BOOK VI.

Influenced by the example of the Muses, Pallas determines on the

destruction of Arachne. She enters with her into a contest for the

superiority in the art of weaving. Each represents various

transformations on her web, and then Arachne is changed into a spider.

Niobe, however, is not deterred thereby from preferring her own lot to

that of Latona; on account of which, all her children are slain by

Apollo and Diana, and she is changed into a rock. On learning this,

while one person relates the transformation by Latona of the Lycian

rustics into frogs, another calls to mind how Marsyas was flayed by

Apollo. Niobe is lamented by Pelops, whose shoulder is of ivory. To

console the Thebans in their afflictions, ambassadors come from the

adjacent cities. The Athenians alone are absent, as they are attacked by

hordes of barbarians, who are routed by Tereus, who marries Progne, the

daughter of Pandion. Tereus coming a second time to Athens, takes back

with him to his kingdom Philomela, his wife’s sister; and having

committed violence on her, with other enormities, he is transformed into

a hoopoe, while Philomela is changed into a nightingale, and Progne

becomes a swallow. Pandion, hearing of these wondrous events dies of

grief. Erectheus succeeds him, whose daughter, Orithyia, is ravished by

Boreas, and by him is the mother of Calais and Zethes, who are of the

number of the Argonauts on the following occasion.