Arachne and the Weaving Contest
Ty Danzy and Daniel Caldwell
Background of Athena
Athena is the goddess of reason, intelligent activity, and art and literature. She was the daughter of Zeus, but it was said that she didn't have a mother Zeus made her himself. She was his favorite child, and she got to use any of Zeus' weapons even the lightning bolt. Her holy tree was the olive tree, and she was often symbolized as an owl. She was very fierce in battle, but she never went for an attack she always defended. She also created Bridle which was taming the horses. Lastly, The state of Athens was named after her it's in the name.
Arachne's Background
There was a young woman who's name was Arachne that lived in a place called Lydia. Lydia had a reputation for producing splended textiles and had some of the finest spinners and weavers in the world. Arachne was a spinner and a weaver; no one was better than her. She wove all sorts of beautiful pictures into her cloth. Often, the scenes were very life like and the people, or visitors, felt that they could touch and almost feel what was going on. Not only were her final products beautiful, watching her weave was an amazing site to see. Visitors from all around heard about her and her creations and that they were so beautiful, that they would travel from all around just to see her products and to watch her make them. Some of the visitors would come around to see it for themselves and when they saw how beautiful it all was, they would say that she was trained by the goddess Athena herself. In fact, Arachne was also very proud of her work, but she was also very arrogant. When she heard the visitors say this about her, it infuriated her. She would tell the visitors that even the goddess herself could never produce works even finer than her. When word of this bold claim reached Athena on Mount Olympus, it made Athena very angry at Arachne. Athena found mercy in her heart and decided to give Arachne a chance to redeem herself from the claim she had made; she would have a weaving contest with her. If Arachne lost the contest, she would suffer any consequence or fait that Athena decided for her. They both worked and worked for days and finally, they had a winner, Athena. Athena chose to turn Arachne into a very ugly creature, a spider, so she could weave for the rest of her life. -Fin.
The Story
The story came to be in the small town of Lydia in Northern Greece. Arachne was woman who thought she couldn't be beat at weaving. She made the most beautiful things in the world and she had contest for them. This made her feel like she was better than the god Athena in a weaving contest. Therefore, They had started a contest and then they started. They both had beautiful portraits, but the difference was that Athena made something of Poseidon while Arachne made one mocking the gods. Athena felt so offended by this that she turned her into this ugly creature, a spider, where she could weave for the rest of her life. And that's how spiders came to be.
Citations
"Myths and Legends." Text Only Version of Arachne the Spinner. East of England Broadband Network, n.d. Web. 13 Jan. 2015.