Arachne's Loom

“That thing is older than the British empire,” snapped the employee. “You need to show all of these items respect; some of them once belonged to gods.”

“Well sorry, but it’s all dusty and covered in cobwebs. It doesn't look that special to me,” the teenager grumbled. “Besides, gods aren’t a thing. That’s what they believed in Greece when everyone was drunk and talked for ages. According to English class anyway. Have you read The Iliad? Bo-ring!”

The store clerk whipped around in anger. “So help me, say one more word like that and I don’t care if your grandmother dies tomorrow, I’ll literally kick you out the door! These are some of the rarest objects in the world, and I will not sell them to you if you won’t appreciate it!”

The teenager cowered. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry! I’m just really stressed about trying to find the perfect gift, and I do want your help, please.”

“That’s better.” After taking a deep breath, the employee took on a gentler voice. “It’s not just about showing respect to the objects themselves. The people who were involved with these items were . . . not known for being able to take a joke. In fact, what you’ve pointed to is proof of that. That is a loom that once belonged to Arachne.”

“Arachne? Like arachnophobia? My friend has that. He can’t stand being in the room if he thinks a spider is nearby.”

“Where do you think the prefix comes from? Lots of words are derived from Greek mythology. Since you asked that, I take it you don’t know the story of Arachne and Athena?”

“Not really. I know Athena was the goddess of wisdom, she liked the hero Odysseus, and she came out of Zeus’s head fully formed, but that’s it.”

“Well, Athena was many things, including the goddess of wisdom. She was also the goddess of strategic warfare, strategy, mathematics, and the arts and skills, among other things. She was very clever, and didn’t suffer anyone’s foolishness. Of course, by foolishness she meant any human who dare think themselves to be as good at something as a god.

“Such a human is to whom the loom once belonged. Arachne lived in the city of Lydia, in what we now call Turkey. Arachne was a very skilled weaver. In fact, some compared her skill to the gods', and said that she must have learned from Athena, who invented weaving. But Arachne was so proud of herself that she refused to think of herself indebted to anyone, even a goddess who created the art itself.

“Not only did Arachne refuse to imagine that she might owe her skill to Athena, she said that she was better at weaving than Athena herself! An old woman standing nearby warned Arachne that it would be foolish to make such a challenge, and that she should beg the goddess’s forgiveness immediately. Arachne dismissed her and said she didn’t fear anyone, even a god.

“At this point, the old woman became young, and revealed herself to have blonde hair, gray eyes, and a helmet on her head. Athena had decided to take Arachne at her word, and so the two began a weaving contest. Athena decided to weave stories from her past about her triumphs over both her peers and lessers. In other words, the times she won over gods and mortals.

“Arachne, still clinging onto her pride, wove her own stories of how the gods had behaved recklessly and foolishly, and showed them to sometimes behave little better than beasts. But her work, truly, was magnificent. Not even Athena could deny that. But Arachne had still been insulting to a goddess. Athena became wrathful, and destroyed Arachne’s work. When she saw the goddess’s rage, Arachne finally became aware of her own foolishness, and she attempted to hang herself. But Athena stopped her, and turned Arachne into a spider, telling her that she was to live forever. As long as she lived, she would weave, as would her descendants, so that everyone would remember what happens when you try to challenge a god.”

“But that doesn’t seem fair. Just because Arachne could weave better doesn’t mean that Athena had to curse her like that.”

The clerk sighed and shook their head. “You don’t understand. When it comes to any craft, even new ones, you still should pay homage to the ones who created it. Everything starts from somewhere, and is built on as time goes on. You can’t just disregard the creators, especially when they have the power to change you into a new creature. And admittedly, depending on which story you read, that gesture was meant as sympathy. Some stories say that Athena took pity on Arachne when she tried to hang herself, and turned her into a spider so she could continue weaving. In those stories, Athena’s actions are supposed to be seen as kindness.”

The clerk shrugged. “But the old stories and gods aren’t actually that nice. What I told you is the true version. Some people just like to make a story have a nicer ending, but that can’t always happen.”

“I thought you said Athena destroyed Arachne’s work? How can you have her loom?”

“Athena destroyed the fabric Arachne was weaving. The loom did get a little damaged, yes. You can see some dents and scratches if you look there and there, see? But overall the loom survived. Supposedly, everything woven on it comes out exceptionally beautiful, even if the person working the loom doesn’t have any previous experience. But doing that might be dangerous, unless you want to risk growing an extra four limbs.”

After a moment of silence, the teenager said, “Well, I don’t think my grandma is big into weaving or spiders. What about that fabric next to the loom?”

Author's Note: Athena and Arachne's story is one of the (relatively) well-known textile stories. Even if not one of the better-known Greek myths, Arachne's name is still known in modern language, since it's now used in reference to spiders. I started with this one because I knew the story well, and it served as a quick write, and a good way to ease into the storytelling aspect of this project. I decided to start off with the teenager being dismissive of how valuable the objects are, to show that they’re still a little skeptical of what kind of shop they’ve walked into. Having the store clerk react so strongly adds to the feeling that these are valuable, and potentially dangerous, objects that are being shown. I used The Book of Myths by Jean Lang as the source for the story, because there are direct quotes from the Greek poet Ovid, which indicates that it draws heavily on the original version. As I showed in my story, I like to emphasize that while stories change over the years, often the original source is harsher than the more modern versions. By this, I mean that people like to gloss over stories and make them seem almost more pleasant than the original version. My example would be how some stories say that Athena took pity on Arachne after she tried to hang herself, and turned her into a spider purely out of kindness. But Ovid, as the original source, makes it clear that Athena did this as further punishment to Arachne. Another example would be how, in the original Brothers Grimm story, Cinderella’s sisters mutilate their feet to try and fit them in the shoe, and later get their eyes pecked out by birds. Disney definitely doesn’t show that! People often try to give myths a softer tone, but this usually results in a lost message. Harsh often means more realistic, I find. For the most part I stuck to the original story when retelling it, since the point is explaining the origin stories of the objects in the shop.