place of poison.
You
would think her friend and playmate Niobe, might weep
to recall
how they ran the fields of Maeonia together,
and
drank the bees’ nectar in the shadow of Mount Sipylus.
Yet the
girl learned nothing from the sad example of how
the
wise, concerning gods, should speak little and praise much.
Niobe
had what some call pride of place, beside an artful spouse,
queen in
her realm, high born and married to Thebes, but these
were
motes of arrogance beside her pride of motherhood.
None
need call out she was the most blessed of mothers,
since
she so frequently uttered it herself. Fourteen times
blessed
was her matronly belly, once even twinned!
Blameless
old Manto, who could not help herself,
daughter
as she was to Tiresias, got up with an impulse
divine
and, taking a torch and banner, raised a throng,
saying
to all in the marketplace, “Come, Theban women!
Go to the
temple of Latona the Titaness. Without delay,
give up
to her and to Apollo and Artemis, her offspring,
prayers
and costly incense. Make laurel wreaths
and don
them, and follow me in loud procession!
Latona
exults to speak through me!” The women obey,
and
ripping from the laurels every reachable branch
they wound
their brows with the sacred leaves and marched.
Up to
the very moon and stars the incense rose, smoke, too
from
everything else they heaped into the altar fires.
But
last, and wrathful, comes Queen Niobe, her cohorts
of the
palace unasked and unconsulted, no wreath
upon her
brow, gold-and-white Phrygian robes aglow
as she steps
into the shadowed temple. Crowds bow
and
part; some kneel at the royal presence among them.
Manto
freezes in her supplicatory pose, back turned
to the
Queen and facing Latona’s time-blackened
visage. Niobe
halts, compels with wrath’s eye-darts
that the
priestess turn to face her. Neck, head, and crown
make her
seem a giant among them. “What is this?”
she
demands of them. “You would rather worship a stone,
a thing
behind a curtain, an “Old One” you only know
by
reputation? No incense for me? No laurels for me?
Must I be
dead before the people worship me?
Do you
know who my father was? Tantalus! Tantalus!
The only
man ever to take food from the gods’ table.
Sister
to the glimmering Pleiades my mother is.
The one
who holds the vault of the Heavens
upon his
shoulder, yes, Atlas himself, I call
my
grandfather. I am descended from Titans
and as
such I can call Zeus my grandfather, should
I ever
have need to trouble him. In Phrygia,
where
they know who is who, they revere and fear me.”
The
women tremble. None say a word. Manto is like
a woman
who has seen a Gorgon, no sound from her
defends
the interrupted prayer to Latona, whose ears
hear all
through the rude unpolished stone of her likeness.
Niobe
cannot stop herself. “Queen of the Royal House
of
Cadmus am I. The stones you walked to come here,
the
walls of the palace and city of Thebes, rose up
at the
magic sound of my husband’s lyre,
and the
labor of the men of Thebes, those very rocks,
if they
could speak, would acknowledge me.
“There
is nothing here but a shack and a face of stone.
You all
know how in the palace, the eye cannot see
the end
of its wealth and splendor. Why this? Why here?
Do I not
have the eye and brow and shoulders of Zeus,
the
grace of a Hera if not an Aphrodite? All say it is so.
And add
to this my proof of glory: my seven sons, our
seven
sons, the glory of Thebes, and my seven daughters,
our seven daughters, and for them each a
warrior king
to be my
seven sons-in-law. Dare you to call me
proud
without warrant?
Dare any of you?” All are silent.
The
incense hangs beneath the temple roof.
Her fury
at their silence rises. “So you prefer to me,
decked
as you are with stolen laurels from my trees,
that
Titaness Latona, daughter of somebody named Coeus,
whom no
one has ever heard of — Latona, whose
pregnancy
the Earth spat out, denied a spot of land
to give
birth to her progeny, until the spirit of Delos
took
pity and said, ‘Vagrant Titan, light down
on this
vagrant island.’ Born they were, with Pity
as their
stepfather and a bare rock as home,
a rock
that floated hither and yon for centuries.
The land
did not want her. The sea denied her.
The
starry universe spat at the sound of her name.
“And
what did Latona do? She bore two children. Two.
I have
done seven times that, and might do more.
Happy am
I, and blessed, and happy shall I be.
Why ask
anything of all-but-forgotten gods
when you
are safe with me, too great
and too
well-descended to fear bad luck?
If
drought comes, the stores are full. It passes.
If
sickness comes, we heal the sick. Bright day
erases
the drear fog of the night of the dead.
“Suppose
some part of my tribe of children
might be
taken from me? Take two, take four.
I still
have five times as many as she! Latona,
as such
things go, is practically childless!
“Go back
to your looms, and to the market,
go back
to your homes and gardens,” Niobe demands.
“Cast
off the laurels as you pass the door.
I will
hear no more of Latona.”
The
women obey, and yet they mumble the name
of the
slighted Titaness instead of that
of the
proud and angry Queen of Thebes.
Manto,
alone, falls to her knees and weeps.
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