The Myth of Arachne: Example #57 why you shouldn’t test the patience of the gods
A guest article by Ellie Ireland | February 2025
About Ellie Ireland, this week’s guest writer
Hi, I'm Ellie, the author of Ancient Echoes. I love travelling, looking at tiny ancient things in museums and talking people's ears off about Greek myths. I studied Creative Writing at uni and wrote my dissertation on retellings of women in Greek mythology, and since I missed writing and learning about it so much I decided to start a Substack about it!
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The Myth of Arachne
Example #57 why you shouldn’t test the patience of the gods
Ellie Ireland
It’s high time we talked about Miss Spider Girl, or, as she’s more commonly known, Arachne.
The Context
Ovid wrote about Arachne in book six of his epic Metamorphoses (surprise surprise), recounting how Arachne was a mortal who possessed extreme weaving talents but little common sense. In her stupidity, she challenged the goddess Athena to a weaving contest. I’ll let you know how she gets on in just a moment (you can probably guess).
When I was researching the origins of this myth I came across this interesting Reddit thread discussing whether it’s conceivable that Ovid made up the entire myth of Arachne. There’s little evidence of the myth being around before Ovid and his contemporaries (including Virgil and Pliny the Elder) were writing about it, which opens up a whole can of worms.
Interesting stuff! As we all know, I’m not an expert on this kind of thing, so drop a note in the comments if you have anything to add. But until then, let’s crack on.
The Myth
This is a typical Greek myth involving a haughty noble and an even more haughty goddess which was never going to end well. Arachne was a shepherd’s daughter who began to weave at an early age and when she became old enough to learn hubris, she began boasting that her weaving was better than even the goddess Athena’s.
I mean, already you’re setting yourself up to fail at this point. Seriously.
Athena, hearing this girl from Mount Olympus, obviously wasn’t going to let it slide. She zoomed down to Earth, took the form of an old, feeble woman, and went to find Arachne. She warned the girl that she was being extremely idiotic, and that she should pray for forgiveness from Athena.
At this point, Arachne really blew it, announcing loud for all to hear that if Athena didn’t want her bragging about how she was a better weaver than her, then she should pull up and tell her herself. Of course, Athena is already in the room with her, and sheds her disguise, appearing to her then in her full, immortal form.
The two sit down to weave, one mortal and one immortal. And here’s where it gets juicy.
Arachne decided (in what can only be described as an absolute girlboss moment) to weave a tapestry with scenes depicting ways in which the gods had tricked and abused mortals over the centuries. As you can imagine, Zeus was featured pretty heavily in this one (prat).
Athena, on the other hand, weaved a tapestry featuring scenes where gods had punished mortals for setting themselves as equals of the gods. Kind of effectively proving Arachne’s point.
When the two women were finished, they stood to view each other’s work. The moment Athena realised that Arachne had not only insulted the gods with her tapestry, but made a far more beautiful piece of work than her own, she was absolutely fuming. The goddess ripped up Arachne’s tapestry and then started smacking Arachne with her weaving shuttle.
Here, Arachne seems to completely change personalities. The bragging Arachne we saw at the start of the myth would have taken a few punches from a goddess as absolute proof that she was the best at what she did and continued to brag about it.
Instead, she goes home and hangs herself. I find this extremely hard to believe, but unfortunately what Ovid says goes. Maybe Arachne thought that Athena wouldn’t let her live anyway after beating her so spectacularly.
In yet another uncharacteristic moment, Athena is said to have felt remorse for the girl who, hours previously, she’d literally been beating up with a weaving shuttle, and transformed her into a spider so that she and her descendants could go on weaving forever.
“[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.”
Personally I think that turning Arachne into a spider was just further punishment. If I woke up and was a spider I think I’d immediately die of fright again. But that’s just me.
Some art
That’s all from me this time! Thank you so much for reading, I hope you had fun and learnt something new.
Do you have a favourite ancient myth? Or a favourite depiction of one?
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Ovid came up with the Arachne myth? Why not? It may have been the fantasy literature of the day.
Colophon, the city where Arachne wove, lies near İzmir. It's a hillside full of rubble now, but I have explored it several times. I retold the myth recently, noting the sexual violence portrayed in her tapestry and wondering if it (and her contempt for gods) tied with her own family's history. Here's my version if you're interested https://open.substack.com/pub/jamesdittes/p/arachnes-web?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=7jhoq