Fates

The three Moiras. Relieve, tomb of Alexander von der Mark, by Johann Gottfried Schadow. Old National Gallery, Berlin

In Greek mythology, the Moirai (in ancient Greek, Μοῖραι Moîrai 'deliverers') were the personifications of destiny. Their equivalents in Roman mythology were the Fates or Fatae, the Laimas in Baltic mythology and the Norns in Norse mythology. Dressed in white robes and with an imperturbable countenance, their number ended up settling at three.

The Greek word moira (μοῖρα) means 'fate', 'part', 'lot' and 'lot'. or 'portion', in reference to its function of distributing to each mortal the part of existence and works that correspond to him in the future of the cosmos. They controlled the metaphorical thread of life of every human being from birth to death, and even after in Hades.

Mythology

In principle, the Fates were conceived as indeterminate and abstract divinities, perhaps even as a single goddess. In Homer's Iliad it is generally spoken of "the Moira", who spins the thread of life for men at their birth (μοῖρα κραταιή, moîra krataiḗ: 'mighty Moira'). In the Odyssey there is a reference to the Klôthes (Κλῶθές) or spinners. In Delphi only two were worshiped: the moira of birth and death. In Athens, the goddess Aphrodite was considered the greatest of them in her aspect of Aphrodite Urania, according to Pausanias's Description of Greece.

Once their number had been established at three, the names and attributes of the Fates were fixed:

• Clothing (Κλωθ, ‘hilandera’) spun the work of life with a spine and a spine. Its Roman equivalent was Nona, originally invoked in the ninth month of gestation.
• Laquesis (χάεσις, ‘the one that casts lots’) measured with its rod the length of the thread of life. Its Roman equivalent was Décima, analogous to Nona.
• Atropes (,τροπος, ‘inexorable’ or ‘inevitable’, literally ‘not turning’, sometimes called AisaIt was the one who cut the thread of life. He chose the way each man died, selecting the strand with his "detestable scissors" when the time came. Sometimes she was confused with Enio, one of the Grayas. Its Roman equivalent was Morta (‘Death’), and it is to whom the expression “the Plot” is referred in singular.

In the Greek tradition they appeared three nights after the birth of a child to determine the course of his life. Originally they could have been goddesses of childbirth, although this function would end up assumed by the deity of Minoan origin Ilithia; At the same time, the subsequent acquisition of their role as mistresses of destiny would link them and at the same time differentiate them from other divinities of death itself, such as Thanatos and the Keres. For this reason, and especially because of the predominant role of Atropos, the Fates inspired great fear and reverence, although they could be worshiped like other goddesses: Athenian brides offered them locks of hair and women swore by them.

A bilingual Eteocretan text has the Greek translation ομοσαι δαπερ ενορκίοισι (omosai d-haper enorkioisi, 'but it can swear [these] very things to the Oath-Keepers'). In Eteocretan this is written —S|TUPRMĒRIĒIA, where MĒRIĒIA can refer to the divinities known to the Hellenes as the Fates.

Various versions of the Fates existed in the earliest European mythological levels. It is impossible not to relate them to other Indo-European spinner goddesses of fate, such as the Norns in Norse mythology or the Baltic goddess Laima and her two sisters.

Zeus and the Fates

The three Moiras killing the giants Agrio and Toante. Details of a Pergam Altar frieze (Museum of Pergam, Berlin).

The Fates were also feared and respected by the gods. Zeus himself was subject to his designs, according to the words of the Pythian priestess of Delphi. Hesiod referred to them as "the Fates, whom the wise Zeus respected with the highest honors", although no classical work specifies to what extent the immortals themselves were subject to their dictates.

Contrary to this point, however, a supposed epithet for the king of the gods, Zeus Moiragetes ('Zeus Giver of Fate'), was embodied in the II by Pausanias following an inscription he saw at Olympia:

When you arrive at the starting point of car racing, there is an altar with the inscription "Alder of Destiny".

He also referred to the reliefs carved in the temple of Zeus in Megara, citing that "on the head of Zeus are the Horas and the Fates, and all can see that he is the only god obeyed by them." He also warned that there was a sanctuary of the Fates at the gates of Thebes, next to Zeus's; while the god's had a sculptural representation, the triad's did not.

The Greeks variously affirmed that the Fates were daughters of primordial beings such as Nix (Night), Chaos or Ananké (Necessity) —H. J. Rose writes that Nix was the mother of the Fates and the Erinyes in the Orphic tradition—but some later mythographers were so diametrically opposed as to claim that the Fates were daughters of Zeus, either along with Ananké or together with Themis (Justice) or Nix, as Hesiod points out in one passage,.

From the testimonies of Pausanias and from this second genealogical aspect, the pre-eminence of Zeus is inferred over the Fates and his power. This would not correspond to what has come down to us from the oldest cults and traditions, in which the Fates are presented to us as primordial or chthonic divinities outside the future and the will of the rest of the gods, inserted in the sphere of the pristine and immovable principles of the universe. It is probable that this approximation is due to an attempt to modify the original myths so that they fit with the later Olympian patriarchal system.

This position was not acceptable for Aeschylus, Herodotus or Plato either, who considered Zeus to know and administer the destiny of men as sovereign of the established order, but not the ultimate decider of it. Indeed, both he and the rest of the immortals could dispense happiness, afflictions, rewards and punishments to the human being; but often these would only respond to what was already established in advance by the Fates. In any case, what each man could or could not achieve throughout his existence, the time limit to it and his predetermined purpose were the exclusive competence of this trinity.

Representation

Three. MoirasOr the triumph of Death. Tapiz flamenco, 1520 d. C. approx., Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

They were commonly depicted as three hieratic, stern-looking, robed women: Clotho, carrying a distaff; lachesis, with a rod, a feather, or a globe of the world; and Atropos, with scissors or a scale.

On other occasions they are attributed the appearance of three old spinners, or three melancholic ladies (a maiden, a matron and an old woman, respectively). Shakespeare was inspired by this myth to create the three witches that appear in Macbeth, whose intervention is decisive in the fate of the protagonist.

This appearance of an old woman was also used in the sculpture Clotho (Camille Claudel) made in 1893 by Camille Claudel in which the youngest of these Fates is represented entangled in her own net.

In popular culture

• In his premier album, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the homonymous band dedicates an instrumental piece in three parts, called The Three Fates (The Three Plots), these mythological characters. The parts, written by Keith Emerson, are:
  • Clotho - The spinner of the thread.
  • Lachesis - She who measures the thread.
  • Atropos - The one who cuts the thread.