"You weave and sew as if the great Minerva herself had taught you her arts," a Nymph said timidly to Arachne.
The girl's face flushed with anger. It was true that the goddess Minerva who presided over the arts that women need to know, spinning, weaving and needlework, had taught Arachne her skill, but the girl was vain and always denied it.
"My skill is my own," she replied. "Let Minerva try to compete with me and if she is able to finish a rarer piece of work than mine, I am willing to pay any penalty."
It was a thoughtless, daring boast which Arachne had made. As she spoke the leaves of the trees fluttered, for the Nymphs, frightened at a mortal's presumption, were moving away from Arachne. She looked up and in their place saw an old dame standing beside her.
"Challenge your fellow mortals, my child," she said, "but do not try to compete with a goddess. You ought to ask Minerva's forgiveness for your rash words."
Arachne tossed her head in disdain.
"Keep your counsel," she replied, "for your hand-maidens. I know what I say and I mean it. I am not afraid of the goddess. I repeat it; let Minerva try her skill with mine if she dare venture."
"She comes!" said the old dame, dropping her disguise and appearing before Arachne in the shining silver mail of the goddess Minerva.
Arachne grew pale with fear at first, but her presumption overcame her fear. Her heart was full of her foolish conceit and she set a new piece of work on her loom as Minerva produced a second loom, and the contest began. They attached the web to the beam and began tossing their slender shuttles in and out of the threads. They pushed the woof up into place with their fine reeds until the fabric was compact. Then the needlework was begun.
Arachne, though, had decided to work something that was forbidden by the gods. She was going to use her skill of hand and all her art for evil instead of good.
She began embroidering a picture that would be displeasing to the gods, and she was able to make it seem as if it were alive, because of the figures and scenes she could outline with her needle and fill in with her colored wools. The picture Arachne embroidered was that of the fair Princess Europa tending her father's herds of cattle beside the sea. One of the bulls seemed so tame that Europa mounted his back, and he plunged into the sea with her and carried her far away from her native shores to Greece. Arachne pictured this bull as the great god Jupiter.
Minerva's embroidery was of a very different pattern from this. She was the goddess of wisdom and her gift from Mount Olympus to the earth had been the beautiful olive tree that gave mortals shade, and fruit, and oil, and wood for their building. Minerva stitched the pattern of a green olive tree on the tapestry she was embroidering.
Among the leaves of the olive tree Minerva embroidered a butterfly. It seemed to live and flutter in and out among the olives. One could almost touch the velvet nap that lay on its wings and the silk down which covered its back; there were its broad, outstretched horns, its gleaming eyes, its glorious colors. Minerva's workmanship was more wonderful than Arachne could ever hope to learn. As they finished she knew that she was outdone.
Minerva looked at Arachne's tapestry, woven of pride and a desire for vain conquest. It could not be allowed to stand beside hers that showed the gift of life to man in the olives and such beauty as that of the butterfly. The goddess struck Arachne's tapestry with her shuttle and tore it in pieces.
Arachne was suddenly filled with an understanding of how she had wasted her skill, and she longed to get away from all sight and sound of her weaving. A vine trailed down to the ground from a near by tree. Arachne twisted it about her body and tried to pull herself up by it to the tree, but Minerva would not allow this. She touched Arachne's form with the juices of aconite and at once her hair came off, and her nose and her ears as well. Her body shrank and shrivelled and her head grew smaller. Her fingers fastened themselves to her side and served for legs. She hung from the vine which changed to a long gray thread.
Arachne, the skilful weaver of Greece, was changed to Arachne, the spider of the forest. Through all the centuries since then she has been spinning her fragile threads and weaving her frail webs that a breath of wind, even, can destroy.
THE HERO WITH A FAIRY GODMOTHER 
The prince who was the hero of one of your favorite once-upon-a-time stories was quite sure to have had a fairy godmother to watch over his ways and help in bringing his adventures to success. But Hercules, the Great, of old Greece than whom we have never known a greater hero, had two fairy godmothers. They were not known by exactly that name in the days when the myths were made, but there were two very powerful goddesses who presided over Hercules' destiny, and the odd thing about it was that no one knew which of these was the more important.
Hercules began life just like any other baby except that his father was the mighty Jupiter, a fact which made everyone expect a great deal of him. And just as used to happen in your old fairy tales, he had enemies because of his noble birth. One of these was the goddess, Juno.
