Niobe

Niobe is an ambiguous character.

With which she followed my poore Fathers body / Like Niobe, all teares.

There is a word will Priam turne to stone, Make wells and Niobe’s of the maides and wiues.

But when a man has been ranging, like the painful bee, from flower to flower, perhaps for a month together, and the thoughts of home and wife begin to have their charms with him, to be received by a Niobe, who, like a wounded vine, weeps her vitals away, while she but involuntarily curls about him; how shall I be able to bear that?

Here poor Mrs Vincy's spirit quite broke down, and her Niobe throat and good-humoured face were sadly convulsed.