A Swallow in the North (Greek Mythology) - Chapter 3

Niobe’s beauty was as legendary as her arrogance. Before her marriage, well-meaning advisors had spoken earnestly to her husband, Amphion:

“You are a King, and your wife must possess the grace and dignity of a Queen. The world knows well how prideful Niobe is. Even if her beauty is enough to sway a hero such as yourself, is there not a Psyche in some distant land whose beauty rivals Aphrodite herself?”

“I believe the King of Thebes is no shallow man who values only outward appearances. If that is so, why must you insist on marrying the haughty Niobe?”

“Moreover, Niobe’s arrogance is not reserved for mortals alone. If a day comes when her thoughtless actions offend the gods, the cost of this marriage will far outweigh any joy it brings.”

Amphion did not take these warnings to heart.

To him, all beautiful things in the world were inevitably slandered by malicious small-minded men. If one reversed that logic, a person whose fame and infamy were equally widespread surely possessed more beauty than vice.

By this reasoning, Niobe had to be a rare beauty kind-hearted, gentle, and patient.

However, after he joyfully wedded her, he discovered that the “Arrogant Princess” lived up to her name: in her pride, she showed no respect even to the gods, let alone to her husband.

Thus, Amphion spent most of the year campaigning abroad, attempting to use the thrill of victory to wash away the stifling oppression of his cold palace.

All of this serves to prove one fact that every citizen of Thebes knew but dared not speak: Niobe was arrogant to the extreme. Even years into her marriage, as the beauty that once anchored her pride began to fade, her useless arrogance remained as stubborn as ever and it was about to fall upon her subjects.

***

Manto, the daughter of the renowned seer Tiresias, had never had the honour of an audience with Queen Niobe. Today, however, that honour arrived alongside a disaster as overwhelming as a roaring tide.

As the women of the city gathered like a sea to worship Leto, Niobe—draped in a gown woven with gold thread and surrounded by attendants stepped down from her magnificent carriage into their midst.

Her arrogance was so overbearing that she didn’t even need her guards to clear a path; the women instinctively parted for her. From above, it looked as if she were Tethys herself, parting the ocean.

She stood among the women—who had frozen in their rites at her arrival and surveyed them with a haughty gaze. She cried out:

“Are you all mad? To build an altar for Leto? What has she done to deserve such honour in my city? If you build altars for Leto, why do you not burn incense for my holy name?”

If Yan Beibei weren’t still an infant, lacking the strength to walk or even break free from her swaddle, she would have leapt from the maid’s arms and risked everything to cover Niobe’s mouth. Anyone with a passing knowledge of Greek myth knew Niobe’s story and her tragedy began precisely with this: the “Defiance of Leto.”

At this moment, Niobe had finished boasting about her lineage her father who feasted with the gods, her mother who was sister to the Pleiades, her grandfather Zeus, and her husband Amphion. She had now reached the most fatal part the part that would ignite Leto’s divine fury:

“No mother has as many children as I. I have seven beautiful daughters like flowers, seven strong sons, and soon I shall have as many sons-in-law and daughters-in-law. Do I not have reason to be proud? That you dare to worship Leto instead of me. you truly deserve to be cursed!”

“Leto is but the unknown daughter of a Titan of old. Even the merciful Earth refused to give her a place to bear Zeus’s children, until the wandering island of Delos took pity on this vagabond goddess and gave her a temporary shelter. Only then could that wretched woman bear her two children!”

“Yet even with those two, she remains a pitiable creature, for they are but a seventh of my own bountiful harvest as a mother! Who can deny my happiness? Who can doubt that my joy shall last? Take away your offerings! Remove those garlands! Scatter and go home! Do not let me see you doing such foolish things again!” *

Yan Beibei: It’s over. Truly over. She actually said it.

She closed her eyes, not wanting to look at her so-called mother for another second. One could hardly blame her; no one could look kindly upon a mother whose lack of discretion sent all her children to Hades. For Yan Beibei, she was the direct victim of this hubris.

Artemis and Apollo arrived quickly much faster than Yan Beibei had anticipated. However, the timing of their arrival was subtly different from the classic versions of the myth she knew.

