Spider told by the Roman poet Ovid in his "Metamorphoses", Arachne was a Lydian girl who challenged the goddess Athena to a weaving contest. Arachne won, but Athena destroyed her tapestry out of jealousy, causing Arachne to hang herself. In an act of mercy, Athena brought Arachne back to life as the first spider. Stories about the trickster-spider Anansi are prominent in the folk traditions of the Asante people of Ghana. In some cultures, spiders have symbolized patience due to their hunting technique of setting webs and waiting for prey, as well as mischief and malice due to their venomous bites.
A Noiseless Patient Spider most important, examples occurs on the first line: “A noiseless patient spider.” This visual image brings pictures of a small, perfectly still, spider sitting in its web. The image of the motionless spider, completely alone and isolated, as painted in the first three lines of the poem introduces the idea that the speaker feels alone in the world. The image of the “vacant vast surrounding” hints at the speaker’s possible doubts about the meaning of life. If the spider is the speaker’s soul, then the surroundings should be the rest of the universe, and if the rest of the universe