Arachne

One Poet's Story

The full myth of Arachne survives in only one ancient text: Ovid's Metamorphoses (6.1–145). Homer and Hesiod never mention her, and no Greek telling of the contest survives. That matters, because many of the "facts" repeated about Arachne are really Ovid's literary choices. Ovid gives her a modest background. She is from Hypaepa, a small town in Lydia. Her father Idmon of Colophon dyed wool with Phocaean purple, and her mother, who had been of equally humble birth, was dead. Her fame came from skill alone, and that is the point of the story. Two other references appear elsewhere. Virgil (Georgics 4) calls the spider "hated by Minerva". Pliny the Elder (Natural History 7) credits Arachne with inventing linen and nets, and her son Closter with the spindle. That makes her a culture-hero of textile work, not only a cautionary tale.

What the Two Tapestries Actually Showed

Ovid describes both weavings in detail, and the contrast between them is the heart of the episode. Athena (Minerva) put her own victory at the centre: her contest with Neptune for Athens, with twelve gods enthroned as judges, Neptune's trident striking the rock and her own olive tree springing up. This is the story told in Poseidon vs Athena. In the four corners she wove mortals who had challenged the gods and been transformed. Haemus and Rhodope became mountains. A Pygmy queen became a crane. Antigone, daughter of Laomedon, became a stork for comparing herself to Juno. The daughters of Cinyras became temple steps. She framed the whole thing with a border of olive.

Arachne's tapestry was a catalogue of the gods in disguise seducing or raping mortals. There was Jupiter as a bull with Europa, as an eagle with Asterie, as a swan with Leda, as a satyr with Antiope, as Amphitryon with Alcmena, as golden rain with Danae, and as fire, a shepherd and a serpent with Aegina, Mnemosyne and Proserpina. Then came Neptune as a bull, a ram, a horse, a bird and a dolphin; Apollo as a hawk, a lion and a shepherd; Bacchus as a bunch of grapes to deceive Erigone; and Saturn as a horse fathering the centaur Chiron. Her border was flowers twined with ivy. Many of these episodes appear in Lovers of Zeus. Ovid states plainly that neither Pallas nor Envy itself could find a flaw in the work.

The ending is also often misremembered. Athena struck Arachne three or four times on the forehead with her boxwood shuttle. Arachne could not bear it and hanged herself. The goddess lifted her and said, in effect, "Live, then, but hang." She sprinkled her with the juice of Hecate's herb, a poison. Arachne's hair, nose and ears fell away, her head shrank, her fingers became thin legs, and she went on spinning from her own belly.

Arachne and Niobe: A Matched Pair

Ovid puts the next story immediately after this one on purpose. Niobe, queen of Thebes, had known Arachne in Lydia and heard of her fate, but learned nothing from it. She boasted that she was greater than Leto and lost all her children to Apollo and Artemis. Both stories carry the same message about mortal boasting. In Arachne's case, though, the mortal's claim was literally true, which is why readers since antiquity have found her punishment unsettling. For other examples of this pattern, see Punishments in Greek Mythology.

Common Misconceptions and Later Art

People often say spiders are called arachnids "because of" Arachne. The order of events is closer to the reverse. Arachne is simply the ordinary Greek word for spider, and the myth is an origin story built on that word. Scientific Latin later took the class name Arachnida from the same Greek term. People also often say Athena turned Arachne into a spider out of rage. In Ovid the transformation happens after the beating and is described as pity, a grim kind of mercy that keeps her alive.

Later artists were fascinated by the contest. Dante puts Arachne among the examples of pride carved on the terrace of the proud in Purgatorio 12. Velázquez's Las Hilanderas (The Spinners, Prado, c. 1657) appears to show women at work in a tapestry workshop. In the bright background, though, Minerva confronts Arachne in front of a tapestry that reproduces Titian's Rape of Europa, the first scene of Arachne's own weaving in Ovid. Gustave Doré's illustration for Dante shows her halfway between woman and spider.

Ancient sources

• Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.1–145: the only full account. It covers Arachne's background, Athena's disguise as an old woman, both tapestries in detail, the shuttle, the suicide and the transformation.
• Virgil, Georgics, Book 4: calls the spider hated by Minerva, an allusion that suggests the story existed before Ovid.
• Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book 7: in his list of inventors, credits Arachne with linen thread and nets and her son Closter with the spindle.

Frequently asked questions

Who won the weaving contest between Athena and Arachne?

Ovid never names a winner. He says that neither Athena nor Envy could find any fault in Arachne's work. Athena's response was to destroy the tapestry and punish her, not to judge it inferior.

Why did Athena turn Arachne into a spider?

Arachne denied that Athena had taught her, challenged the goddess, and wove scenes of the gods' crimes against mortals. After Athena beat her, Arachne hanged herself. Athena kept her alive by turning her into a hanging, spinning spider.

Where was Arachne from?

She was from Lydia in western Asia Minor (modern Turkey), from the small town of Hypaepa. Her father Idmon came from Colophon.

Is the Arachne myth Greek or Roman?

It is set in the Greek world and Virgil shows it was known earlier, but the only full surviving version is the Roman poet Ovid's, from the early first century AD.

Books to read next

• Ovid, Metamorphoses (Penguin Classics)
• Stephen Fry, Mythos
• Edith Hamilton, Mythology

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