“The Spinners”/ “The Fable of Arachne,” Diego Velazquez (1648).
In one of the best-known stories in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Arachne, a young woman with incredible weaving talent, challenges Minerva, the goddess of weaving, to a contest. While Minerva depicts her own glory and the harsh penalties imposed on mortals who dare to reach too high, Arachne shows several humiliating instances of the gods taking advantage of mortal women. In the end, although Arachne’s design appears better than Minerva’s, the goddess still punishes her and transforms her into a spider. In this story, we can see a metaphor for Ovid’s own experience as an author. Just as Minerva punishes Arachne and destroys the tapestry that the goddess found so offensive, so, too, Augustus allegedly banished Ovid due to the objectionable nature of his poetry. The parallel between literature and weaving allows us to see the injustice of literary censorship in the sad fate of Arachne. Read full essay > >