Arachne and the origin of my arch enemy

"...a single line in Ovid.  Arachne had the effrontery to challenge Athena to a tapestry competition" (Calasso, 38).

Arachne challenges Athena to a tapestry competition.  But Athena had fooled the girl, as Arachne had boasted that she was a better weaver than the god.  Arachne weaves a tapestry that depicts all that the god had done wrong to mankind.  This angers Athena and she tears the tapestry in half.  As a result of Athena's trickery and anger, Arachne hangs herself.  However, Athena feels bad that Arachne dies and she touches the rope and turns Arachne into a spider.

A noiseless patient spider,

I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated ;

Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,

It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself ;

Ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,

Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,—seeking the spheres to connect them ;

Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold ;

Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

--Walt Whitman

The spider has become the symbol of patience and isolation.  Spiders are seen in many works of literature and are usually seen as giant beasts that are big and scary.  But my favorite spider will always be Charlotte.  She is a great spider that uses her weaving to save her friend Wilbur.  Unfortunately, my love for Charlotte does not translate to reality.  Spiders are not friendly creatures and I do NOT like them.  I suffer from Arachnophobia. 

Hug a tree

Psychology and mythology

"An invisible guest was among them: Orestes, the impure, who had once sought refuge in in Athens.  Nobody had dared take him into their homes, but nor had anyone dared sent him away.  Athens loves the guilty.  Sitting alone at a table, a pitcher all to himself, the man who had killed his mother drank in silence." (Roberto Calasso, 43)

Orestes and his sister Electra collude to kill their mother, Clytemnestra.  Aeschylus in his three part work, the Oresteia, tells the story of how Clytemnestra kills her husband Agamemnon, and then their children conspire to kill their mother.  Psychology would claim according to Carl Jung that Electra was in love with her father because of that love she must avenge her father's death.  Orestes, who if you read Mourning Becomes Electra, is in love with his mother and he is jealous of his father and his mother's lover.  Through the encouragement of his sister, Orestes kills his mother, and in the final play, he stands trial for the deed.

Once again Jerry Springer appears and the characters jump up on the stage.  The audience gasps in horror as these children explain their love for their parents.  Springer questions their "love" for their parents, and eventually Orestes admits his love for his sister (Mourning Becomes Electra).  Jung and Freud would claim that this is all part of human development, and that is why girls marry boys that remind them of their father and the same of boys, that they marry girls that remind them of their mother.

They Call it Xanadu

Calliope-Epic Poetry
Clio-History
Erato-Love Poetry
Euterpe-Song and Elegiac Poetry
Melpomene-Tragedy
Polyhymnia-Hymns
Terpsichore-Dance
Thalia-Comedy
Urania-Astronomy

The nine muses, who throughout history, have been invoked to inspire artists and writers.  Milton, Chaucer, and Shakespeare have all called upon the muses for divine inspiration.  The muses are the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, and the Library of Alexandria has a shrine to these daughters that according to the Oxford English Dictionary is where the word museum is derived.

But my personal favorite use of the muses comes from an early 1980's film entitled, Xanadu.  This film stars an aging Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton-John.  Newton-John portrays a muse who is inspiring a young artists but in a twist of fate, the artist and the muse fall in love.  However, Zeus will allow the lovers to continue their forbidden relationship.  This movie is campy and cheesy as it littered with musical numbers and dancing.  The culmination of the story is marked with music, dancing, and roller skating.  While I am sure this movie would make Ovid turn over in his grave, it has inspired me to sing, dance and smile for many years, and for your viewing pleasure...

Beginnings

All families have their own mythologies, their own beginnings, and their own endings.  Aren't familial myths the stories that are passed down from generation to generation?  My family's myths can be traced from Denmark to the plains of Montana, and if my paternal grandfather is correct, from the Emerald Isle of Ireland--although this is one story that has been disputed and actually could be defined as myth--to the north woods of Minnesota.  From sheep ranchers to big band drummers, my family's mythos is diverse and interesting, and I do not think that all of it is fact.  However, it is a part of who I am, and like Io, I "understand that myth is the precedent behind every action."