What this project is about.
This one is from Book 6.
Ruby Ruby Ruby Ruby Rubens!
How long it took to read this (aloud): 9 mins 18s
What it’s “about”: This one is a banger! Up there with Phaethon’s Ride and Perseus’s Wedding. Arachne is a human and very very good at weaving. Pallas Athena is envious/butt-hurt and in disguise as an old woman warns Arachne to be humble. Arachne, in full Nietzsche mode, says “yo momma” and they agree to a loom-off. Arachne basically wins, but Pallas Athena goes full bbc and slashes Arachne’s work and then turns her into a spider.
Words I didn’t know: Heddles – Heddles are loops of wire or cord attached to the loom’s harness that are used to separate and control the warp yarns during the weaving process.
Quotable quotes:
Only the girl
Defied her, yet she stirred, as when Aurora
Flushes the sky with red and the sky pales
To gold when sun goes up, so was Arachne's
Face, her manner cool and fixed; she, foolish,
Ready to show her skill, raced to her fate.
Nor did Jove's daughter plead delay, nor warn
The girl. They set up rival looms across
The room, stretching the weblike threads from beam
To beam and, where the reeds divided them,
Flashing their shuttles through with ardent fingers
While the toothed heddles beat the nap in place.
How it lands to my eco-sensibility: I love this!
Horace Gregory had this to say –
“The stories of Arachne and of Niobe are among Ovid’s commentaries on the workings of Divine envy. His story of Arachne may be read as a parable of the craftsman (or woman) who attempts to rival divinely inspired artists. But Ovid’s way of telling the parable is important, the reader’s sympathy veers in Arachne’s direction. Her stubborn pride is foolish enough, she is not too attractive, yet Pallas Athena’s punishment of her is deadly cold Ovid’s Italian attitude toward Pallas is not without interest as Athens’ patron goddess, she might well represent cold-blooded Greek intellectual passion. As Ovid shows, her prudish virginal fury transformed Medusa’s hair into a nest of snakes. Envy is among her servants. She is attractive only on her visit to the Muses. Can we say that Ovid had a deep-seated distrust of highly formulated intellectual conduct? Perhaps. He loved wit, but kept a shrewd, half-doubting eye fixed on deliberated wisdom.”
Obvious allusions, ways it was used (that I am aware of already) : xx
What I know I didn’t ‘get’: xx
To my knowledge, who’s used it why/how (RACC): xx
Further research questions: xx
Anything else: xx
marchudson.net 
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