1 post tagged “spider”

What is the meaning behind your birth name?
Submitted by turtlegod.

My given name is Alexandra.

I share it with the Greek prophet Alexandra, more commonly known as Cassandra, who spent a night in Apollo's temple. The snakes licked her ears clean, and because of this, she was able to forsee the future. Apollo fell in love with her, but she didn't love him back, and he placed a curse on her to prevent everybody from believing her prophecies.

There were many Alexanders in Czar Nicholas II's family, and it is from his maternal grandmother, Maria Alexandrovna of Heese-Darmstadt, that I take my name.

My grandmother nicknamed me Araña, the Spanish word for "spider."

I have since used it as an artistic pseudonym, and its roots are also found in Greek mythology.

Arachne was a master weaver in Athens, and she was so proud of her work that she boasted that her weaving was better than that of the goddess Athena. Athena transforms into an old lady and warns Arachne to respect the deities, but Arachne, true to mythological form, not only challenges the goddess herself to a weaving contest, she weaves a tapestry of the twenty-one episodes of the gods' infidelities. In one telling of the myth, Arachne hangs herself when she realizes her mistake. In others, Athena punishes the foolish girl by turning her into a spider.

Araña is also the alter ego of Anya Sofia Corazon, Marvel's latina female Spider-Woman.