"Arachne had the effrontery to challenge Athena to a tapestry competition. The cloth she wove showed Europa being carried off by the bull: you could see the girl's feet drawing back fearfully from the water. It showed Leda beneath the wings of a swan. It showed Danae under a shower of gold. It showed Asteria in the clutches of an eagle, and it also showed Erigone who Dionysus tricked with his grapes (falsa deceperit uva). Not a word more did Ovid give us. But out of a sense of self defiance, Arachne's cloth included only stories that would bring shame to the god's.
What does that mean? Arachne wove a cloth of all the terrible things that the god's had done to mortals. Much different from the cloth that Athena had wove. Athena had chosen to do a cloth that showed the mortals disrespecting the god's and punishment.
Arachne had challenged Athena to the contest but alas Athena had finished first. But Athena became enraged at seeing the cloth Arachne had wove. She sliced it in half in a fit of rage. Arachne would not be insulted like that so she got a rope and hung herself.
Athena would not let things be so easy.She felt pity for Arachne. She touched Arachne on the shoulder and said " Live on, Weave on" and turned Arachne into a spider. Forever weaving no longer human.
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