Metamorphoses

  her father, Idmon, came from Colophon,

  and (like the mother that Arachne lost)

  was of plebeian origin, a tradesman

  who steeped the thirsty wool in purple dye.

  Nevertheless, her art had made her famous

  throughout the many cities of Lydia,

  although her home was every bit as humble

  as Hypaepa, the hamlet where she lived.

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  To see her wonderwork, the nymphs would leave

  their vineyards on the slope of Mount Timolus

  or their haunts along the winding Pactolus.

  They came not just to see the finished product,

  but to watch her working, for such comeliness

  and grace were present when she plied her art,

  whether she shaped the crude wool in a ball,

  or with her fingers softened it and drew

  the fleecy mass into a single thread

  spun out between the distaff and the spindle,

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  or worked a pattern into what she wove

  with her embroidery.

  You would have known

  that only Pallas could have been her teacher.

  Nevertheless, as though offended by

  the very thought, the girl denied it, saying,

  “Let her compete with me, and if she wins

  I’ll pay whatever penalty she sets!”

  Pallas disguises herself as a crone:

  puts on a wig of counterfeit grey hair

  and, with a staff to prop her tottering limbs,

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  begins to speak: “Old age is not to be

  wholly despised, for with it wisdom comes.

  Heed my advice: seek all the fame you wish

  as best of mortal weavers, but admit

  the goddess as your superior in skill;

  beg her to pardon you for your presumption

  in an appropriately humble manner—

  forgiveness will be given, if you ask it.”

  Arachne drops the work she had begun,

  and scarcely able to restrain her hand,

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  expresses outrage through her glaring eyes,

  cutting the goddess short with these sharp words:

  “You’ve lived too long, you senile nincompoop,

  that’s what your trouble is! Try telling that

  to your own daughter or your daughter-in-law,

  if you have any children; as for me,

  I’ll take my own advice, thanks very much!

  “And so you shouldn’t think you’ve made your case,

  my own opinion hasn’t changed at all:

  why does the goddess shun a match with me?

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  Why won’t she come to challenge me herself?”

  The goddess answered her with, “She has come,”

  and casting off the image of old age,

  revealed herself as Pallas; the Phrygian

  matrons and the nymphs bowed down before her.

  All were quite terrified except Arachne,

  although she reddened when a sudden flush

  stained her unwilling cheeks, then disappeared,

  as when the sky turns crimson just at dawn,

  but then grows pale again as the sun rises.

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  Yet she persists in what she has begun;

  in her desire for the foolish palm

  of victory, she rushes to her fate;

  Jove’s daughter does not turn Arachne down,

  or warn her further, or postpone the match.

  At once the two of them select their sites

  and set the uprights of their frames in place,

  then draw the slender threads of the warp between

  the horizontal crossbeams of the yoke;

  the warp is separated with a reed,

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  and dexterous fingers, busy at the shuttle,

  draw woof through warp, then tap it into place

  with the comb’s notched teeth.

  Then they go to it,

  hitching their robes up underneath their breasts,

  their well-instructed fingers swiftly flying,

  and zeal for the contest making light of labor.

  Into their fabrics they weave purple threads

  of Tyrian dye, and place beside them shades

  that lighten imperceptibly from these;

  as when a storm ends and the sun comes out,

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  a rainbow’s arc illuminates the sky;

  although a thousand colors shine in it,

  the eye cannot say where one color ends

  and another starts, so gradual the verging;

  there in the middle, the colors look the same,

  while, at the edges, they seem different.

  Into the fabrics they weave threads of gold,

  as on each loom appears an oft-told tale:

  Minerva shows the Areopagus,

  site of that contest held once to determine

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  a city’s name. Twelve deities are seated

  in august assurance, weighty on their thrones,

  Jove in the middle; ranged on either side,

  the gods all look like their own images;

  how regal Jove seems!

  Next, she depicts

  how Neptune with his trident strikes the rugged

  rock from which a spring of water gushes,

  the pledge by which he hopes to claim the city.

  Then she displays herself, armed with a shield

  and a sharp spear; a helmet guards her head,

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  her breast is well protected by the aegis;

  she represents that moment when the earth,

  struck by her spear tip, instantly produces

  a full-grown olive tree, laden with ripe fruit.

  The gods all marvel, and she takes the prize.

  And then, to give Arachne an idea

  of the reward this upstart can expect

  for her audacious bid for praise and glory,

  the goddess then expertly represents,

  in each of the four corners of her work,

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  a different contest, each in miniature,

  and each with its distinctive color scheme.

