Like Niobe, all tears.
– William Shakespeare
Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2. Hamlet, speaking about his mother after his father’s death, compares her in a simile to Niobe. Niobe was Queen of Thebes and because of her arrogance the gods slew her children. Feeling sorry for her, Zeus turned her to stone, but even after that her tears continued to flow from the rock. Unlike Niobe, however, Gertrude’s grief didn’t last long and she very quickly remarried Claudius.