THE STORY OF ATHENE AND ARACHNE
(How the spider was created)
(A BratReads Book)
David Elvar
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2009 David Elvar
Smashwords Edition License Notes
Thank you for downloading this free e-book. It may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes provided it remains in its complete and original form, and that the author and Smashwords are given full acknowledgement.
~oOo~
There was a time in the land of Ancient Greece when men still believed in gods. There were many to believe in, each representing a facet of life.
There was Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, beautiful beyond the dreams of man and God alike. But also vain, foolish, given to playing with the feelings of those who adored her, and there were many who did.
There was Hephaestus, Blacksmith of the Gods, lame and crooked in body but wise and kind of heart, whose inventions and understanding of the workings of even the most complex machines were a constant source of wonder.
There was Artemis, Goddess of the Wild Hunt, whose skill with the bow was so great that she could shoot an arrow high into the air then shoot it down with another.
There was Poseidon, God of the Seas, ever dissatisfied with his ocean kingdom, who like the sea was always restless, who like the waves would constantly try to leave it for dry land, only to be dragged back every time.
And there was Athene, Goddess of Wisdom and beloved daughter of Zeus.
As well as being Goddess of Wisdom, Athene was patron of the crafts, and being generous, she would often pass on her knowledge to the mortals. She it was who first learned to spin wool and to make from it the finest cloth. She it was who showed the mortals how to make the wheel, the axe, the plough. But her greatest love lay in the craft of tapestry, of working needle and thread in a loom to produce designs depicting scenes of great battle, places of great beauty, people of great worth.
Many hours would she spend at her loom, weaving the finest tapestries to hang in the halls of Mount Olympus, but some she would give to mortals she considered deserving of them. Most were for acts of great kindness that someone may have shown, perhaps to a stranger, a traveller in need of shelter, a beggar in need of food.
In many ways, she was kind of heart, doing perhaps more than any other god what she could to help the mortals in their growing, and she knew they loved her in return. But in other ways, she was like her father, Zeus, and could fly into a jealous rage if she suspected that any mortal was in any way able to challenge her, particularly in the crafts she so loved to follow.
It so happened that there was such a mortal, a young woman living in the land of Lydia, which lay across the Aegean Sea from Athens, the acknowledged main city of Greece. Her name was Arachne.
She was well placed to practise her skill: Lydia was a land renowned for the fineness of its cloth and more especially for the great colour of its dyes, and from an early age, Arachne displayed a great skill at the loom. She was neat and could weave the tiniest stitches in the most delicate patterns. She also possessed a vivid imagination, so much so that her designs were bold and original, were true works of art.
As she grew in skill, she became ever more ambitious until, one day, she conceived of a giant tapestry that would tell the story of the gods. It would show the majesty of Zeus on his golden throne, the beauty of Aphrodite as she bathed, the swiftness of Artemis as she hunted. It was to be the greatest tapestry the world had ever seen and it was to be all her own making.
She worked hard on it. Days stretched into weeks, weeks into months, and still she worked, sometimes forsaking even food and sleep to bring her great work to completion.
At last it was finished. Arachne was justly proud of it and had it displayed on two long tables in the market square in her village. Word of it soon spread, people coming from miles around to marvel at it. As well they might, for it was truly a great work of art, as Arachne had intended, the greatest the world had ever seen.
And when the people had finished viewing it, they came to congratulate her on her achievement, to praise her and her great skill. But Arachne was a mortal, and like all mortals, could sometimes let praise go to her head, so much so that when people remarked that her skill was truly a gift from the gods, perhaps even Athene herself, she retorted:
‘Athene? Not she. She gave me but the simplest understanding of the stitchwork, as she gives to anyone who has the mind to listen and the skill to use it. But I have taken her art and turned it into something finer, something that not even the Goddess herself can match.’
And the people went away, muttering that no good would come of this girl and her boasting, but Arachne merely shrugged and watched them go. There would be others to come and admire her work, many others. Why, the whole of the known world would come to hear of Arachne and her great tapestry!
