III-IV sec. d.C.
QUINTO DI SMIRNE, Posthomerica, I, 293-306
Testo tratto da: Quintus Smyrnaeus, The fall of Troy, with an English translation by Arthur S. Way, Harvard University press, Cambridge (Mass.) 1913, pp. 25-27
(...) for these
spread was the bed of love beside the foot
of Sipylus the Mountain, where the Gods
made Niobe a stony rock, wherefrom
tears ever stream: high up, the rugged crag
bows as one weeping, weeping: waterfalls
cry from far-echoing Hermus, wailing moan
of sympathy: the sky-encountering crests
of Sipylus, where always floats a mist
hated of shepherds, echo back the cry.
Weird marvel seems that rock of Niobe
to men that pass with feet fear-goaded: there
they see the likeness of a woman bowed,
in depths of anguish sobbing, and her tears
drop, as she mourns grief-stricken, endlessy.
Yea, thou wouldst say that verily so it was,
viewing it from afar; but when hard by
thou standest, all the illusion vanishes;
and lo, a steep-browed rock, a fragment rent
from Sipylus – yet Niobe is there,
dreeing her weird, the debt of wrath divine,
a broken heart in guise og shattered stone.
