Based on: Katarzyna Marciniak, Elżbieta Olechowska, Joanna Kłos, Michał Kucharski (eds.), Polish Literature for Children & Young Adults Inspired by Classical Antiquity: A Catalogue (accessed: June 11, 2021), Faculty of “Artes Liberales”, Warsaw: University of Warsaw, 2013, 444 pp.

A mortal woman named Arachne boasts that she is a better weaver than Athena. In response, the goddess orders Arachne to demonstrate her skills. When Athena realizes that Arachne’s skills are indeed exceptional, she falls into a rage, destroys the woman’s work and attacks her with a shuttle. In despair Arachne commits suicide. Athena comes to her senses and brings Arachne back to life by transforming her into a spider.

Interestingly, the author completely omits the issue of Athena’s embroidered didactic image of the Olympian gods with examples of the punishments that can befall people for their hubris. Instead, the writer focuses entirely on the fabric made by Arachne, showing the gods entering into amorous relationships with mortals. This can be read as a dedication of the entire poem, not to the Greek goddess, but to the woman who was transformed into a spider. The work may be interpreted as a story of human suffering (moreover, there is a passage in the poem about Athena’s physical attack on Arachne and her subsequent suicide). The ending, however, goes beyond the pattern of a tale of guilt and punishment. As Athena gives Arachne a fate focused on weaving beautiful “compositions of webs, of dewdrops, of the colours of the sun,”*; she tells her that they are to divide the space of the forest into “chambers that “the poets will give to all artists for free.” The retelling thus becomes a poetic statement about poetry itself and, more broadly, about artistic creation, the genesis of which may lie in pain, suffering, and sacrifice.

* All quotations translated by Maciej Skowera.

Mapel Bloomberg, Kristin M., Tracing Arachne’s Web: Myth and Feminist Fiction, Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001.

Miller, Nancy K., “Arachnologies: The Woman, the Text, and the Critic” in Subject to Change: Reading Feminist Writing, New York Chichester, West Sussex: Columbia University Press, 1988, 77–101.

Nosek, Anna, W przestrzeniach universum i regio. Wiersze dla dzieci współczesnych pisarzy regionu podlaskiego – interpretacje [In the Spaces of universum and regio: Poems for Children by Contemporary Writers of the Podlasie Region – Interpretations], Białystok: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu w Białymstoku, 2015.

In Ancient Greek, ἀράχνη [arákhnē] means ‘spider,’ which is used in taxonomical nomenclature for both plants (e.g., the genus Arachnis) and animals (e.g., the class Arachnida).

Before the print publication, the poem has been available online, at Ewa Białek’s website.