Niobe, Queen of Thebes, was the daughter of Tantalus and wife of
Amphion, who was the most famous of mythological musicians. She was
the mother of seven sons and seven daughters. She became jealous of
the Goddess Leto and commanded the Theban women to cease their worship
of her, explaining that she considered herself far superior to Leto,
who had but two children, while she had seven times as many. This so
angered Leto that she commanded Apollo and Diana to kill all of Niobe’s
children. The father, Amphion, overwhelmed by this calamity, destroyed
himself. The proud mother, thus bereft of husband and children, wept
continually night and day, until Jupiter turned her into stone; yet
tears continued to flow; and borne on a whirlwind to her native
mountain, she still remains a mass of rock from which a trickling
stream flows, the tribute to her never-ending grief.
“And now in Sipylus, amid the rocks
And lonely mountains, she, though turned to stone,
Broods over wrongs inflicted by the gods.”
--_Lewis Morris._