Hercules lay in his cradle one day before he was able to walk even, and he suddenly saw something that would have frightened anyone much older than he. On each side of his cradle there appeared the green, hissing head of a huge serpent, their poisonous fangs thrust out to sting this child of the gods to death. Hercules' attendants ran away in terror not daring to give fight to the vipers, but he reached out his tiny hands, gripped a serpent in each by its throat and strangled them.
People began to look at Hercules in wonder after that. They watched him grow up, just like any other boy except that his limbs were stronger and his muscles harder than those of the average boy of Greece. There were still those who admired him and those who hated him, knowing that he was, really, the son of a god. So his enemies put Hercules in charge of a kind of tutor named Eurystheus who was under orders to give him the most impossible tasks to try and perform.
"The lad will fail and then we shall be well rid of him," the goddess Juno, who particularly disliked Hercules, said.
Hercules began life in a part of Greece that was known as the valley of Nemea. It was a place of olive orchards and fruit trees and fields of grain, but the terror of the place was the Nemean lion who lived close by in the fastness of the hills. There had never been known so huge a lion, with such wide, blood thirsty jaws. Eurystheus ordered Hercules to bring him the tawny hide of this monster.
"How shall I slay the Nemean lion?" Hercules asked.
"With your arrows and your club," Eurystheus replied carelessly, but he knew that no arrows in all Greece could pierce the lion's skin and that Hercules' club, made of a stout young tree, would also be powerless against the beast.
"Hercules will never return," the people of the valley said to each other as they watched the young hero start out boldly toward the hills.
But he returned the next day, as fresh and untroubled as when he had started, with the hide of the Nemean lion slung over his shoulder.
"Are yours magic arrows, and is your club charmed as well?" the youths who were Hercules' friends asked, crowding around him.
"I killed the lion with my hands alone, grasping him about his throat,"
Hercules explained to them.
Eurystheus, listening on the edge of the crowd, frowned at these words.
"I must plan a greater labor for him," he thought.
There was a rich and beautiful city of Greece named Argos, but a fearful monster called the Hydra infested a swamp just outside it and one never knew when it would descend upon the well that supplied the people with pure water. It had nine heads and one of these was immortal, so the rumor went.
"Go to Argos and kill the Hydra," Eurystheus commanded Hercules.
Hercules was ready to dare this adventure. He started out again with no other arms than he had carried before and when he came to the well of Argos which kept the country from drought, he found the Hydra stationed there. Going up to it, Hercules struck off one of its heads with his club. What was his surprise to see two heads grow in the place of this one! It was going to be a task to destroy this creature, Hercules understood, as he laid on with his club against the menacing and increasing heads, hitting right and left and with no time between his telling blows. He struck off all of the Hydra's heads at last except the undying one. Finally Hercules thought of a plan for destroying this. He wrenched it off with his mighty hands and buried it deeply underneath a rock.
"Hercules shall be put to a task he will not like so well as encountering wild beasts," Eurystheus decided then. "He shall clean the Augean stables. We will see if a son of the gods has the will to accomplish that labor."
This was indeed a labor with very little of the spirit of adventure in it. Old King Augeus, of Elis in Greece had a herd of three thousand cattle and their stalls in his many stables had not been cleaned for thirty years. The cattle, all of them of blooded stock, were dying off because they were not properly cared for, and there was no hero of the king's train but felt the work of cleaning the stables to be too menial for him.
Hercules had no such thought as this, however. He was ready to attempt the labor; his only idea was how to accomplish it, and thoroughly. At last he had a very novel idea.
There were scarcely any of the lesser gods of outdoors who had not, by this time, felt the strength of Hercules. There had been the river god who took delight in leading the waters of the streams over their banks and inundating the farms in the spring when the fields had just been planted. Hercules had wrestled with this river god and had broken off one of his horns, on account of which he had to keep the streams between their banks. Hercules made up his mind that he would take advantage of his power over the river god in his present need.
So what did Hercules do but lead the courses of two streams, the Alpheus and the Peneus, right through the Augean stables cleansing them thoroughly. When he finished this labor, the result was so fine that he had quite as much reason to be proud of it as he had over his other prowess. It was as splendid to use one's strength in cleaning as in any other way, Hercules discovered.