  In the first scene, two Thracians, Rhodope

  and Haemus, who were mortals once, are turned

  into a pair of mountains, for assuming

  the names of Jove and Juno as their own;

  and in the second corner she depicted

  the terrifying fate of the Pygmy queen:

  when Juno had defeated her, she ordered

  her to transform herself into a crane

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  and then make war upon her former subjects;

  in the third corner is Antigone,

  who once dared struggle with Jove’s mighty consort

  and whom Queen Juno turned into a stork;

  not Ilion, nor Laomedon, her father,

  could save the girl: she put white feathers on,

  and now applauds herself with clacking beak;

  the final corner shows a grieving man:

  Cinyras, clinging to the temple steps

  that used to be the limbs of his own daughters,

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  and weeping what appear to be real tears.

  Around her work, the goddess wove a border

  of peaceful olive leaves; that finished it,

  and with her tree, her labors, too, were done.

  Arachne shows Europa tricked by Jove

  in semblance of a bull upon the sea,

  and done so naturally you would have thought

  the bull and the waves he breasted were both real;

  the girl seems to look back at her lost land,

  cries out to her companions and withdraws

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  her feet in terror from the surging flood.

  Asterie is s
hown in an eagle’s grip,

  and Leda, lying under a swan’s wing;

  Arachne shows how, in a Satyr’s guise,

  Jupiter filled Antiope with twins;

  how, as Amphitry on, he hoodwinked you,

  Alcmena; and how Danaë was deceived

  by a golden shower; Aegina by a flame;

  how Mnemosyne was cozened by a shepherd

  and Proserpina, child of Demeter,

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  was ruined by a many-colored serpent.

  And she depicted you as well, Neptune,

  transformed into the fiercest-looking bull,

  with the Aeolian maiden, Canace;

  as Enipeus, you were shown begetting

  Otos and Ephialtes, the Aloidae,

  and as a ram, deceiving Theophane;

  immortal Demeter, the golden-haired

  and infinitely mild mother of grain,

  knew you as a horse; while to Medusa,

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  mother of Pegasus, you seemed a bird,

  and seemed just like a dolphin to Melantho;

  she rendered all of them just as they were,

  and each with an appropriate background.

  And there’s Apollo, tricked out as a rustic,

  now dressed in feathers, now a lion skin,

  or as a shepherd to take Isse in;

  and Bacchus, out to trick Erigone

  with grapes that aren’t really grapes at all;

  there’s Saturn, breeding Chiron on a mare,

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  and all around the edge, a deftly woven

  border of flowers plaited into ivy.

  Not even Envy could have faulted this;

  Pallas did not, yet, bitterly resenting

  her rival’s success, the goddess warrior

  ripped it, with its convincing evidence

  of celestial misconduct, all asunder;

  and with her shuttle of Cytorian boxwood,

  struck at Arachne’s face repeatedly!

  She could not bear this, the ill-omened girl,…

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  and bravely fixed a noose around her throat;

  while she was hanging, Pallas, stirred to mercy,

  lifted her up and said:

  “Though you will hang,

  you must indeed live on, you wicked child:

  so that your future will be no less fearful

  than your present is, may the same punishment

  remain in place for you and yours forever!”

  Then, as the goddess turned to go, she sprinkled

  Arachne with the juice of Hecate’s herb,

  and at the touch of that grim preparation,

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  she lost her hair, then lost her nose and ears;

  her head got smaller and her body, too;

  her slender fingers were now legs that dangled

  close to her sides; now she was very small,

  but what remained of her turned into belly,

  from which she now continually spins

  a thread, and as a spider, carries on

  the art of weaving as she used to do.

  Niobe

  Now all of Lydia is in an uproar

  and farther to the east, the story spreads

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  from town to town through Phrygia,

  until the great world speaks of nothing other

  than Arachne’s fate.

  Before her wedding day,

  when she was living in Maeonia,

  Niobe knew this girl; nevertheless,

  the punishment her countrywoman suffered

  did not convince Niobe to defer

  to the immortals, and to treat with them

  as with superiors.

  Her pride had many

  sources, as it happened, but in fact,

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  neither her husband’s great artistic skills,

  nor their distinguished lists of ancestors,

  nor the power of their realm—no, none of these

  gave her such pleasure (even though, of course,

  all of the items mentioned gave her pleasure)

  as did her progeny. All would have hailed

  Niobe as most fortunate of mothers

  had she not gotten there ahead of them.

  Then Manto, daughter of Tiresias,

  and like her father skilled at divination,

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  went all throughout the city, prophesying,

  “Women of Thebes! Go to Latona’s temple,

  and offer her and the twin gods she bore

  the gifts of incense and your dutiful worship,

  binding your brows with laurel as the goddess,

  speaking through me, commands.”

