In Greek mythology, Niobe (noun) was the daughter of Tantalus and the wife of Amphion, of whom Homer refers to in the Iliad. The gods punished her for an over abundance of pride (or hubris, which means "excessive self-pride or confidence" either in honor or in defiance of the gods... leading to a smack-down) with the deaths of her children.While weeping for her slain children she was turned into a stone from which her tears continue to flow.
Niobe turns up in metaphor the way that Sisyphus and Oedipus do, and we just can't remember where we've heard the name before. Homer did, of course, pack on the characters. Well, now we both know that any reference to Niobe implies sorrowful, eternal weeping.
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