He went on from one adventure to another with the years, always successful although everyone prophesied that some day his strength would fail and he would have to give up. Eurystheus wanted a new yoke of oxen, and none would do except those who lived in the land of the setting sun, in the western part of Greece and were guarded by a giant who had three bodies. Hercules set out for the place and when he reached it he discovered that not only the giant, but a huge dog that had two heads guarded the oxen. Hercules killed the giant and his dog and drove the oxen home to Eurystheus.
Victor over wild beasts and giants, and able to accomplish any work which he attempted! What labor was there left for this son of Mount Olympus? Eurystheus knew. He sent Hercules on what seemed indeed a wild goose search. He commanded him to bring back to Greece the golden apples of the Hesperides without telling him where they were to be found.
They were very plump and beautiful apples made altogether of solid gold.
It is said that they were the first oranges the world had ever known.
However that may be the Greeks wanted them very much. Juno had received them for a wedding present from the goddess of Earth, and had hung some on a golden tree in the fair garden of the daughters of Hesperis who kept a dragon to guard them. It would have been a task to pick them even if one had known where to go for them. Hercules started out, though, without route or chart and it was the most difficult of all his adventures.
He met Antaeus, a son of the Earth, who was a mighty giant and wrestler.
Hercules encountered this son of the Earth and threw him countless times, but each time the giant rose from the ground with renewed strength. It was like magic, but Hercules found out at last the secret of Antaeus' strength, as you, also, will in the next story, and did battle with him. Then, on went Hercules, for the Earth could no longer stop him, and after awhile he found himself at Mount Atlas in Africa.
The bent old giant, Atlas, stood on the top of this, holding up the sky on his shoulders. He was as ancient as the mountain itself and doomed by the gods to stand there through the seasons and never go home to the garden of the Hesperides where his daughters lived.
"If you will but bring me the golden apples of the Hesperides, old Atlas, I will take your place on the mountain top for a space,"
Hercules said to the giant.
"The sky is heavier than you imagine, my son," Atlas replied. "I doubt if you can bear it."
"Let me but try," Hercules urged him.
So Atlas shifted the burden of the heavens from his shoulders to those of Hercules and the hero held them securely. When Atlas returned, his arms full of the precious golden balls, Hercules still held the sky as if he scarcely felt its weight. Atlas wanted to have him hold it always, but Hercules was of no mind to do that. He gave back his load to Atlas and took the apples of the Hesperides home to Greece.
Hercules had conquered the earth even in this last adventure, and it seemed as if there was no great deed left for this hero. But he continued using his mighty strength, even to descending to Pluto's realm of darkness and bringing back the heroic Theseus who was a prisoner there. At last even his enemies on Mount Olympus were forced to grant him a place of honor in their midst and Jupiter wrapped him in a cloud and sent a four horse chariot to bring him home along the road of the stars. When Hercules reached the Olympian Heights it is said that old Atlas bent still lower with the weight on his shoulders, for this hero had added new strength to the heavens.
But how about those two goddesses, you ask, who presided like fairy godmothers over the destiny of Hercules? The ancients asked that same question, and Hercules answered it just before Jupiter called him away from Greece.
One of these goddesses was named Virtue, and the other Pleasure, but it was the first whom Hercules followed all his life.
[2]THE PYGMIES.
A great while ago, in the days of the myths, there lived an earth-born Giant named Antaeus, and a race of little earth-born people who were called Pygmies. This Giant and these Pygmies, being children of the same Mother Earth, lived together in a very friendly way far off in the middle of hot Africa.
It must have been very curious to behold the Pygmies' little cities with streets two or three feet wide paved with the smallest pebbles and bordered by habitations about as big as a squirrel's cage. If one of the Pygmies grew to the height of six or eight inches he was reckoned a prodigiously tall man and there were so many sandy deserts and high mountains between them and the rest of mankind that nobody could get a peep at them oftener than once in a hundred years.
The king's palace was about as tall as a dolls' house and this and the rest of their houses were built neither of stone or wood. They were neatly plastered together by the Pygmy workmen, pretty much like birds'
nests, out of straw, feathers, egg shells, and other bits of small stuff with stiff clay instead of mortar. And when the sun had dried them they were just as snug and comfortable as a Pygmy could desire.