  The Theban women

  obediently bind their brows with laurel,

  and offer prayers and incense at her altar.

  But look, where in the midst of her attendants,

  Niobe comes, a sight well worth the seeing,

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  in gold-embroidered robes from Phrygia,

  and lovely, insofar as her great anger

  would let her be.

  Tossing her fine head

  so that her hair spills over both shoulders,

  she halts and draws herself up to full height,

  and fixes the women with a haughty look:

  “What madness is this,” she said, “to prefer

  gods that you’ve only heard of to the ones

  you’ve actually seen? Why cultivate

  Latona’s altars and deny me mine?

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  “My lineage is highly worshipful:

  only one man has ever been permitted

  to lie among the gods at their high table:

  my father, Tantalus. And Dione,

  my mother, is a sister of the famous

  Pleiades; my grandfather on her side

  is mighty Atlas, who bears heaven’s weight

  upon his shoulders; on my father’s side,

  why, my grandfather is Jupiter himself,

  who raped my husband’s mother and became

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  the father-in-law that I am proud to claim.

  “Feared by the Phrygians, I am a queen

  in the line that traces its descent from Cadmus,

  and with my husband Amphion, I rule

  the folk within these walls, which rose as though

  by magic when he played upon the lyre.

  “I gaze around my palace, and I see

  the spectacle of riches everywhere;

  my beauty is quite worthy of a goddess,

  and in addition, I have seven daughters

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  and seven sons, all soon to multiply

  my holdings by their spouses when they marry—

  and you still ask what cause have I for pride?

  “Then dare prefer Latona’s cult to mine,

  that daughter of the Titan Coeus,

  whoever he’s supposed to be! Latona,

  denied the barest spot for giving birth!

  There was no place in heaven nor on earth

  nor on the sea that would receive your goddess,

  an exile driven over the wide world

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  until the Isle of Delos pitied her:

  ‘You wander homeless on the earth,’ he said,

  ‘as I upon the waters do the same.’

  He gave her a place, unstable though it was,

  where she became the parent of—just two!

  One seventh of the yield of our womb!

  “Blessèd am I (who ever would deny it?),

  and (who can doubt it?) blessèd will I be

  forever, safely kept by my abundance.

  Fortune would find me far too great to harm:

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  though she took many, I’d have many more.

  “Such wealth drives fear away! But just suppose

  some part of that vast nation of my offspring

&n
bsp; was taken from me: not even so reduced

  would I be left with two—Latona’s horde,

  wherewith she staves off utter childlessness!

  “So stop these ceremonies now, and go—

  and take that laurel from your hair!”

  They did, abandoning their uncompleted rites,

  yet offering Latona what they could,

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  their reverence expressed in silent prayers.

  Seething with indignation at this treatment,

  Latona, on the summit of Mount Cynthus,

  addressed her children, the immortal twins:

  “Just look at this, now! I, a goddess who

  gives way to no one else, except for Juno,

  and proud of having borne the pair of you,

  now find my divinity called into doubt!

  “My altars will forever be neglected,

  unless you two come to my aid at once!

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  There’s more, besides: this child of Tantalus

  adds insult to these injuries, preferring

  her own offspring to you! And calling me—

  Oh, may that word come back to her—bereft!

  She shows her father’s gift for blasphemy!”

  She would have added prayers to her complaint,

  But Phoebus broke in: “Enough! This lengthy screed

  serves only to delay her punishment.”

  Phoebe concurred, and in a trice the two

  had touched down on the citadel of Thebes.

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  Below the walls there lay a level field,

  pounded incessantly by horses’ hooves

  and by the thronging wheels of chariots:

  here some of the seven sons of Amphion

  were putting their spirited chargers through their paces,

  gaily caparisoned with saddlecloths

  dyed in Tyrian purple, and with golden reins.

  Here as he wheeled his steed round in a circle,

  forcing the bit against its jaws, Ismenus,

  the earliest burden of his mother’s womb,

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  cried out, “Ah, me!” as the arrow pierced his breast

  and the reins slid between his lifeless fingers

  and he dismounted slowly from the right,

  toppling over the shoulder of his steed.

  The next was Sipylus, who, having heard

  the clattering of arrows in a quiver,

  at once gave full rein to his horse, fleeing

  as when a helmsman sees a distant cloud,

  the harbinger of an approaching storm,

  and crowds on sail to take advantage of

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  the slightest breeze; though he gave full rein,

  the inevitable arrow overtook him;

  while its steel tip projected from his throat,

  its feathered shaft stood trembling in his nape;

  as he was leaning forward, so he pitched

  over his horse’s mane and fell beneath

  its galloping legs, defiling Mother Earth