The Spider Clotho spins for herself

PRETTILY shaped and clad, as far as a Spider can be, the Clotho Spider is, above all, a very clever spinstress. She is named after the Clotho of antiquity, the youngest of the Three Fates, who holds the distaff whence our destinies are spun. It is a pity that the Fate Clotho cannot spin as soft lives for us as the exquisite silk the Spider Clotho spins for herself!

If we would make the acquaintance of the Clotho Spider we must go up the rocky slopes in the olive-land, scorched and blistered by the sun, turn over the flat stones, those of a fair size, search, above all, the piles which the shepherds set up for a seat from which to watch the sheep browsing amongst the lavender below. Do not be too easily disheartened if you do not find her at first. The Clotho is rare; not every spot suits her. If we are lucky, we shall see, clinging to the lower surface of the stone which we have lifted, a queer-looking thing, shaped like the dome of a building turned upside down, and about half the size of a tangerine orange. The outside is hung with small shells, bits of earth, and, especially, dried insects.

The edge of the dome is scalloped into a dozen pointed scallops, the points of which spread and are fixed to the stone. A flat roof closes the top of the dwelling.

Where is the entrance? All the arches of the edge open upon the roof; not one leads inside. Yet the owner of the house must go out from time to time, if only in search of food; on returning from her expedition, she must go in again. How does she make her exits and her entrances? A straw will tell us the secret.

Pass it over the threshold of the various arches. It finds them all carefully closed, apparently. But one of the scallops, if cleverly coaxed, opens at the edge into two lips and stands slightly ajar. This is the door, which at once shuts again of its own elasticity. Nor is this all: the Spider, when she returns home, often bolts herself in; that is to say, she joins and fastens the two leaves of the door with a little silk.

The Clotho, when in danger, runs quickly home; she opens the chink with a touch of her claw, enters and disappears. The door closes of itself and is supplied, in case of need, with a lock consisting of a few threads. No burglar, on the outside of so many arches, one and all alike, will ever discover under which one the fugitive vanished so suddenly.

Let us open the Spider’s cabin. What luxury! We have read how the Princess in the fairy-tale was unable to rest, if there was a crumpled rose-leaf in her bed. The Clotho is quite as fastidious. Her couch is more delicate than swan’s-down and whiter than the fleece of clouds where brood the summer storms. It is the ideal blanket. Above is a canopy or tester of equal softness. Between the two nestles the Spider, short-legged, clad in somber garments, with five yellow favors on her back.

Rest in this exquisite retreat demands that it be perfectly steady, especially on gusty days, when sharp draughts creep under the stone dwelling. By taking a careful look at her we can see how the Spider manages this. The arches that bear the weight of the building are fastened to the stone at each end. Moreover, where they touch, you may see a cluster of diverging threads that creep along the stone and cling to it throughout their length, which spreads afar. I have measured some that were fully nine feet long. These are so many cables; they are like the ropes and pegs that hold the Arab’s tent in position.

Another detail attracts our attention: whereas the inside of the house is exquisitely clean, the outside is covered with dirt, bits of earth, chips of rotten wood, little pieces of gravel. Often there are worse things still: hung up or embedded are the dry carcasses of Beetles that favor under-rock shelters; parts of Thousand-legged Worms, bleached by the sun; snail-shells, chosen from among the smallest.

These relics are plainly, for the most part, table-leavings, broken victuals. Unskilled in laying traps, the Clotho lives upon the insects who wander from one stone to another. Whoever ventures under the slab at night is strangled by the hostess; and the dried-up carcass, instead of being flung to a distance, is hung to the silken wall, as though the Spider wished to make a bogey-house of her home. But this cannot be her aim. To act like the ogre who hangs his victim from the castle battlements is the worst way to disarm suspicion in the passers-by whom you are lying in wait to capture.

There are other reasons which increase our doubts. The shells hung up are most often empty; but there are also some occupied by the Snail, alive and untouched. What can the Spider do with these snail-shells wherein the animal retreats so far that she cannot reach it? The Spider cannot break the hard shell or get at the hermit through the opening. Then why should she collect these prizes, whose slimy flesh is probably not to her taste? We begin to suspect a simple question of ballast and balance. The House Spider prevents her web, spun in a corner of the wall, from losing its shape at the least breath of air, by loading it with crumbling plaster and allowing tiny fragments of mortar to accumulate. The Clotho Spider dumps down on her abode any more or less heavy object, mainly corpses of insects, because she need not look for these and finds them ready to hand after each meal. They are weights, not trophies; they take the place of materials that must otherwise be collected from a distance and lifted to the top. In this way, a breastwork is obtained that strengthens and steadies the house. Further balance is often given by tiny shells and other objects hanging a long way down. The Clotho knows the laws of balancing; by means of additional weights, she is able to lower the center of gravity and thus to give her dwelling the proper equilibrium and roominess.

Now what does she do in her softly-wadded home? Nothing, that I know of. With a full stomach, her legs luxuriously stretched over the down carpet, she does nothing, thinks of nothing; she listens to the sound of the earth revolving on its axis. It is not sleep, still less is it waking; it is a middle state where the Spider is conscious of nothing except that she is happy. We ourselves, when comfortably in bed, enjoy, just before we fall asleep, a few moments of bliss, when we neither think nor worry; and those moments are among the sweetest in our lives. The Clotho Spider seems to know similar moments and to make the most of them.