Minerva, who’d lent an attractive ear to the Muses’ narration,
Commended their song and their justified anger against the Pierides.
Then she said to herself: ‘Is praising enough? I also
Need to be praised in turn. No mortal shall scoff at my power
Unpunished.’ She therefore considered how best to dispose of a Lydian
Girl, called Arachne, who claimed (so she’d heard) to equal herself
In working with wool. Arachne’s distinction lay not in her birth
Or the place that she hailed from but solely her art. Her father, Idmon
Of Colophon, practised the trade of dyeing wool in Phocaean
Purple; her mother was dead but, like her husband, had come
From the people. Their daughter, however, had gained a high reputation
Throughout the Lydian towns for her work with wool, although
She’d been born in a humble home and lived in a village, Hypaepa.
The nymphs used often to leave their haunts, Mount Tmolus’ vines
Or the banks of the river Pactolus, to gaze on Arachne’s amazing
Artistry, equally eager to watch her handwork in progress
(her skill was so graceful) as much as to look at the finished article.
Perhaps she was forming the first round clumps from the wool in its crude state,
Shaping the stuff in her fingers and steadily teasing the cloud-like
Fleece into long soft threads. She might have been deftly applying
Her thumb to the polished spindle. Or else they would watch her embroider
A picture. Whatever she did, you would know Minerva had taught her.
Arachne herself, in indignant pride, denied such a debt.
‘Let us hold a contest,’ she said. ‘If I’m beaten, I’ll pay any forfeit.’

Minerva disguised herself as a hag with hoary locks
And hobbled along with a stick to support her tottering frame.
She spoke at once to Arachne. ‘Not all old age’s effects,’
She said, ‘are to be despised; experience comes with the years.
So take a little advice from me: you should aim to be known
As the best among humankind in the arts of working with wool;
But yield the palm to Minerva, and humbly crave her forgiveness
For boasting so rashly. The goddess will surely forgive if you ask her.’
Arachne looked at her sullenly, left the threads she was spinning
And almost hit her rebuke. With anger written all over
Her face, she made her response to the goddess she’d failed to recognize:
‘Leave me alone, you stupid old woman! The trouble with you
Is you’ve lived too long. You can give your advice to what daughters you have
Or to the wives of your sons. I’m clever enough to advise myself.
Don’t think your warnings have done any good. I’m set on my course.
Why doesn’t Minerva arrive in person? She’s shirking this contest!’
‘She’s here!’ the goddess exclaimed, as she dropped her disguise as a crone
And appeared as Minerva. At once the nymphs and the Lydian women
Paid suitable homage. Only Arachne remained unafraid,
But she did turn red and her cheeks were suffused with a sudden, involuntary
Blush which soon disappeared, as the sky glows crimson at early
Dawn and rapidly whitens again in the rays of the sunrise.
She still refused to withdraw. In her crass determination
To win, she fell to her ruin. Minerva accepted her challenge
And offered no further warnings; the contest could start at once.
Straightaway they both set up their looms in different places.
Each loom was carefully strung with the slender threads of the warp.
The warp was attached to the crossbeam, a stick separated the threads,
And the weft could then be inserted between them by pointed shuttles,
Drawn over and under by hand, and then tapped into place as the wooden
Comb with its notches between the teeth was sharply lowered.
The two contestants made haste; with robes hitched up to the girdle,
They moved their experienced arms, the labour lightened by pleasure.
Webs were woven in the threads of Tyrian purple dye
And of lighter, more delicate, imperceptibly merging shades.
Think how a tract of the sky, when the sun breaks suddenly through
At the end of a rain shower, is steeped in the long, great curve of the rainbow;
The bow is agleam with a range of a thousand various hues,
But the eye cannot tell where one fades into another; adjacent
Tones are so much the same, though the difference is clear at the edges.
Such were the colours the two contestants used in the fabric.
Their patterns were also shot with flexible threads of gold,
As they spun out an old tale in the weft of their separate looms.