And she was right: the whole of the known world did indeed come to hear of it. But that known world also included Mount Olympus, and it could then be only a matter of time before Athene herself came to hear of it.
It came about by chance. Aphrodite was in one of her spiteful moods. Although she was very beautiful, she could not match the others in any skill or art, whether it be with the bow or at the loom. All she had was her beauty, and beauty alone is never enough, even for a goddess. Small wonder, then, that she often resorted to belittling the others.
‘I hear you have a rival,’ she said one day.
Athene looked up from her loom. ‘Rival?’ she said simply. She cared little for this goddess and her wiles, and tried to keep words with her to a minimum.
‘A girl,’ said Aphrodite. ‘In Lydia. Surely this is not news to you!’
‘I know all my pupils,’ said Athene, returning to her weaving, ‘and I know of none in Lydia.’
‘She is no pupil of yours,’ said Aphrodite, a mocking smile curving her lips, ‘and if what I hear of her work is true, I doubt she ever was.’
And with that, Aphrodite turned on her heel and left, well satisfied that she had caused the great Athene, Goddess of Wisdom, no small measure of discomfort.
Athene sat alone and silent, somehow unable to continue working. A rival? Unthinkable. And a mere mortal at that? Impossible. Or was it? She knew that these mortals were skilled and able. Had she not, after all, taken the most promising of them under her guidance? And along comes this girl, of whom none had previously spoken, who even a goddess was now telling her had a skill to match her own.
It troubled her, for she was a child of Zeus and as such had inherited many of his traits, not least his pride. But where her father’s pride led to a fear that the mortals might one day cease to need the gods, hers led to a fear that they might one day cease to love her. And that she could not bear.
As she sat there, she felt Aphrodite’s words keenly, even though she knew well the ploys this goddess would often stoop to in her spite, and she determined to find out if they were true: she would visit this girl whose skill had been compared with her own. She rose from her loom and vanished.
In a small village in the land of Lydia, there was a roll of thunder, a flash of lightning, and there in the middle of the market square stood a goddess. She was not in disguise, as the gods often were in their dealings with mortals, but appeared as herself, as a woman, tall, slender, fair-haired, blue-eyed. Only Aphrodite could match her in beauty. None could match her in understanding.
As the crowd stood in awe of this sudden apparition, a single figure stepped tentatively forward and dropped down on one knee before it, head bowed, eyes averted.
‘My lady,’ Arachne said nervously. ‘You honour us with your presence.’
Athene looked down at her. She did not need to be told that this was the one the rumours spoke of: who else but a rival would be so bold as to approach a goddess?
‘It comes to my ears that you have created something of interest,’ she said.
‘A small work,’ Arachne replied nervously, wondering if her boasting had also reached her ears. ‘It is nothing.’
‘Let others judge that,’ said Athene. ‘Rise, child, and show me.’
Arachne led the goddess to the tables on which the tapestry lay. Athene was silent as she sat and looked it up and down. The design was flawless, the stitching exquisite, the colours vivid. The figures seemed to have life, to shimmer and move as she looked at them; the background, depth, as though she was looking not at a flat picture but into a great distance. It was like looking at life itself. There was a skill here that not even she could match. This girl was no mere rival, and Athene felt the rage welling up inside her.
‘What is the meaning of this?’ she demanded.
Arachne trembled with fear, knowing she had somehow angered this great immortal but not knowing why.
‘But is it not worthy of me?’ she cried.
Athene turned her face slowly towards her, a terrible jealousy burning in her eyes.
‘It is worthy of the gods,’ she hissed, then with the strength of a thousand mortals, she seized the wonderful tapestry and ripped it to shreds.
Arachne stood and gazed down at the ruin of her masterwork, somehow unable to believe what her eyes had just told her. Dazed, she reached down and picked up a single fragment, a long piece from the scene depicting the Sun God Helios driving his fiery golden chariot across the sky each day. It had been a difficult scene to weave, difficult to get the yellow stitches to look as though they were actually glowing. It had been a particular triumph to get it right, and now it was gone.