Their giant friend, Antaeus, was so very tall that he carried a pine tree for a walking stick. It took a far-sighted Pygmy to see the top of his head on a cloudy day. But at noonday, when the sun shone brightly over him, Antaeus presented a very grand spectacle. There he used to stand, a perfect mountain of a man, with his great countenance smiling down on his little brothers and his one eye, which was as big as a cart wheel and placed right in the centre of his forehead, giving a friendly wink to the whole nation at once. In spite of the difference in their size, it seemed as if Antaeus needed the Pygmies for his friend as much as they did him for the protection he was to them. No creature of his own size had ever talked with him. When he stood with his head among the clouds, he was quite alone and had been so for hundreds of years and would be forever. Even if he had met one of the other Giants, Antaeus would have fancied the earth not large enough for them both and would have fought with him. But with the Pygmies he was the most merry and sweet tempered old Giant who ever washed his face in a cloud.
The Pygmies had but one thing to trouble them in the world. They were constantly at war with the cranes. From time to time very terrible battles had been fought in which sometimes the little men were victorious and sometimes the cranes. When the two armies joined battle, the cranes would rush forward, flapping their wings, and would perhaps snatch up some of the Pygmies crosswise in their beaks. It was truly an awful spectacle to see the little men kicking and sprawling in the air and then disappearing down the crane's crooked throat, swallowed alive.
If Antaeus observed that the battle was going hard with his little allies, he ran with mile-long strides to their rescue, flourishing his club and shouting at the cranes who quacked and croaked and retreated as fast as they could.
One day the mighty Antaeus was lolling at full length among his friends. His head was in one part of the kingdom and his feet in another and he was taking what comfort he could while the Pygmies scrambled over him and played in his hair. Sometimes, for a minute or two, the Giant dropped to sleep and snored like the rush of a whirlwind. During one of these naps a Pygmy climbed upon his shoulder and took a view around the horizon as from the summit of a hill. Suddenly he saw something, a long way off, that made him rub his eyes and looked sharper than before. At first he mistook it for a mountain and then he saw the mountain move. As it came nearer, what should it turn out to be but a human shape, not so large as Antaeus, but an enormous figure when compared with the Pygmies.
The Pygmy scampered as fast as his legs would carry him to the Giant's ear and, stooping over, shouted in it, 
"Brother Antaeus, get up this minute! Take your walking stick in your hand for here comes another Giant to do battle with you!"
"Pooh, pooh!" grumbled Antaeus, only half awake. "None of your nonsense, my little fellow. Don't you see that I am sleepy? There is not another Giant on earth for whom I would take the trouble to get up."
But the Pygmy looked again and now perceived that the stranger was coming directly toward the prostrate form of Antaeus. There he was, with the sun flaming on his golden helmet and flashing from his polished breastplate. He had a sword by his side, and a lion's skin over his back, and on his right shoulder he carried a club which looked bulkier and heavier than the pine-tree walking stick of Antaeus.
By this time the whole nation of Pygmies had seen the new wonder and a million of them set up a shout all together, 
"Get up, Antaeus! Bestir yourself, you lazy old Giant. Here comes another Giant, as strong as you are, to fight with you."
"Nonsense," growled the sleepy Giant. "I'll have my nap out, come who may."
Still the stranger drew nearer, and now the Pygmies could plainly discern that, if his stature were less lofty than the Giant's, yet his shoulders were even broader. What a pair of shoulders they must have been, for they were, later, to uphold the sky! So the Pygmies kept shouting at Antaeus, and even went so far as to prick him with their swords. Antaeus sat up, gave a yawn that was several yards wide, and finally turned his stupid head in the direction in which the little people pointed.
No sooner did he set eye on the stranger than, leaping to his feet and seizing his walking stick, he strode a mile or two to meet him, all the while brandishing the sturdy pine-tree so that it whistled through the air.
"Who are you?" thundered the Giant, "and what do you want in my domain?
Speak, you vagabond, or I'll try the thickness of your skull with my walking-stick."
"You are a very discourteous Giant," answered the stranger quietly, "and I shall probably have to teach you a little civility before we part. As for my name, it is Hercules. I have come hither because this is my most convenient road to the garden of the Hesperides, where I am going to get some of the golden apples for King Eurystheus."
"Then you shall go no farther!" bellowed Antaeus, for he had heard of the mighty Hercules and hated him because he was said to be so strong.
"I will hit you a slight rap with this pine-tree, for I would be ashamed to kill such a puny dwarf as you appear. I will make a slave of you, and you shall likewise be the slave of my brothers here, the Pygmies. So throw down your club. As for that lion's skin you wear, I intend to have a pair of gloves made of it."
"Come and take it off my shoulders then," answered Hercules, lifting his club.