Minerva depicted the rock of Mars on the heights of Cecrops
And wove the ancient dispute concerning the name of the land.
The twelve Olympians, Jove in their midst, with august dignity
Sat upon lofty thrones. Each of the gods was denoted
By typical features. The image of Jove was proud and majestic.
Neptune, the god of the ocean, was shown on his feet and striking
The rugged crag with his great long trident, while sea-water gushed forth
Out of the cleft of the rock, to establish his claim to the city.
Minerva characterized herself by her helmeted head,
Her sharp-pointed spear, her shield and the aegis guarding her breast.
The picture suggested the earth had been struck by the goddess’s spear
To produce the olive trees covered with berries and grey-green foliage.
The gods looked on in amazement, and victory crowned her endeavor.
So that Minerva’s rival could have some clear indication
Of what reward to expect for such crazily reckless defiance,
Four contests were added, one in each of the web’s four corners,
All in their own bright colours, with smaller designs for the detail.
One corner was filled by Thracian Haemus and Rhodope, snow-clad
Mountains today but formerly mortals, a brother and sister
Who’d claimed the title of Jove and Juno. The second corner
Contained the pitiful fate of a mother, the queen of the Pygmies,
Who’d fought against Juno and lost; the goddess transformed her into
A crane and made her declare perpetual war on her own tribe.
Antigone featured third, one more who dared to compete
With great Jove’s consort but later been punished by queenly Juno
And changed to a kind of bird. It sadly counted for nothing
That she was the Trojan king Laomedon’s daughter. Instead
She applauds herself with the clattering bill of a white-feathered stork.
The fourth and remaining design showed Cinyras in his bereavement,
Embracing the temple steps which had once been the limbs of his beautiful
Daughters, and seeming to weep as he lay prostrate on the marble.
Minerva finally added a border of olive branches,
Symbol of peace, so using her tree to complete the tapestry.

Arachne’s picture presented Europa seduced by Jove
In the guise of a bull; the bull and the sea were convincingly real.
The girl appeared to be looking back to the shore behind her,
Calling out to the friends she was leaving, afraid of the surging
Waves which threatened to touch her and nervously lifting her feet.
Asterie also was shown, in the grip of a struggling eagle;
Leda, meekly reclining under the wings of the swan.
And there was Jove once again, but now in the form of a satyr,
Taking the lovely Antiope, sowing the seeds of her twins.
You could see how he caught Alcmena disguised as her husband Amphitryon,
Then how he stole fair Danae’s love in a shower of gold;
How he cheated Aegina as fire; Mnemosyne, dressed as a shepherd;
Proserpina, Ceres’ child and his own, as a speckled serpent.
Neptune’s affaris were also revealed in Arachne’s tapestry.
He changed to a menacing bull to possess the daughter of Aeolus;
Taking the shape of the river Enipeus, he fathered the giant
Son of Aloeus; he posed as a ram to confuse Theophane.
Ceres, the bountiful mother of crops, with her golden tresses,
Knew the god as a horse; snake-haired Medusa, who bore
The winged horse Pegasus, knew a winged bird; and Melantho a dolphin.
All these scenes were given authentic settings, the persons
Their natural likeness. There was Apollo, dressed as a farmer,
Shown as wearing the wings of a hawk or the skin of a lion,
And fooling the daughter of Macareus, Isse, disguised as a shepherd.
Bacchus, appearing as counterfeit grapes to deceive Erigone;
Saturn, as one more horse who fathered Chiron the centaur.
The outer edge of the tapestry, fringed by a narrow border,
Was filled with flowers all interwoven with tendrils of ivy.

Not Pallas, not even the goddess of Envy could criticize weaving
Like that. The fair-haired warrior goddess resented Arachne’s
Success and ripped up the picture of the gods’ misdemeanours.
She was still holding her shuttle of hard Cytorian boxwood
And used it to strike Arachne a number of times on the forehead.
The wretched girl was too proud to endure it, and fastened a halter
Around her neck. She was hanging in air when the goddess took pity
And lifted her up. ‘You may live, you presumptuous creature,’ she said,
‘but you’ll hang suspended forever. Don’t count on a happier future:
My sentence applies to the whole of your kind, and to all your descendants!’
With that she departed, sprinkling the girl with the magical juice
Of a baleful herb. As soon as the poison had touched Arachne,
Her hair fell away, and so did the ears and nose.
The head now changed to a tiny ball and her whole frame shrunk in proportion.
Instead of her legs there are spindly fingers attached to her sides.
The rest is merely abdomen, from which she continues to spin
Her thread and practise her former art in the web of a spider.