Superbia. _EMBLEMA LXVII_ [Illustration: _Alciat, 1581_] EN _ſtatuæ ſtatua, & ductum de marmore marmor, Se conferre Deis auſa procax Niobe. Eſt vitium muliebre ſuperbia, & arguit oris Duritiem, ac ſenſus, qualis ineſt lapidi_. As we look at the device we are sensible to a singular incongruity between the subject and the droll, _Punch_-like figures, which make up the border. The sentiment, too, is as incongruous, that “Pride is a woman’s vice and argues hardness of look and of feeling such as there is in stone.” Making a slight change in the motto, Whitney (p. 13) writes. _Superbiæ vltio_,—“Vengeance upon pride,”— “OF NIOBE, behoulde the ruthefull plighte, Bicause shee did dispise the powers deuine: Her children all, weare slaine within her sighte, And, while her selfe with tricklinge teares did pine, Shee was transform’de, into a marble stone, Which, yet with teares, dothe seeme to waile, and mone. This tragedie, thoughe Poëtts first did frame, Yet maie it bee, to euerie one applide: That mortall men, shoulde thinke from whence they came, And not presume, nor puffe them vp with pride, Leste that the Lorde, whoe haughty hartes doth hate, Doth throwe them downe, when sure they thinke theyr state.” Shakespeare’s notices of Niobe are little more than allusions; the mode in which Apollo and Diana executed the cruel vengeance may be glanced at in _All’s Well_ (act v. sc. 3, l. 5, vol. iii. p. 201), when the Countess of Rousillon pleads for her son to the King of France,— “_Count._ ’Tis past, my liege; And I beseech your majesty to make it Natural rebellion, done i’ the blaze of youth; When oil and fire, too strong for reason’s force, O’erbears it and burns on. _King._ My honour’d lady, I have forgiven and forgotten all; Though my revenges were high bent upon him, And watch’d the time to shoot.” Troilus (act v. sc. 10, l. 16, vol. vi. p. 261), anticipating Priam’s and Hecuba’s mighty grief over the slain Hector, speaks thus of the fact,— “Let him that will a screech-owl aye be call’d Go into Troy, and say there, ‘Hector’s dead:’ There is a word will Priam turn to stone, Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives, Cold statues of the youth, and in a word, Scare Troy out of itself.” Hamlet, too (act i. sc. 2, l. 147, vol. viii. p. 17), in his bitter expressions respecting his mother’s marriage, speaks thus severely of the brevity of her widowhood,—