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September 21, 2006
Garden variety spin
Splendor in the grass! On my lawn I noticed a little wispy tent-like structure which closer examination revealed that it tapers into a funnel resembling a tornado. Peering deep inside, I saw a bug of some sort, so I ran inside for my camera. By the time I got outside, a spider had emerged, and stayed there long enough for me to get a half-decent photograph:
The spider was so feminine and graceful in appearance that it reminded me of Salvador Dali's painting of the half human spider Arachne:
The spider is Arachne, and here's Dante's text (from Purgatory 12): O fond Arachne! thee I also saw Dante populated the infernal regions with actual as well as mythological classical figures, and he's thought to have been sympathetic to Arachne, whose perfection got her in trouble with the gods. (Hence, she's in Purgatory and not in Hell.) Arachne was a embroiderer whose cleverness at weaving finally led to a spinning contest with the goddess Minerva, and Arachne's affront to the gods, which led Minerva to turn her into a spider: Arachne wove a picture designed to show the failings and errors of the gods. One scene showed Leda giving the swan a massage, the swan was really Jupiter in disguise. Another scene depicted Danae, in the brazen tower where her father had imprisoned her, but where the god effected his entrance in the form of a golden shower.(More here.) We've been calling spiders "arachnids" ever since. And then there's that fear thing. According to Wikipedia, female American arachnophobes outnumber their male counterparts by two to one. I'm wondering.... If the fear is an ancient one (after all, there's the Tarantella) it might represent a classical vestige funneling down over the centuries and taking the form of a modern phobia. This is the second time I've written about spiders, so I must be some sort of closet arachnophile. (Spin it any way you like.) posted by Eric on 09.21.06 at 07:02 PM |
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