St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1876-03-31
Notes from Turkey.
NIOBE.
10 the Editor Of the Caledoniau:

'ihS 'Hc ldst InflSl mas mondays,
with one of my associate teachers, |
made very pleasant excursion into
the ancient kingdom of Lydia.
OF course i'll journey of this sort
one meets with Il great deal that is in
teresting and instructive, and | should
take great pleasure in describing mi
nntely to your readers the places and
things that | saw. As it is not practi-
cable for me to do it however, | must
content myself with ii few of the most
important.
a part of our time We spent in the
ancient city of Magnesia (now Manisa)
as guests of Rev. Chas. H. Brooks,
whom many of your readers will re-
member us young missionary of the
American Board. He and his excellent
wife gave lis II very hearty welcome,
and made our stay in Manisa exceed
ingly pleasant.
Mr.. Brooks is entering with great en-
thusiaSm into his work, and on the
|
preach eXtempOre to native audience
in modern Greek. AT another time |
may tell you something about the mis-
siOnary work there, but in this letter |
wish to speak of Il delightful excur-
sion we made on horseback to the
statue of 1.-The weeping Niobe."
lin a. VI
Sipylus. which rises very abruptly from
the plain of the River Hermus. Our
way led us about four miles around the
North East side of the mountain, until
we came to il place which 2S0O wears
ago was immortalized by the poet Ho-
mer.
The readers of the Caledonian will
doubtless recall the pathetic story of
''Niobe, the golden-hair how be-
ing the daughter of Tantalus, king of
Lydia and Taygete, ii star in the CON
stellation Pleiades. she became the wife
of Amphion, king of Thebes, and the
mother of six stalwart sons and six
fair daughters"
How, proudly boastiHg of her chill
dren and the fortunes the gods had sent
her, she
even dared
To make herself the peer of rosy checked
Latona, who. she boastfully proclaimed
Had borne two children only, while herself
Had brought forth many. Yet though only two
The children of LatOna took the lives
Of all her own.
For Phu-bus slew the sons
With arrows from his silver bow incensed
At Niobe; while Dian, archer-queen
Struck down the daughters
Yet Niobe
Though spent with weeping long, did not refrain
From food. And now forever mid the rocks
And desert hills of Sipyus
Although she be transformed To stone, she broods
over the woes inflicted by the gods"
Such is the story us given 10y Homer,
and Ovid writing 1000 years later. is
still more explicit. After describing
how her six SONS and six daughters fell.
one after another by the arrows of
Apollo and Diana. the children of La
tona, he says: "ChildleSS, she sat
down among her dead sons and daugh-
ters and became hardened 10y her woes.
Still did she weep on and
envel"ped i'll Il mighty wind she was
borne away to her native land. There,
fixed on the top of II mountain, she
dissolves, and even yet does the mar
bile distil tears"
With this pathetic legend enveIoped
in il halo of antiquity and the classics.
in our minds, it is not strange that with
feelings of no ordinary interest We
looked up ut the Surdt 1dsh (>tone i'm
agc) as the Turks call it, when it first
broke upon our view on the side of Mt.
SipNlus. 1t is carved out of the smooth
side of the mountain about 400 feet
above the road, and leaving our horses
in charge of Mr.. Brooks, Mr.. Barrows
another missionary friend, Mr.. Webster
and myself climbed up to it.
1t WAS indeed Niobe, "The marble
still wceps," said the poet lSOO years
ago, and the tears We saw trickling
over heI stone face were tokens to us
of the eternal SORROW. The face of the
mountain had been smoothed off 10y
the sculptor, and then an alcove cut
in it, leaving the statue in relief. The
whole statue is some 20 feet high by 9
leet wide ut the shoulders, the niche in
which it stands being some 5 or q feet
higher and as much wider.
There have been several opinions
about the intention of the sculptor as
to the position of the statue some
claiming that it is simply Il bust on a
pedestal-and others that it represents
woman in sitting posture, the knees
being somewhat elevated and cores
ponding to the pedestal of the other
theory. Some, too, think they can de
tect the hands folded across the breast.
DIR. Van Lennep. in his book on "Asia
Minor" scouts both the last theories,
claiming that it is simply il bust on a
pedestal For myself, | incline very
strongly to the other view. and more
over thought could detect not only the
hands folded across the breast, but also
the feet projecting just IL little from
under the robe that fell over the knees.
But the rock is 80 much worn away 10y
the action of the weather upon it for
centuries, that it is very difficult to de-
eide what was the original design of the