The story of Athene and Arachne (How the spider was created) Read online

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~