She looked up at the goddess, eyes questioning, uncomprehending. Then she was clutching the fragment to her breast and letting go a loud cry of anguish. She turned and fled.
Behind her, Athene rose. She was not yet finished with this girl.
‘Wait, child!’ she commanded, but it was too late. Arachne was gone.
In the dreadful silence that followed, Athene was suddenly aware of the crowd standing round the edge of the square, watching. No one moved, no one but a single old woman who shuffled forward, to stand before her a little too closely for respect.
‘So,’ said the woman, ‘a new teaching from the gods?’
Athene turned on her. ‘Say not one word more, mortal, lest I give you a teaching of another kind!’
‘So speaks the Goddess of Wisdom,’ the woman replied dryly. ‘I am old, my lady, my life almost spent. So call down your lightning bolts as you will but I will have my say.’ She looked down at the table, to survey the torn remains lying there. ‘Was this well done?’
Athene followed her gaze, puzzled. Such a question? When all had seen the fineness of the stitching, the boldness of the colours? It was a work very well done, finer and fairer than ever she herself could produce. But then she looked again and saw what she had done to it and suddenly felt the double edge of the woman’s question. Was that, too, well done? She lowered her gaze: even a goddess can feel regret.
‘Where is the girl?’ she asked quietly.
‘She ran off towards the forest, my lady’ said the woman, ‘doubtless there to ponder the ways of the gods.’
Athene glanced sharply at her but said nothing. One mortal on her conscience was enough, there would be no more this day. She turned and left.
As she walked, Athene pondered on what she had done. She was not cruel by nature and knew only too well what had led her to do it. And perhaps Zeus was right, the mortals would indeed one day rival the gods. But then perhaps it was right that they should do so; a child, after all, must be allowed to grow.
And as for the tapestry, she must find a way to make amends. It would not be easy: such a work, so fine, so rare, and to be destroyed in such a way. No, it would not be easy: she could forgive others their faults but she had never been able to forgive herself her own.
But perhaps there was a way: she, the Goddess Athene, resolved never again to be angry with the mortals, no matter how swiftly they grew, no matter how skilled they became. And if they one day no longer needed her, no longer loved her then so be it. It would be a heavy price to pay, one she knew that she alone of the gods would understand, but she would accept it.
All she needed now was to find the girl and speak to her, explain what had led her to do this terrible thing, even…even ask her forgiveness? Even that? It would be bitter beyond bearing but she would do it. If she could but find her…
She looked up, found herself entering a small clearing in the forest, and did indeed find her, but she was too late.
Unable to live with the grief of her loss and the shame of her humiliation, Arachne had tied the last shred of her tapestry round a high branch and hanged herself with it.
Athene stood there silent. She was responsible for this girl’s death, and goddess though she was, she could not restore life. Only Zeus could do that but would he grant such a thing to one who had proved herself equal and more than equal to the gods? He would not, she knew he would not, but she was not without power of her own. She reached up and touched Arachne’s robe.
‘Weave on, child,’ she whispered, ‘but weave a different tapestry. Let your thread be finer, your work more delicate, so much so that men will stop to marvel at it, but not so much that they will compare you with the gods.’
As she spoke, so Arachne’s robe sagged and fell away to reveal not a limp body hanging from a makeshift rope but a tiny, eight-legged creature suspended from a thread of purest silk. Almost immediately, it began weaving a strange pattern as beautiful as any woven on a loom.
Athene watched, a rare smile passing across her lips. It was done. She could do no more. She bowed her head and slowly faded.
From that day on, Arachne and her children have woven their tapestries of silk. Some lie unnoticed in dark corners and hidden recesses, gathering dust instead of admiring glances. Others are brushed away as a nuisance, an eyesore, without so much as a thought for the skill that went into their making.
But there is a time to see them in their full glory, on a bright morning in late autumn when a sudden frost has cloaked the world in a mantle of silver. There you will find them in hedges or on trees, sparkling in the early sun, their delicate threads made bold by frozen dew, a shimmering reminder of the vanity of mortals and the anger of the gods.
~oOo~
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