An extremely important activity for women in ancient Greece was weaving. It was the most visible of women's contributions to the economic health of the oikos (household), but in addition acquired tremendous symbolic importance. Weaving became a metaphor for skill, craftiness, and ultimately for storytelling: the English word text derives from a Latin word meaning "something woven," and storytelling today is referred to as "spinning a yarn." These associations go all the way back to the earliest days of Greek literature, as the following passages from Homer illustrate. In the first, from Book Three of the Iliad (circa eighth—seventh centuries B.C.E.), Iris (messenger of the gods) has come to fetch Helen from her home:

She came on Helen in the chamber; she was weaving a great web, a red folding robe, and working into it the numerous struggles...