Athena and Arachne

Illustration of Arachne by Gustave Doré, from the 1861 edition of Dante’s Inferno

(Be advised, I briefly mention suicide as it occurs in this Greek myth) 

As a kid, I had a middle-grade book about Greek myths that I read over and over, and my favorite story was about Arachne. The book didn’t censor all the gritty details. Arachne’s is a bitter story that ends in suicide, but it’s also a story about women battling over their arts. 

Arachne boasts that she is a better weaver than the gods. Even I knew this was trouble, because I was taught as a child that God humbles the proud. I didn’t believe everything I was taught, but I believed that. Even if you want to take God or Gods or Fate out of the equation, setting yourself up as supreme against other people invites them to challenge you. If you win, you’ll make enemies, and they’ll find a way to make you sure you regret your victory. 

Men often anger the gods by being too bold, but I’d read fewer stories about women who did. What was more, Arachne didn’t anger Athena by being too beautiful, which is usually the case with goddess and “evil stepmother” stories. How tiresome are beauty contests? Instead, Arachne angers Athena because she claims to have more skill and artistry than the goddess of crafts herself. 

The Greek deity I relate to most is Persephone, but Athena is my favorite. The virgin goddesses are most interesting to me because they’re so free and mysterious. I loved the origin story of Athena’s birth, that she sprang straight from Zeus’s head fully formed with her weapon in hand. It’s possible I especially like that idea due to some internalized misogyny. You never know where that’s going to pop up and ruin your day. BUT I still think it’s a cool trick to play on nature. Being birthed from a brain instead of a womb is kind of like being a hydroponic plant. It seems like another symbol of her freedom. 

Now that I’ve given you plenty of material with which to psychoanalyze me, let’s proceed with the story. So Athena challenges Arachne to a weaving contest. Do they weave pictures of pretty people holding hands? No! They have a philosophical debate with textiles! They use their arts to depict the battles between gods and men, showing violence and suffering and rugged nature and mortal and immortal forms. Athena’s woven stories show the gods humbling proud men, and she borders her bloody scenes with olive branches. Arachne’s weavings show how the gods have wronged people. You might have heard of a little incident with Leda and a swan, for example. Arachne borders her portraits of pain with flowers and ivy. That is what artists often do…they add pretty flourishes to ugly scenes.   

Athena is cruel, yes, but she’s honest. She can’t deny that Arachne’s artwork is perfect. Still, she has to rip it to pieces because of what it represents. She can’t abide this affront, and she can’t let a mortal being remain so proud. After ripping up Arachne’s perfect work, Athena hits her several times. This doesn’t kill or seriously injure Arachne, but it humiliates her, and in the subsequent fit of strong feeling, Arachne hangs herself. Athena feels compassion for her, and she shrinks her and turns her into the spider who will weave forever. Is this a curse or a blessing? Maybe both. When I was a child, I thought it was a gift. As the archetypal spider, Arachne would never really die, and she would always do what she loved. She fought a goddess, and she won. But you can’t win without losing something. 

If an actual person behaved like Athena does in this story, we’d call her a bully. But Athena represents something old and ungovernable. She is the harsh hand of fate. Similarly, if a real person were as obsessed and arrogant as Arachne, we might have a hard time being in her presence. But Arachne is a part of us, the part that sometimes says, “I am the best at what I do.” The consequence of being the best (better than the gods!) is that you become what you do. If you are better at weaving than even the gods, how could you do anything but weave? Then your art takes over your identity. Arachne transforms from a person who is an excellent weaver into a creature who does nothing but weave. How much do you love your occupation or your passions? Can you sometimes feel your self slipping away as you strive to be the best?

Now Arachne’s story seems less romantic to me and more worrisome, but no less fascinating.