| Arachne | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Minerva and Arachne, byRené-Antoine Houasse, 1706. | |
| Abode | Lydia orAttica |
| Genealogy | |
| Parents |
|
| Siblings | Phalanx (brother) |
| Children | Closter |
Arachne (/əˈrækniː/ ⓘ; fromAncient Greek:Ἀράχνη,romanized: Arákhnē,lit. 'spider', cognate withLatinaraneus)[1] is the protagonist of a tale inclassical mythology known primarily from the version told by the Roman poetOvid (43 BCE–17 CE). In Book Six of his epic poemMetamorphoses, Ovid recounts how the talented mortal Arachne challenged the goddessMinerva to a weaving contest. When Minerva could find no flaws in the tapestry Arachne had woven for the contest, the goddess became enraged and beat the girl with hershuttle. After Arachne hanged herself out of shame, she was transformed into aspider. The myth both provided anetiology of spiders' web-spinning abilities and was acautionary tale abouthubris.
According to the myth as recounted byOvid, Arachne was aLydian maiden who was the daughter ofIdmon ofColophon, who was a famous dyer in purple.[2] She was credited to have invented linen cloth and nets, while her son Closter introduced the use of the spindle in the manufacture of wool. She was said to have been a native ofHypaepa, near Colophon inAsia Minor.[3]
The first of theVatican Mythographers wrote that Arachne was the daughter of 'Edmon' and 'Ippopis'.[4]
InMetamorphoses, the Roman poetOvid writes that Arachne was a shepherd's daughter who began weaving at an early age. She became a great weaver, boasted that her skill was greater than Minerva's, and refused to acknowledge that her skill came, at least in part, from the goddess. Minerva took offense and set up a contest between them. Presenting herself as an old lady, she approached the boasting girl and warned her that it was unwise to compare herself to any of the gods and that she should plead for forgiveness from Minerva.
Arachne was not disheartened and boasted that if Minerva wished to make her stop, she should appear in person and do it herself. Immediately, Minerva removed her disguise and appeared in shimmering glory, clad in a sparkling whitechiton. The two began weaving straight away. Minerva's weaving represented four separate contests between mortals and the gods in which the gods punished mortals for setting themselves as equals of the gods. Arachne's weaving depicted ways that the gods, particularly Zeus, had misled and abused mortals, tricking and seducing many women. When Minerva saw that Arachne had not only insulted the gods but done so with a work far more beautiful than Minerva's own, she was enraged. She ripped Arachne's work to shreds and hit her on the head three times with her shuttle. Shaken and embarrassed, Arachne took her life by hanging.
Seeing that, Minerva felt pity for the girl, transforming her into a spider, which would go on to create webs for all time, as would her descendants. Minerva did so by sprinkling her with the juice of Hecate's herb,
[A]nd immediately at the touch of this dark poison, Arachne's hair fell out. With it went her nose and ears, her head shrank to the smallest size, and her whole body became tiny. Her slender fingers stuck to her sides as legs, the rest is belly, from which she still spins a thread, and, as a spider, weaves her ancient web.[5]
The myth of Arachne can also be seen as an attempt to show the relationship between art and tyrannical power in Ovid's time. He wrote under the emperor Augustus and was exiled by him. At the time, weaving was a common metaphor for poetry; therefore, Arachne's artistry and Minerva's censorship of it may offer a provocative allegory of the writer's role under an autocratic regime.[6]
Minerva wove a tapestry with themes of hubris being punished by the gods, as a warning to Arachne against what she was doing, in each of its four corners. Those were Hera and Zeus transformingRhodope andHaemus into the eponymous mountain ranges, Hera transforming QueenGerana into a crane for daring to boast of being more beautiful than the queen of the gods, Hera again turningAntigone of Troy into a stork for competing with her, and finallyCinyras' daughter being petrified. Those four tales surrounded the central one, which was Minerva andPoseidon's dispute on theareopagus over which would receive the city ofAthens; Minerva offered an olive tree, and Poseidon a saltwater spring (the Athenians eventually chose Minerva). Finally, the goddess surrounded the outer edges with olive wreaths.[7]
