Athena's Diary: Arachne's Big Mistake

Dear Diary,

It is Athena once again. Of course, being the goddess of wisdom and warfare, there is not one person alive that could figure out where I keep this journal- let alone deduce how to open it- so of course it could not be anyone besides me writing. Today was dreadful. A snotty mortal girl dared challenge me in the art of weaving. Can you believe it? It all started when I was attending family dinner upon Mount Olympus. I heard someone mention that a young mortal girl down in a small village near Troy was weaving not only tapestries, but a web of lies and deceit as well. Supposedly she was boasting about her skills all about town, claiming to be the most skilled weaver to have ever lived.

I was, of course, immediately angered by the brazen overconfidence of this mere mortal, and demanded more information. She went by the name Arachne, and -to be quite frank- she was nothing all that special- the very definition of a mere mortal. She did not come from a noble family, nor did she have much money. She was skilled in weaving, I will give her that, but certainly not good enough for her to claim that no one else could compete with her. I mean honestly, did she not know of me and my plethora of talents, including masterful weaving? I can depict breathtaking scenes with the yarn in a fraction of the time that it would take any mortal. I can weave so precisely that not even the most observant eye could find any mistakes.

Hearing of all her tasteless bragging and utterly common upbringing, I decided that I should teach her a lesson that she will never forget. Once again, as the goddess of wisdom and warfare, I knew much better than to simply saunter down to her small village in all my godly glory and challenge her right then and there. Anyone with half a brain would refuse such an unfairly weighted game. And so I disguised myself as a harmless little old lady, complete with grey hair, wrinkly skin, and liver spots. Of course, to make it as fair as possible, I did give her a warning first and foremost. It is not my fault she did not heed it. I told her that she must give respect to all of the gods and goddesses. I told Arachne that she is more than welcome to seek fame and fortune as one of the great mortals who is incredibly skilled in weaving, but that she must not pretend or insinuate that she is in any way whatsoever even close to being equal to a goddess.

This mere mortal girl really had the audacity to respond quite rudely to my simple request. She dared ask this innocent old woman why Athena herself had not come down from Mount Olympus to defend her title as the most skilled weaver to have ever walked this fine Earth. I of course took this perfect opportunity to be as theatrical as possible while I transformed back into myself and subsequently proposed a challenge to this haughty mortal. We each took our places at our respective looms, and got to work. With incredible speed and accuracy, I wove an astoundingly beautiful picture that told the tales of four gods and the mere mortals that they punished for daring to deem themselves as comparable to one of us. Arachne retaliated with a picture that showed crimes once committed by the gods. I hate to admit that she did do a beautiful job. Of course, mine was much better, and I needed to teach her a lesson about being too prideful and not respecting the gods. I placed a curse upon her and all of her descendants. She became what the mortals now call a spider, or arachnid (I am so clever), and continues to weave her webs until this very day.

I feel so much better after venting.

-Athena

For the first story in my portfolio, I decided that I wanted to retell the story of Athena and Arachne. The story of Athena and Arachne is a wonderful myth that highlights the potential consequences of angering a god or goddess. It was originally written as one part of Ovid's Metamorphoses, and was later translated into the version that I read by Tony Kline. In the original tale, our two main characters are Arachne and Athena. Arachne is a young girl in Greece who likes to weave. Arachne discovers she is very talented at weaving, and becomes quite boastful about her skills. Athena is the goddess of wisdom and warfare, and was also known to be quite skilled in weaving. A riveting challenge then unfolds, with a fantastically fitting punishment that will befall the loser. To retell this story, I wanted to do it in a fairly simple way, so I chose to write the story from Athena's perspective, as if she were writing the story down in a journal or diary.

The image that I chose is one of Athena turning Arachne into a spider. I chose this image because it perfectly sums up the ending of the story. Arachne means 'spider' in Greek, which makes the ending to this story so poetic. I also chose it because it seems to be consistent with the way in which the scene is described within the story.

Banner image of Athena