Arachne and the Poets. 2 1 1 



" So dangles o'er the brook, depending low 

 The spider artist, till propitious breeze 

 Buoy him athwart the stream : from shore to shore 

 He fastens his horizontal thread, 

 Sufficient bridge, and, traversing alert, 

 His fine spun radii flings from side to side, 

 Shapes his concentric circles without art, 

 And, all accomplish'd, couches in the midst, 

 Himself the centre of his flimsy toils." 



But some were in doubt (and I even suspect Southey), while 

 others undeniably held the theory that the "gossamer" was 

 condensed dew. That Spenser should speak of "the fine 

 nets of scorched dew " is not remarkable, nor that is it 

 Cowley ? should have : 



" Cobwebs that do fly 



In the blue air, caused by the autumnal sun 

 That boils the dew that on the earth doth lie. " 



Nor, perhaps, that Quarles should say 



' ' And now autumnal dews are seen 

 To cobweb every green." 



But when I find Thomson speaking of "the filmy threads of 

 dew evaporate," the superstition seems to me to have lived 

 too long, even among poets. 



As "gossamer " the poets perpetually admire the glistening 

 threads. But as cobwebs they abhor it, especially (which I 

 think delightfully poetic) when they remember it is spun 

 out of the insect's "bowels." Sometimes, as in Pope's 

 appreciative lines on " the spider's parallel designs," or 

 Crabbe's straightforward admiration of its diligent "geo- 

 metry," Arachne fares well at her wheel, but, as a rule, she 

 is considered sinister and treacherous : 



1 ' The subtle spider never spins 

 But on dark days her shiny gins ; " 



and her devices for securing food, so patiently worked out, 

 so admirably efficient when complete, are looked upon as 

 wicked frauds upon the confiding flies, snares for the inno- 



