Arachne

Gustave Doré. Arachne (illustration to Dante's Purgatorio).

In Greco-Roman mythology, Arachne (pronounced /əˈrækni/) was a great mortal weaver who boasted that her skill was greater than that of Minerva, the Latin parallel of Pallas Athena, goddess of crafts. Arachne refused to acknowledge that her knowledge came in part, at least, from the Goddess. The offended goddess set a contest between the two weavers. According to Ovid,^[1] the goddess was so envious of the magnificent tapestry and the mortal weaver's success, and perhaps offended by the girl's choice of subjects (the loves and transgressions of the gods), that she destroyed the tapestry and loom and slashed the girls face. “Not even Pallas nor blue-fevered Envy \ Could damn Arachne's work. \ The gold haired goddess Raged at the girl's success, struck through her loom, Tore down the scenes of wayward joys in heaven.″^[2] Ultimately, the goddess turned Arachne into a spider. Arachne simply means "spider" (ἀράχνη) in Greek.

Sources

The fable of Arachne (also Arachné) is a late addition to Greco-Roman mythology. The myth does not appear in the repertory of the Attic vase-painters. It is narrated in Ovid's Metamorphoses (vi.5-54 and 129-145) and mentioned in Virgil's Georgics (iv. 246). As these sources are all Roman, they identified the goddess as Minerva.

According to Pliny's Natural History^[3] she discovered the use of linen as well as nets. Pliny reports that she had a son named Closter who discovered the spindle for spinning wool.

Myth

Arachne was the daughter of Idmon of Colophon, who was a famous wool dyer in Tyrian purple. She was a fine weaver in Hypaepa of Lydia.^[4] She was as skillful as the finest artist of the day and much praise was given to her in Hypaepa, where she had her workshop.

This all went to her head and eventually Arachne became so conceited of her skill as a weaver that she began claiming that her skill was greater than that of Athena,^[5] the goddess of wisdom and war as well as the weaving arts. Athena was angered, but gave Arachne a chance to redeem herself. Assuming the form of an old woman, she warned Arachne not to offend the gods. Arachne scoffed and wished for a weaving contest, so she could prove her skill. Athena dropped her disguise and the contest began.

Athena wove the scene of her victory over Poseidon that had inspired the people of Athens to name their city for her. According to Ovid's Latin narrative, Arachne's tapestry featured twenty-one episodes of the infidelity of the gods, disguised as animals: Jupiter being unfaithful with Leda, with Europa, with Danaë.

Even Athena admitted that Arachne's work was flawless. Her envy at such human competition drove her into uncontrolled fury and violence. Perhaps she was as well outraged at Arachne's disrespectful choice of subjects that displayed the failings and transgressions of the gods (this takes for granted a late, moralizing view of Greek myth). Losing her temper, she destroyed Arachne's tapestry and loom, striking it with her shuttle, and struck Arachne on the head as well, slashing her face. Arachne, refusing to bow to Athena, hanged herself: “Nor could Arachne take such punishment: She'd rather hang herself than bow her head.” (The moralizing perspective suggests that she "realized her folly and was crushed with shame.").

In Ovid's telling, Athena took pity - or spite! - on Arachne. Sprinkling her with the juices of aconite, Athena loosened the rope, which became a spider web, causing Arachne to lose her hair, her ears and nose, metamorphosing into a spider. "So you shall live,Bad girl, to swing, to live now and forever,Even to the last hanging creature of your kind." The story suggests that the origin of weaving lay in imitation of spiders and that it was considered to have been perfected first in Asia Minor.

Influence

Velázquez' "The Spinners, or The fable of Arachne"

From arachne are derived the taxonomical class name Arachnida, and the name for spiders in many romance languages.

The metamorphosis of Arachne in Ovid's telling furnished material for an episode in Edmund Spenser's mock-heroic Muiopotmos, 257-352.^[6] Spenser's adaptation, which "rereads an Ovidian story in terms of the Elizabethan world"^[7] is designed to provide a rationale for the hatred of Arachne's descendent Aragnoll for the butterfly-hero Clarion.

The tale of Arachne inspired one of Velázquez' most interesting paintings: Las Hilanderas ("The Spinners, or The fable of Arachne", in the Prado), in which the painter represents the two important moments of the myth. In the front, the contest of Arachne and the goddess (the young and the old weaver), in the back, an Abduction of Europa that is a copy of Titian's version (or maybe of Rubens' copy of Titian). In front of it appears Minerva in the moment she is punishing Arachne. It transforms the myth into a reflection about creation and imitation, god and man, master and pupil (and therefore about the nature of art).

In popular culture

• Gustave Doré's depiction of Arachne was used in the marketing and posters for Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1968 cult film Fando y Lis.

• In the tv series Class of the Titans, Arachne had been transformed into a spider by Athena before death, and actually didn't even die. She made a deal with the villain, Cronus: if she captured the only people who stood in his way of world domination, (7 teenagers) he would turn her back into a human. She hypnotised one (Atlanta) into capturing the others, but another (Archie) managed to break the spell. The two pretended that Atlanta was still in Arachne's control, and helped her convince Cronus to honor his end of the bargain before the heroes were destroyed. Then they took action and freed the others. Unfortunately, Cronus escaped, transforming Arachne into a normal-sized spider. In the end, Atlanta convinced Athena to give Arachne her original form.

• In Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, she is pictured as a grotesque, half-woman, half-spider monster who nested on people to produce killer spiders.

• In an episode of the animated series, Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? called "The Tigress", the Chief summarizes the events of the legend.

• Gustave Doré's rendition of Arachne is one of the many recurring images used by the rock band, The Mars Volta. It has been used as a record cover for them, a backdrop for their live shows, and a favorite accessory for guitarist and composer Omar Rodriguez-Lopez in the form of a belt buckle.

• In the modern classic fantasy The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, a plain brown spider is bewitched into believing that she is Arachne until the witch who enchanted her is killed.

• A song called "The Goddess and the Weaver" tells the story of Arachne and her contest with the goddess Athena

Notes

References

Primary sources

• Ovid, Metamorphoses vi.1-145
• Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia vii.56.196

Secondary sources

• Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898) (13.23)
• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.