At that Antaeus, scowling with rage, strode, towerlike, toward the stranger and gave a mighty blow at him with his pine-tree, which Hercules caught upon his club; and, being more skilful than the Giant, he paid him back such a rap that down tumbled the poor man-mountain flat upon the ground. But no sooner was the Giant down than up he bounded, aiming another blow at Hercules. But he was blinded with his wrath and only hit his poor, innocent Mother Earth, who groaned and trembled at the stroke. His pine tree went so deep into the ground that before Antaeus could get it out, Hercules brought his club down over his shoulders with a mighty whack which made the Giant let out a terrible roar. Away it echoed, over mountains and valleys. As for the Pygmies, their capital city was laid in ruins by the vibration it made in the air.
But Antaeus scrambled to his feet again and succeeded in pulling his pine-tree out of the earth. He ran at Hercules, and brought down another blow.
"This time, rascal!" he shouted, "you shall not escape me."
But once more Hercules warded off the stroke with his club, and the Giant's pine-tree was shattered to a thousand splinters. Before Antaeus could get out of the way, Hercules let drive again, and gave him another knock-down blow. Then, watching his opportunity as the Giant rose again, Hercules caught him round the middle with both hands, lifted him high into the air, and held him aloft.
But the most wonderful thing was that, as soon as Antaeus was off the earth, he began to lose the vigor that it now appeared he had gained by touching it. Hercules soon discovered that his enemy was growing weaker, both because he kicked and struggled with less violence, and because the thunder of his big voice subsided to a grumble. The truth was that, unless the Giant touched Mother Earth as often as once in five minutes, not only his overgrown strength, but the very breath of his life would depart from him. Hercules had guessed this secret; it may be well for us all to remember it in case we should ever have to fight with a fellow like Antaeus. For these earth-born Giants are not only difficult to conquer on their own ground but may easily be managed if we can contrive to lift them into a loftier and purer region.
When Antaeus' strength and breath were gone, Hercules gave his huge body a toss and flung it a mile off where it lay heavily with no more motion than a sand hill. His ponderous form may be lying in the same spot to-day, and might be mistaken for those of an uncommonly large elephant.
What a wailing the poor little Pygmies set up when they saw their enormous brother treated in this terrible way! As soon as they saw Hercules preparing for a nap, they nodded their little heads at one another and winked their little eyes. And when he had closed his eyes the whole Pygmy nation set out to destroy the hero.
A body of twenty thousand archers marched in front with their little bows all ready and their arrows on the string. The same number were ordered to clamber on Hercules, some with spades to dig his eyes out, and others with bundles of hay to plug up his mouth and nostrils. These last could not harm him at all, for as soon as he snored he blew out the hay and sent the Pygmies flying before the hurricane of his breath. It was found necessary to hit upon some other way of carrying on the war.
After holding a council, the captains ordered their troops to collect sticks, straws and dry weeds and heap them around the head of Hercules.
The archers, meanwhile, were stationed within bow shot with orders to let fly at Hercules the instant that he stirred. Everything being in readiness, a torch was applied to the pile which immediately burst into flames and soon waxed hot enough to roast Hercules. A Pygmy, you know, though so very small, might set the world on fire just as easily as a Giant could.
But no sooner did Hercules begin to be scorched than up he started.
"What's all this?" he cried, and staring about him as if he expected another Giant.
At that moment the twenty thousand archers twanged their bow strings and the arrows came whizzing like so many mosquitoes. Hercules gazed around, for he hardly felt the arrows. At last, looking narrowly at the ground, he espied the Pygmies at his feet. He stooped down and taking up the nearest one between his thumb and finger, set him on the palm of his left hand and looked at him.
"Who in the world, my little fellow, are you?" Hercules asked.
"I am your enemy," answered the Pygmy. "You have slain the Giant, Antaeus, our brother by our mother's side, and we are determined to put you to death."
Hercules was so amused by the Pygmy's big words and warlike gestures that he burst into laughter and almost dropped the poor little mite of a creature off his hand.
"Upon my word," he said, "I thought I had seen wonders before to-day, hydras with many heads, three headed dogs, and giants with furnaces in their stomachs, but you outdo them all. Your body, my little friend, is about the size of an ordinary man's finger. Pray, how big may your soul be?"
"As big as your own," said the Pygmy.
Hercules was amazed at the little man's courage, and so he left the Pygmies, one and all, in their own country, building their little houses, waging their little warfare with the cranes, and doing their little business whatever it might have been.