Ovid ended Book 5 of his Metamorphoses with the Muses telling Minerva stories. Book 6 opens with a story centred on Minerva that’s unique in its detail to Ovid, and is peculiarly relevant to his later banishment. Although relatively short, to my mind it is one of Ovid’s finest stories, and told particularly skilfully with wonderful ecphrases.

Minerva is still reflecting on the stories of the Muses, when it occurs to her that she should be praised rather than despised, and this leads to the story of the fate of Arachne, who was famous for her wool-craft. She had been born into a humble family: her mother had died when she was young, and her father dyed wool using Phocaean (Tyrian) purple. She became known throughout Lydia for her spinning, weaving, and embroidery in wool. When it was suggested that Minerva had taught her, she denied it and put out a challenge to the goddess to determine who was the better weaver.

Minerva disguised herself as a frail old woman and spoke to Arachne, suggesting that she should apologise to the goddess. But Arachne wasn’t swayed, and called on Minerva to rise to her challenge. At that point, Minerva revealed herself, and Arachne showed neither fear nor contrition.

Without delay, the two women set up their looms ready to weave. They girdled their robes tight below their breasts, and started weaving at a furious pace. Minerva weaved an image of the twelve major gods on their thrones, with miniatures in each corner, and an olive branch winding around its edges. Arachne’s woven images were less flattering to the gods, and included the rape of Europa, Leda and the swan, the rapes of Antiope, Danae, Mnemosyne, and of Proserpine. She also portrayed the deceptions of other gods including Phoebus, Bacchus, and Saturn.

Several of the surviving paintings show Arachne and Minerva at their looms, weaving like fury. Francesco del Cossa’s The Triumph of Minerva (1467-70) was chosen for the month of March in his fresco for the Room of the Months in the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara, Italy.

The trio of women in the foreground are engaged in allied crafts, including embroidery and sewing. Behind them are the two weavers working at what is shown as a single loom, the traditional boxwood shuttle just being inserted by the left hand of the woman at the right. They’re surrounded by a large group of women spectators.

This brilliant painting of Athena and Arachne (1543-44), originally thought to be by Tintoretto but most probably from his workshop, shows the two from a highly innovative angle. This gives excellent, and fiendishly hard to project, views of both figures, including their faces. Minerva at the left wears her traditional plumed helmet, here made to look more like a woman’s hat than a warrior’s helmet. She also holds a sickle in her right hand. Arachne is at the right with her robes tightened below the breasts, which are exposed, as Ovid described. Spectators are shown behind the loom, watching the contest in progress. Above Arachne’s head is a curious geometric construction that may have been used to wind wool after spinning.

Since 1928, it has been claimed that Velázquez’ Las Hilanderas (The Spinners) (c 1657) should be read as showing the myth of Arachne. Overlooking for the moment the women spinning in the foreground, the brightly-lit background scene makes this appear plausible.

But that ignores the fact that the five women in the foreground are not weaving at all, but spinning. The weaving being displayed, assumed to be a copy of the Titian or Rubens version of the Rape of Europa is quite different too, and Rubens’ oil sketch below shows a version that’s closer to those paintings.

Minerva was unable to find any fault with Arachne’s work, and incensed at her success she tore it up, and struck Arachne four times on her forehead with her shuttle. The craftswoman couldn’t take this, and tried to hang herself. Minerva lifted her body up to prevent her death, then transformed her into a spider, who has been weaving her web ever since.

Rubens’ surviving oil study of Pallas and Arachne (1636-7) advances the story in a more conventional view. In the foreground, the angry Minerva is striking Arachne on the forehead with the shuttle. To the right is one of the images woven by Arachne, showing Europa riding Jupiter disguised as a white bull, an image which Rubens was familiar with from Titian’s Rape of Europa (c 1560-62), copied so well by Rubens in 1628-29. However, the image shown here is quite different from either the original or its copy. Behind Minerva and Arachne, two women are sat at a loom, and it’s tempting to think that they too might represent the pair, in multiplex narrative. However, neither is dressed in red as is Arachne, leaving that question open.

René-Antoine Houasse’s Minerva and Arachne (1706) also takes an advanced scene from the story, with Minerva about to strike Arachne with the shuttle. Although there’s a basket of coloured wools suitable for weaving, just in front of Arachne’s feet, the looms and weavings aren’t shown.

My final depiction is an illustration from late in Walter Crane’s career, used to accompany children’s stories including this myth. Oddly for a children’s book, perhaps, Arachne is collapsed on the floor with a noose around her neck, and the weaving shown is decorative rather than artistic.

Ovid uses wordplay extensively, with arachne the Greek word for spider, whose Latin equivalent refers also to weaving, linking the woman’s name Arachne, weaving, and the spider tangled in a web of words.

After the publication of his Metamorphoses, Ovid was himself punished by banishment partly as a result of his writings, which had offended the Emperor Augustus. The poet’s sympathy for Arachne, who was transformed into a spider for her honest but offensive depictions of myths, seems strangely prescient.