Water Nymph: You have such a wonderful talent. You do your work so beautifully that it is easy to tell that you have been taught by the great Athena, goddess of weaving.
Arachne: How dare you even suggest that? No one has taught me anything. This talent of mine is self-taught. No one deserves credit for it, not even Athena.
Athena decided to give the girl a chance for offending her. Arachne was talented and it was easy to see that. Athena had heard a lot about her and even her refusal for being compared to Athena. Athena changed herself to look like an old lady. She had grey hair on her head, her skin was kind of sagging and she even had a stick to use as support when she walked. She looked like a very fragile, typical old lady.
Old Lady: You have great skill no doubt but listen to my advice. Get rid of your pride and thank Athena for blessing you with such talent. You can be great among the humans but admit that Athena is still better than you. Let go of your pride.
Arachne: You have turned old and senile. Tell your daughters and daughters-in-law to listen to your crazy talk. I am smart enough on my own. No one asked for your advice and I certainly do not want it. If Athena thinks she is so good let her come here and have a competition with me. Why is she afraid of me? Does she think she will lose? Guess she is not as great as she thinks she is.
Old Lady: That is enough!
She transformed herself into her normal goddess self.
Athena: I have heard enough from you. You are too prideful of your work. You no doubt have talent but how dare you compare yourself to me? You think I am afraid of you. Ha! Let's have this competition and everyone can see how much better I am than you.
Arachne: Finally! I thought you must have been too afraid to come here, but now that you are let us not waste any more time. Let me compete with you and show you that I have more talent.
The both of them did not waste any more time and sat in their corners. It was a huge room with comfortable chairs for them to sit on. There were lots of paintings and pictures scattered throughout the room for the guests to admire. The walls were painted a pale yellow and there was even a table with some flowers on it for decoration. There was also a huge window that let the sunlight in and kept the wind flowing in the room. They had unlimited supplies and time. They both started worked on their tapestry quickly and everyone around them was just mesmerized with their work. You could barely see their fingers move since they were so fast. The treads kept disappearing into the work and reappearing in their basket. Athena had the twelve gods featured on hers, along with their special characteristics. In the four corners she showed what happens to the fate of those that decide to challenge the gods and goddesses.
Arachne, on the other hand, had the crimes that the gods and goddesses had committed towards the humans. She showed how their actions ruined the lives of humans and yet they continued to do so.
Ovid's Metamorphoses Book 5-7 by Tony Kline (2000)
Author's Note: This story is how the original story goes except that in the end Arachne tries to hang herself. Athena out of pity decides to turn her into a spider and she continues to weave webs forever. I just added more details in there about how this happened and even a couple of conversations between Athena and Arachne. I did not really change anything except that I left the end out of my story. Sometimes I think it is better to leave things to the imagination than to say everything about the story. I also wanted people to imagine their own endings and see what they could come up with for this situation. I chose this image because it accurately showed the scene and what happened in the competition. There were people that came to watch the competition surrounding the two competitors, leaving all of their work behind just to see what would happen between the two. They wanted to see how this would end between the human that was great at weaving and a goddess that know known for weaving.
After reading this, I feel like I have read the original story, but I'm not sure if I have. I really liked how Arachne put the destruction the gods have caused the humans in her tapestry. I felt like that was a great way to end that part of the story. You had great imagery in this story, and I really enjoyed the dialogue you had between Arachne and the old lady.
ReplyDeleteHi Shruti! Amazing job on your story, it was very fun to read. My favorite part was the last paragraph because of how easy it was to picture the room and the situation because of how great you did at including so much detail. Since I have never read the original story, nor do I know what happens, I can't really compare your version to it, but I like how you kept the plot of the story pretty much the same. I also enjoyed the dialogue and think you did a great job representing each character's personality accurately.
ReplyDeleteYour dialogue is really good! I like the fast-paced wittiness of Ariadne, and also the scolding from Athena. I think it would benefit from having a little more formal language though like in the first paragraph where it says nymphs would leave their stuff. Maybe a more precise word would be better? I also am not sure if I really like the leaving the ending up to us idea. I am familiar with most of these Greek legends, so I already know what happens, but I'm interested in what you think would happen! I get that you want us to imagine, but since it's your retelling, you can put what you imagined! Good job with the writing though. Is there any reason why you used colons for the dialogue instead of the typical quotation marks? Not something I disliked, just wondering! Also, I think there is a typo in your author's note at the end (you repeat known twice). Anyway, great job!
ReplyDeleteHello Shruti,
ReplyDeleteThis was a story that I was previously unfamiliar with, so it certainly was nice to be exposed to new literature. With stories like this where I am unfamiliar with the source material I tend to read the author’s note first to gain a general understanding of what I am getting myself into. The author’s note was well written and prepared me for what direction the narrative of your story was going to take. I will say the additions you made to the original story were well done and effective in adding greater depth to the narrative. I especially like the change that you made to the end of the story I could not agree more that in some situations it is better to leave the ending of a story to the imagination of the reader rather than deciding the outcome for them. Overall a well written and enjoyable tale.