Arachne

Also known as: Mæonian Arachne · Family: mortal · Role: weaver · First appears: Fable 55

Life events

• Arachne challenges Minerva to a contest of weaving.(Fable55)
  • With: Minerva
  • “Let her contend with me. There is nothing which, if conquered, I should refuse {to endure}.”
• Minerva reveals her identity by casting aside her old-woman disguise.(Fable55)
  • With: Minerva
  • “Then the Goddess says, ‘Lo! she is come;’ and she casts aside the figure of an old woman, and shows herself {as} Pallas.”
• Minerva and Arachne begin their weaving contest.(Fable55)
  • With: Minerva
  • “There is no delay; they both take their stand in different places, and stretch out two webs {on the loom} with a fine warp.”
• Arachne produces a web Minerva cannot fault.(Fable55)
  • With: Minerva
  • “Pallas could not blame that work, nor could Envy {censure} it.”
• Minerva destroys Arachne’s web and strikes her repeatedly with the shuttle.(Fable55)
  • With: Minerva
  • “The yellow-haired Virgin grieved at her success, and tore the web embroidered with the criminal acts of the Gods of heaven. And as she was holding her shuttle {made of boxwood} from Mount Cytorus, three or four times did she strike the forehead of Arachne, the daughter of Idmon.”
• Arachne hangs herself after being unable to endure Minerva’s attack.(Fable55)
  • “The unhappy creature could not endure it; and being of a high spirit, she tied up her throat in a halter.”
• Minerva rescues Arachne and transforms her into a spider.(Fable55)
  • With: Minerva
  • “Pallas, taking compassion, bore her up as she hung; and thus she said: ‘Live on indeed, wicked one,[29] but still hang; and let the same decree of punishment be pronounced against thy race, and against thy latest posterity, that thou mayst not be free from care in time to come.’ After that, as she departed, she sprinkled her with the juices of an Hecatean herb;[30] and immediately her hair, touched by the noxious drug, fell off, and together with it her nose and ears. The head of herself, {now} small as well throughout her whole body, becomes very small. Her slender fingers cleave to her sides as legs; her belly takes possession of the rest {of her}; but out of this she gives forth a thread; and {as} a spider, she works at her web as formerly.”

Fable 55

• parent: Idmon “Idmon, of Colophon,[1] her father, used to dye the soaking wool in Phocæan[2] purple.[3]”
• rivals with Minerva “Let her contend with me. There is nothing which, if conquered, I should refuse {to endure}.”
• with Minerva (Minerva transforms Arachne into a spider.) “Pallas, taking compassion, bore her up as she hung; and thus she said: ‘Live on indeed, wicked one,[29] but still hang; and let the same decree of punishment be pronounced against thy race, and against thy latest posterity, that thou mayst not be free from care in time to come.’”
• mentor: Minerva “you might perceive that she had been instructed by Pallas.”

Fable 56

• with Niobe (interaction) “And yet by the punishment of her countrywoman, Arachne, she was not warned to yield to the inhabitants of Heaven”

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Extracted from the original text of The Metamorphoses of Ovid. Made with Rho MD.