Analysis Of Arachne And Minerva As A Didactic Work Of...

Crimes of Heaven: Defining â€Å"Arachne and Minerva† as a Didactic Work of Mythology An ancient prose narrative, all versions of â€Å"Arachne and Minerva† warn readers of the consequences facing those who disrespect the gods by recounting Athena’s actions when faced with mortal hubris. In studying prose narratives, William Bascom defined a valid myth as one: set in an earlier world, focused on a main character of a divine nature, and considered sacred and true by its original audience. Ovid’s â€Å"Arachne and Minerva† adheres to Bascom’s definition of a myth because it was viewed as a truthful account of the past, detailed the goddess Athena’s true process of addressing human disrespect, and focused the legitimate divine repercussions that follow†¦show more content†¦Bascom additionally notes that because they take place in an earlier time, a myth can, â€Å"...account for the origin†¦ of animals†¦ and the phenomena of nature,† (4). â€Å"Arachne and Minerva† takes an etiologically relates t he origin of spiders, created to curse Arachne, and explaining that they weave webs to remind her of her hubris (Sanan and van Loveren 153). For Bascom, a secondary qualification to be a valid myth is that, â€Å"their main characters are not usually human beings, but they often have human attributes, animals, deities, or culture heroes,† and here, Athena the goddess behaves like a person would (4). We see even the goddess of wisdom being prone to jealousy in Athena’s internal monologue, â€Å"‘To praise is not enough; I should have praise myself,’† proving even Athena can be affected by human hamartias like resentment (Ovid 1). Contrary to some religious ideals of an immaculate Demiurge, the Greek Pantheon mirrored the unpredictable nature of Greek society, and thus the gods had supernatural abilities paired with anthropomorphic personalities. This adds greater importance to Bascom’s criteria of deity characters with human attributes, because these trusted gods controlled lives of the Greek and Roman people, yet they were just as temperamental as humanity. Viewing the myth through a euhemeristic lens, it is even possible Arachne was a conceited weaver from a small