Fates, infernal goddesses whose function was to spin the thread of our days. Mistresses of the fate of men, they controlled their destinies. Everyone knows that they were three sisters, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, but Mythologists do not agree on their origin. Some consider them daughters of the Night and Erebus, others of Necessity and of Destiny, and yet others of Jupiter and Themis. [1] The Greeks called them μοῖραι, in other words the goddesses who distribute , because they mete out the events of our lives; [2] the Latins might have called them Parcae from the word parcus [fate], as if they were too thrifty in the dispensation of the lives of human beings, which always seem too short; in any case, this etymology is more natural than that of Varro, [3] and superior to the ridiculous antiphrasis of our grammarians, quod nemini parcant. [4]

Each one’s name specifies her different function; as the entire destiny of men that was said to be subject to the power of the Fates , referred to the time of birth, or that of life, or that of death; Clotho, the youngest of the three sisters, presided over the moment in which we come into the world, and held a distaff; Lachésis spun all the events of our lives; and Atropos cut the thread with scissors: all assisted births, in order to render themselves mistresses of the destiny of the child who was about to be born.

Lexicographers will tell you that Clothos comes from the Greek verb κλώθειν, to spin, Lachesis from λαγχάνειν, casting fates and Atropos from ἄτρεπτος, unchangeable , or even, who changes all, who overturns all: this name is well suited to the fate, who frequently inverts the order of things as when she removes people who by their youth or by their virtue, seemed worthy of a long life.

That is not all, the Poets paint for us according to the variety of their imaginations, this ministry of the Fates ; sometimes they exhort them to spin happy days for those whom Destiny wishes to favor; sometimes they assure us that they themselves prescribe the time that we must remain on the earth, sometimes the Poets teach us that they willfully make use of men’s own hands, to take the life of those whose destinies are fulfilled. According to Hesiod, [5] they are the absolute mistresses of all the good and all the bad that happens in the world. Other mythologists submit the Fates to the orders of Pluto; [6] but the more general opinion is that the Fates served under the orders of Destiny, to whom even the gods and Jupiter were subject.

The Philosophers in turn give the Fates different functions than those assigned to them by the Poets and the Mythologists. Aristotle said that Clotho presided over the present, Lachesis over the future, and Atropos over the past. [7] Plato represents these three goddesses in the middle of the celestial spheres with white cloaks covered with stars, wearing crowns on their heads, and sitting on shining thrones of light, where they give their voices to the song of sirens: it is there, said he, that Lachesis sings things of the past, Clotho those which arrive at every instant, and Atropos those which must arrive one day. [8] According to Plutarch, