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METAMORPHOSES BOOK VI the juices of Hecate's herb; and forthwith her hair, touched by the poison, fell off, and with it both nose and ears; and the head shrank up; her whole bod also was small; the slender fingers clung to her side as legs; the rest was belly. Stll from this she ever spins a thread; and now, as a spider, she exercises her old-time weaver-art. All Lydia is in a tumult; the story spreads throughout the towns of Phrygia and fills the whole world with talk. Now Niobe, before her marriage, had known Arachne, when, as a girl, she dwelt in Maeonia, near Mount Sipylus. And yet she did not take warning by her countrywoman's fate to give place to the gods and speak them reverently. Many things gave her pride ; but in truth neither her hus- band's art nor the high birth of both and their royal power and state so pleased her, although all those dd lease, as her children did. And Niobe would have been called most blessed of mothers, had she not seemed so to herself. For Manto, daughter of Tiresias, whose eyes could see what was to come, had fared through the streets of Thebes inspired by divine impulse, and proclaining to all she met: Women of Thebes, go throng Latona's temple, and give to her and to her children twain incense and pious prayer, wreathing your lair with laurel. By my mouth Latona speaks." They obey; all the Theban women deck their temples with laurel wreaths and burn incense in the altar flames, with words of prayer But lo! comes Niobe, thronged about with a numerous following, a notable figure in Phrygian robes wrought with threads of gold, and beautiful as far as anger suffered her to be; and she tosses her shapely head with the hair falling on either shoulder. She halts aud, drawn up toher full 240