Arachne- Roman FigureMortal"The Weaver"

The Gifted Weaver

Arachne was a young woman from Hypaepae, a small town near Colophon in Lydia. Her father Idmon was a dyer of Phocaean purple. Ovid tells us in the Metamorphoses that nymphs of Tmolus and Pactolus would leave their groves and streams to watch her work, drawn not only by the finished tapestries but by the grace of the weaving itself. People said she must have learned from Minerva.

The Challenge

Arachne denied it. She owed nothing to any goddess, she said, and she would gladly compete against Minerva and accept any punishment if she lost. Minerva heard. She disguised herself as an old woman, appeared at Arachne's door, and warned her to seek pardon, to be content with supremacy among mortals. Arachne told the crone to mind her own business and repeated the challenge.

Minerva dropped the disguise. The nymphs and women in the room fell to their knees. Arachne flushed, then set her jaw. Two looms were brought.

The Contest

Minerva wove the gods in majesty. At the center of her tapestry, she placed her own contest with Neptune for the patronage of Athens. In each corner, a mortal punished for rivaling the gods. The message was woven in thread.

Arachne wove the gods as they were. Jupiter seducing mortal women in borrowed shapes, Neptune doing the same. Scene after scene of divine desire and divine deception, each figure so lifelike the bodies seemed to breathe. Ovid does not say Arachne's tapestry was better. He says Minerva could find no flaw in it.

Minerva's Wrath

The goddess tore the tapestry apart and struck Arachne in the face with the shuttle, again and again. Arachne knotted a rope and hanged herself. Minerva caught her before she died. She sprinkled Arachne with the juice of aconite. The body shrank. The fingers became legs. What hung from the rope was a spider, still weaving, still condemned to weave.