Talk:Arachne/Archive 1

...Athena...won?
I edited the page, but my edits were discarded as vandalism. The basic description of the myth on Encyclopedia Britannica (linked at the bottom of the article), Herbert Howe's translation from Ovid in Barry Powell's college textbook (ISBN 978-0-13-606171-7), and even the very website used by this page as a source http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0028%3Abook%3D6%3Acard%3D1 all agree, "Minerva could not find a fleck or flaw— even Envy can not censure perfect art". Athena found no flaw in Arachne's work, but punished her anyway. None of these sources make any implication whatsoever that Athena won their weaving contest. Later, the page has the nonsensical sentence "Arachne wove the gods being idiots like Zeus would fall of Olympus." which I replaced with the textually verifiable fact, by the same sources, that Arachne's subject was the sexual scandals of the gods (the Minotaur, Medusa, etc). If using authoritative sources instead of hearsay as a guide for editing articles is vandalism, then I guess I am a vandal.


 * The degraded version of the article has been repaired. The anon IP's points are being made in the clean version.--Wetman (talk) 14:31, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Cause and affect question: does the Greek word for spider (αραχνη) "come from" the name Arachne (Αραχνη), or does the name Arachne come from the Greek word for spider? Note the Latin cognate "aranea".

Answer: ARACHNE means spider in greek, ARO = weaved ACHNE = very thin thing

There is also a somewhat different version of Arachne's fate in the Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Which is most definitive? Brion VIBBER

I heard the angry-at-embarrassing-legends story first and I think it's probably the better-known one, but both are worth having in the article. Dreamyshade

What does this mean?
"The offended goddess set a contest between the two weavers but, according to Ovid,[1] the mortal weaver's subjects, the loves of the gods, was so offensive."? 72.224.107.186 (talk) 00:54, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It means that the remainder of the sentence was blanked by another anonymous poster. That's what it means.--Wetman (talk) 05:51, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, good, you or somebody fixed it. I thought it was a sentence fragment or an accidental edit, not blanking, couldn't figure out what it was supposed to have been. 72.224.107.186 (talk) 20:12, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I still don't find the sentence comprehensible. I don't know anything about Arachne to begin with, so maybe if I already had some knowledge it would be more understandable; but that's not really the point of the article, is it? :) --71.9.108.174 (talk) 23:11, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Questions about Arachne
What are arachnes powers?

What is Arachne known for?

What is Arachne's descripitve feature's?

What is Arachne's weakness/failing? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.131.135.248 (talk) 05:45, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * If it were that cut-and-dried, you could skip fifth grade.--Wetman (talk) 07:08, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

"Minerva"
Perhaps under the impression that "Athena" gives more credibility, editors have more than once switched Athena for Minerva. In spite of Arachne's Greek name there is no known Greek source to this morality anecdote, not even a passing reference. Perhaps it is Ovid's invention. So Minerva is actually correct.--Wetman (talk) 08:14, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I believe Athena is a beter name, but there isn't really proove for it right? Athena is more know.. It's pretty much common knowledge that much of Rome's mythology was copied from Greece's. Thus it is more appropriate to have the proper Greek name instead of the name of the Roman copy. --74.198.151.1 (talk) 03:20, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

That's honestly dead wrong. The Romans adopted the greek mythology, but changed and added to it, as it did with all the others it conquored. See Mithras. There's actually a huge difference between Minerva and Athena, and as Wetman said, this is a purely Roman myth. Calling her Athena is wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.135.100.105 (talk • contribs) 21:13, September 30, 2013 (UTC)

Pornographic images
I was showing this site to my granddaughter, and came across this disturbing image of a half-woman, half-spider, in a naked form and a sexual pose. I will not be visiting your site again, shame on you all for calling this a place of learning. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.181.10.207 (talk) 05:36, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

If you are never coming back (which I am sorry to hear) you will never see this - but I feel compelled to point out that the image in question is not intended as pornography, and in fact is (according to the caption) an image from Dante's Inferno, a cornerstone of Christian Literature. Nudity in art in and of itself is not pornography, particularly in Ancient Greek works of art - it is simply a reflection of the physical body. Also, (and I'm not an art historian or critic) but many of the images from Dante's Inferno show victims in a state of punishment - likely this image of a prone Arachne is intended to show anguish from her confinement in Hades. It does an image of an unclothed torso, but it is not drawn to intimate anything sexual, nor is it pornography. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.124.86.219 (talk) 00:22, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Lydian ?
Wasn't she described as a Lydian woman. This is not mentioned anywhere in the article. Cretanforever (talk) 10:47, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Alternate version
"In another version of the myth, Arachne lost the weaving contest. She then hanged herself out of embarrassment. Later on, Athena finds Arachne's body and takes pity on her, before resurrecting her as a spider."

What's the source for this version? I've been unable to find any classical source.Tony Keen2 (talk) 10:08, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I think it's Mythos by Stephen Fry Willem Zoetemeijer (talk) 12:37, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I thought Arachne beat Athena...
I thought the story went that Arachne beat Athena, her weaving was better so the goddess became enraged and turned her into a spider. The current article makes no mention of this... Am I wrong or is the article wrong? VenomousConcept (talk) 22:56, 9 January 2014 (UTC)


 * There are two versions: the one you're talking about is Ovid's version. Wikifan153 (talk) 09:40, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

No classical sources?
No-one seems to offer any classical sources for the second and third versions of the story. The second appears to be a modern story by James Baldwin; the third has no source. Is there any reason not to remove them? Peter coxhead (talk) 17:12, 15 March 2016 (UTC)