Arachne. In Greek mythology, Arachne was a talented mortal weaver who challenged Athena, goddess of wisdom and crafts, to a weaving contest; this hubris resulted in her being transformed into a spider. There are many versions of the story's weaving contest, with each saying that one or the other won. According to the myth as recounted by Ovid, Arachne was a Lydian maiden who was the daughter of Idmon of Colophon, who was a famous dyer in purple. She was credited to have invented linen cloth and nets while her son Closter introduced the use of spindle in the manufacture of wool. She was said to have been a native of Hypaepae, near Colophon in Asia Minor. In Metamorphoses the Roman poet Ovid writes that Arachne was a shepherd's daughter who began weaving at an early age. She became a great weaver, boasted that her skill was greater than that of Athena, and refused to acknowledge that her skill came, in part at least, from the goddess. Athena took offense and set up a contest between them. Presenting herself as an old lady, she approached the boasting girl and warned: You can never compare to any of the gods. Plead for forgiveness and Athena might spare your soul. Ha! I only speak the truth and if Athena thinks otherwise then let her come down and challenge me herself, Arachne replied. Athena removed her disguise and appeared in shimmering glory, clad in a sparkling white chiton. The two began weaving straight away. Athena's weaving represented four separate contests between mortals and the gods in which the gods punished mortals for setting themselves as equals of the gods. Arachne's weaving depicted ways that the gods had misled and abused mortals, particularly Zeus, tricking and seducing many women. When Athena saw that Arachne had not only insulted the gods but done so with a work far more beautiful than Athena's own, she was enraged. She ripped Arachne's work to shreds and hit her on the head three times. Terrified and ashamed, Arachne hanged herself. Then Athena said, Live on then, and yet hang, condemned one, but, lest you are careless infuture, this same condition is declared, in punishment, against your descendants, to the last generation! After saying this she sprinkled her with the juice of Hecate's herb, and immediately at the touch of this dark poison, Arachne's hair fell out. With it went her nose and ears, her head shrank to the smallest size, and her whole body became tiny. Her slender fingers stuck to her sides as legs, the rest is belly, from which she still spins a thread, and, as a spider, weaves her ancient web. The myth of Arachne can also be seen as an attempt to show relation between art and tyrannical power in Ovid's time. He wrote under the emperor Augustus and was exiled by him. At that time weaving was a common metaphor for poetry, therefore Arachne's artistry and Athena's censorship to it may offer a provocative allegory of the writer's role under an autocratic regime. The taxonomical class name Arachnida and the name for spiders in many romance languages are both derived from arachne. The metamorphosis of Arachne in Ovid's telling furnished material for an episode in Edmund Spenser's mock-heroic Muiopotmos, 257-352. Spenser's adaptation, which rereads an Ovidian story in terms of the Elizabethan world is designed to provide a rationale for the hatred of Arachne's descendant Aragnoll for the butterfly-hero Clarion. Dante Alighieri uses Arachne in Canto XVII of Inferno, the first part of The Divine Comedy, to describe the horrible monster Geryon.. his back and all his belly and both flanks were painted arabesques and curlicues: the Turks and Tartars never made a fabric with richer colors intricately woven, nor were such complex webs spun by Arachne. The tale of Arachne inspired one of Velázquez most factual paintings: Las Hilanderas, in which the painter represents the two important moments of the myth. In the front, the contest of Arachne and the goddess, in the back, an Abduction of Europa that is a copy of Titian's version. In front of it appears Minerva at the moment she punishes Arachne. It transforms the myth into a reflection about creation and imitation, god and man, master and pupil. It has also been suggested that Jeremias Gotthelf's nineteenth century novella, The Black Spider, was heavily influenced by the Arachne story from Ovid's Metamorphoses. In the novella, a woman is turned into a venomous spider having reneged on a deal with the devil. Arachne has had a considerable degree of influence on modern popular culture. She frequently appears in modern fantasy books, movies, and television series in the form of a monstrous spider.