As the story goes, it was a fine day for hunting and racing. Outside the magical walls of Thebes lay a vast stretch of fallow land, reserved solely for horse and chariot racing. Niobe’s seven sons were there, playing and enjoying themselves.

Just as their joyful shouts reached the heavens, a golden arrow shot from the clouds, striking Ismenus Niobe’s eldest right in the heart as he trotted on his horse.

As the eldest son of Niobe and Amphion feel breathless from his mount, a second arrow of shimmering silver followed quietly. This arrow was even more precise and lethal; it silently struck the eldest daughter of Niobe and Amphion, who had just begun to flee in terror.

Yan Beibei’s pupils contracted. Having spent years studying Greek mythology, she noticed the discrepancy immediately.

This is wrong!

Misogyny and the prioritization of males over females had been a staple of patriarchal societies for ages. In Greek myth, the famous trial of Orestes symbolized the defeat of matriarchy and the rise of the patriarchy. In the system Yan Beibei knew, the status of “female” was undeniably lower than that of “male.”

Therefore, if a god truly wanted to break an enemy, killing her seven unnamed daughters would never bring as much despair as killing her seven named sons. In the traditional myths, Leto sent Apollo to kill the seven sons first. Only after Niobe boasted, “Though you have killed my sons, I still have seven daughters, and thus I am still greater than you,” did the daughters fall.

But why was Artemis here so early, killing the daughters alongside the sons?

Was the mythology Yan Beibei knew merely a version “edited” by mortal men—the patriarchal rulers of the past? In the eyes of true deities, was there perhaps no difference between male and female? Was there no “male priority” in their divine wrath, nor any human concept of “sparing women and children”?

There was no time for Yan Beibei to think further. She saw Artemis’s true form.

Mortals cannot gaze upon the radiance of a god without being blinded; Semele had been turned to ash just by seeing Zeus’s true brilliance. Yet Yan Beibei found that she could see Artemis the legendary Goddess of the Hunt, the Moon, and the Protector of Virgins with perfect clarity.

The Goddess was as cold, pure, and beautiful as she had imagined. She shimmered with the silver glow of the moon. Her hair, bright as molten gold, was tied up in a high knot, topped with a dignified crown woven from palm leaves. Her white robes billowed in the wind.

In the moment Yan Beibei looked at Artemis, the brave and beautiful Goddess—who had not felt a tremor in her heart for thousands of years experienced a strange, subtle throb.

It was Fate.

At that exact moment, the knot in Artemis’s hair loosened. Her emerald crown slipped, and her long golden hair cascaded down like a waterfall of molten gold. It was as if the heavens themselves were trying to hinder her.

Yet Artemis did not pause to fix her hair. Without hesitation, she notched an arrow and aimed it at the last daughter the one Niobe shielded in her arms.

The cold, beautiful Goddess of the Hunt and Moon, hair flowing like gold and robes draped in moonlight, stood beside her twin brother Apollo. Drawing her crescent bow, she let fly seven arrows into the wind.

The silver-glinting arrow from the Moon Goddess tore through the air with a chilling aura of death. It pierced the clouds and struck the tiny, tender chest of Niobe’s youngest daughter.

It was only as the arrow buried itself in her chest that Yan Beibei realized, with a start, that she would die without ever having a name.

The Goddess is beautiful, proud, pure, and merciful.  But before those who dare to offend the divine, they are cold, cruel, majestic, and absolute.

Yan Beibei felt a sharp pain in her chest a pain and a sense of grievance that words could not describe.

If only I weren’t Niobe’s daughter. then I wouldn’t have to die like this.

She slowly closed her eyes, clutching the hope that dying here might return her to the real world that this was all just a dream. Darkness swallowed her like an overwhelming tide.

What a brief and silent first meeting. If the only party who knew the truth did not speak of it, no one would ever know what a horrific murder had just occurred on this vast plain under the blue sky:

The Goddess of the Hunt, daughter of Leto and sister of Apollo, had just personally murdered the one person who was destined to cross ten thousand mountains to love her.

But love is a tiny, fragile thing especially the love of a mortal who does not belong to this world.

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