{"id":26949,"date":"2022-08-11T09:54:28","date_gmt":"2022-08-11T13:54:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=26949"},"modified":"2022-08-11T09:54:29","modified_gmt":"2022-08-11T13:54:29","slug":"arachne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=26949","title":{"rendered":"Arachne"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A fourth story (see the other three here<\/a>):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I scuttle up the line on slender legs.\nOne limb pulls silk smoothly from my belly\nWhile another glues it at the right point.\nRepeat, no thoughts needed; the design is\nEncoded in my nerves, automated.\n\nBut Athena has left me memories,\nAs punishment. While the other spiders\n(Disgusting creatures, close up) just spin and weave,\nI spin, weave, regret, repeat, and weave\nRegret right into the pattern of my web.\n\nShe didn't win, you know. She saw she'd lost\nWhen she caught the looks on people's faces.\nHer tapestry was very well woven,\nBright colors, nice detail, professional work.\nNo one liked it, though, because it said: \"I rule.\"\nIt was a propaganda poster in wool:\n\"Athena,\" by Athena, with peons.\n\nMine was the opposite. I showed poor girls\nSeized by man-gods: how they fought in terror.\nI left the gods out, so my art was pure\nSympathy. I was on the side of us.\n\nPeople had always loved to watch me work.\nPeople, and nymphs, too: they came down from Tmolus\nWith their perfect bodies and empty heads\nTo see someone actually making things.\n\nTheir praise pleased, but it wasn't quite enough.\nThey couldn't understand the objects they liked.\nThey guessed Athena must have instructed me,\nBecause they had never struggled to learn.\n\nI wanted Athena's attention--and got it\nWith my boasts, which floated up to the sky.\nWhen an old hag came to refresh my manners,\nI half-knew who that woman was. (Not quite.)\nMy curses and slurs surprised even me.\nI think I was asking Athena to fight.\n\nI was half pleased, then, to see the rags drop\nOff her and her virginal, marmoreal \nPerfection irradiate my poor room,\nMaking the mortals and nymphs turn away.\nTime to get weaving, then; let's see who's better.\n\nShe didn't have to weave well. She is divine.\nShe could do whatever she wanted with me,\nJust like Idmon, my father, once Mother died\n(My mother, whose name no one's recorded).\n\nMy famous weaving is what saved me from him.\nMy<\/em> famous art, not Athena's. When she saw\nIt was better than hers--more popular, too--\nShe reasserted her authority.\nShe ripped my fabric to bits, grabbed my distaff\nAnd started to beat me with it. My ear,\nMy kidney got a blow, my knees, my crown.\n\nI grabbed some yarn I'd spun, thinking first to throw\nIt round the goddess' long white neck and pull.\nSince hers was shockproof chryselephantine,\nMy own neck offered a better way out.\nI made a noose and dropped it from a rafter.\n\nAthena must have granted me respite\nFrom my beating to prepare my suicide.\nAs for me, I wished to steal her victory.\nMy death would be my own doing, not hers.\nI would make my story end as I<\/em> chose.\n\nThey say the sight of me choking on my yarn\nStirred some pity deep in Pallas' breast\nAnd she chose to spare me a rightful death,\nGraciously granting me more time to weave.\nBut I say she made my body her art.\n\nSprinkling belladonna and henbane\nOn me made my hair fall out; strange words\nElongated my fingers into legs.\nMy thumbs, arms, and real legs shrank away.\nMy teeth consolidated into fangs.\n\nAthena was loving her work. She hummed,\nChuckled, paused to admire the results, \nMuttered encouraging words to herself,\nCalling herself \"Athena\" and \"Clever girl.\"\n\nShe shrank me by pure will and watched me hurry\nUp my own noose to a crack in the roof\nWhere I again began to spin and weave.\nNow my pattern is hers. I watch it emerge.\nI see what it is once my limbs have made it\nExactly the same as they've made it before.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
This responds pretty closely to Ovid’s Metamorphoses<\/em>, Book VI, 1-145. See also: the laughter of the gods<\/a>; The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A fourth story (see the other three here): I scuttle up the line on slender legs. One limb pulls silk smoothly from my belly While another glues it at the right point. Repeat, no thoughts needed; the design is Encoded in my nerves, automated. But Athena has left me memories, As punishment. While the other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-verse-and-worse"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26949"}],"version-history":[{"count":47,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27022,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26949\/revisions\/27022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}