Arachne meanwhile chose to include several tales of male gods tricking and deceiving women by assuming other forms instead of their own. She depicted Zeus transformed into: a bull forEuropa, an eagle forAsteria, a swan forLeda, a satyr forAntiope,Amphitryon forAlcmene, golden shower forDanaë, flame forAegina, a shepherd forMnemosyne, and a snake forPersephone. Poseidon transformed into a bull forCanace,Enipeus forIphimedeia,[a] a ram forTheophane, a horse forDemeter, a bird forMedusa, and a dolphin forMelantho.Apollo transformed into a shepherd for Issa, and further as a countryman, a hawk, and a lion on three more obscure occasions,Dionysus as 'delusive grapes' forErigone, and finallyCronus as a horse forPhilyra. The outer edge of the tapestry had flowers interwoven with entangled ivy.[8]
An ancientCorinthian black-figurearyballos dating to the early sixth-century BC (c. 580-560 BC) has been suggested to depict the weaving contest of Athena and Arachne, which would make it the earliest attestation of the myth if accurate.[9][10] However it has been noted that this interpretation is not an indisputable one, and the aryballos could be simply depicting Athena teaching the art of weaving to the people, with no relation to Arachne whatsoever.[11]
Meanwhile, the earliest written attestation of a spider who clashed with Minerva comes courtesy ofVirgil, a Roman poet of the first century BCE who wrote that the spider is hated by Minerva but did not explain the reason why.[12] The satirical writerLucian, around the second century AD, wrote in hisworkThe Gout that the "Maeonian maid Arachne thought herself Athene's match, but she lost her shape and still today must spin and spin her web".[13]Pliny the Elder wrote that Arachne had a son, Closter (meaning "spindle" in Greek), by an unnamed father, who invented the use of the spindle in the manufacture of wool.[14] The Vatican Mythographers also recorded the tale largely as found in Ovid, however the first of them wrote that Arachne was defeated in the contest.[4]
In a rarer version, Arachne was a girl fromAttica who was taught by Athena the art of weaving, while her brotherPhalanx was taught instead martial arts by the goddess. But then the two siblings engaged in incestuous intercourse, so Athena, disgusted, changed them both into spiders, animals doomed to be devoured by their own young.[15]
Aelian wrote that spiders neither know nor wish to know Athena's art of weaving, because such animals do not need clothes.[16] In a different work, however, he contradicts himself by writing that spiders are 'dexterous weavers after the manner of Athena'.[17]
The metamorphosis of Arachne in Ovid's telling furnished material for an episode inEdmund Spenser's mock-heroicMuiopotmos, 257–352.[18] Spenser's adaptation, which "rereads an Ovidian story in terms of the Elizabethan world" is designed to provide a rationale for the hatred of Arachne's descendant Aragnoll for the butterfly-hero Clarion.[19]
Dante Alighieri uses Arachne inCanto XVII ofInferno, the first part ofThe Divine Comedy, to describe the horrible monsterGeryon. "His back and all his belly and both flanks were painted arabesques and curlicues: the Turks and Tartars never made a fabric with richer colors intricately woven, nor were such complex webs spun by Arachne."[20]
The tale of Arachne inspired one ofVelázquez' most factual paintings:Las Hilanderas ("The Spinners, or The fable of Arachne", in thePrado), 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), and in the back, anAbduction of Europa that is a copy ofTitian's version (or maybe ofRubens' copy of Titian). In front of it appears Minerva (Athena) at the moment she punishes 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).[21]
It has also been suggested thatJeremias Gotthelf's nineteenth-century novella,The Black Spider, was heavily influenced by the Arachne story from Ovid'sMetamorphoses.[22] In the novella, a woman is turned into a venomous spider having reneged on a deal with the devil.[23]
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