Moirae
In
Greek mythology, the white-robed
Moirae or
Moerae (
Greek Μοίραι — the "Apportioners", often called the
Fates) were the personifications of
destiny (
Roman equivalent:
Parcae, "sparing ones", or
Fata; also equivalent to the
Germanic Norns). They controlled the metaphorical thread of life of every mortal and immortal from birth to death (and
beyond). Even the gods feared the Moirae.
Zeus himself may be subject to their power, as the Pythian priestess at
Delphi once admitted. The Greek word moira () literally means a part or portion, and by extension one's portion in life or destiny.
H.J. Rose writes that
Nyx ("Night") was also the mother of the Moirae as she was of the
Erinyes, in the
Orphic tradition.
The three Moirae were:
*
Clotho (
pronounced in English , Greek — "spinner") spun the thread of life from her distaff onto her spindle. Her Roman equivalent was
Nona, (the 'Ninth'), who was originally a goddess called upon in the ninth month of
pregnancy.
*
Lachesis (, Greek — "allotter" or drawer of lots) measured the thread of life with her rod. Her Roman equivalent was
Decima (the 'Tenth').
*
Atropos (, Greek — "inexorable" or "inevitable", sometimes called
Aisa) was the cutter of the thread of life. She chose the manner of a person's death. When she cut the thread with "her abhorrèd shears", someone on Earth died. Her Roman equivalent was
Morta ('Death').
The Moirae were supposed to appear three nights after a child's birth to determine the course of its life. The Greeks variously claimed that they were the daughters of
Zeus and the
Titaness
Themis or of primordial beings like
Nyx,
Chaos or
Ananke.
 |
The Moirae, as depicted in an early 16th century tapestry, standing over the fallen body of Chastity. |
In earlier times, the Moirae were represented as only a few - perhaps only one - individual goddess.
Homer's
Iliad speaks generally of the Moera, who spins the thread of life for men at their birth (xxiv.209) or, earlier in the same book (line 49), of several Moerae. In the
Odyssey (vii.197) there is a reference to the Klôthes, or Spinners. At Delphi, only the Fates of Birth and Death were revered. In Athens,
Aphrodite, who had an earlier, pre-Olympic existence, was called
Aphrodite Urania the 'eldest of the Fates' according to
Pausanias (x.24.4).
The Moirae existed on the deepest
European mythological level. It is difficult to separate them from the
Norns, the similar age-old fates, older than the gods, of a separate Indo-European tradition. Some Greek mythographers went so far as to claim that the Moirae were the daughters of
Zeus— paired with either
Ananke or, as
Hesiod had it in one passage,
Themis or
Nyx: was providing a
father even for the Moirae a symptom of how far Greek mythographers were willing to go, in order to modify the old myths to suit the
patrilineal Olympic order? The claim was certainly not acceptable to
Aeschylus,
Herodotus, or
Plato.
The Moirae were usually described as cold, remorseless and unfeeling, and depicted as old crones or hags. The independent
spinster has inspired fear rather than matrimony. "This sinister connotation we inherit from the spinning goddess," write Ruck and Staples. See
weaving (mythology).
Despite their forbidding reputation, Moirae could be worshipped as goddesses. Brides in
Athens offered them locks of hair and women swore by them. They may have originated as birth-goddesses and only later acquired their reputation as the agents of destiny.
The Moirae can be compared with the three spinners of
Destiny in northern Europe, the
Norns or the Baltic goddess
Laima and her two sisters, also
spinning goddesses.
The three witches encountered by
Macbeth on the heath, or even
Granny Weatherwax from
Terry Pratchett's
Discworld are loosely based on the Moirae.
Compare the
Graeae, another set of three old sisters in Greek mythology.
The
Fates (
Parcae or
Moirae) make regular appearances in
market-driven culture, produced to appeal to a
mass market. The presence of the Fates lends an atmosphere of depth and universality to some productions of market-driven contemporary culture. Alternatively, they may be introduced with a
mock-heroic sense of
parody.
*
In an episode of
Sabrina the Teenage Witch, the Fates are represented by three young women who control people's destinies.
* In Disney's
Hercules, when Hades wishes to know the future, he consults the Fates, who share a single eye between them, a feature of the
Graeae of
Greek mythology.
* In the popular cult comic book series
"The Sandman (DC Comics/Vertigo)", by
Neil Gaiman, the Fates are also the Furies and Hyppolita Hall is their descendant, which allows her to assume these roles.
* The Moirae are depicted in the beginning of the Korean
manhwa series Ragnarök
* In Stephen King's 1994
Insomnia, the Moirae are depicted in the form of three doctors who visit people at the end of their life to cut their thread. Atropos is depicted as a creature of Random while the other two are workers of Fate.
*In
Nagano Mamoru's
Five Star Stories (a space opera manga), the master fatima meight
Chrome Ballanche named his last three masterpiece fatimas after the Greek Fates, Atropos, Lachesis, and Clotho.
* cf. H.J. Rose,
Handbook of Greek Mythology, p.24
*
Harry Thurston Peck,
Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, 1898. [
1]
*
Robert Graves,
Greek Myths*
Jane Ellen Harrison,
Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion 1903. Chapter VI, "The Maiden-Trinities"
* Herbert Jennings Rose,
Handbook of Greek Mythology, 1928.
*
Carl Ruck and
Danny Staples,
The World of Classical Myth, 1994.
*
William Smith,
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, 1870, article on Moira, [
2]
*
Information on the Moirae at a Greek Mythology website
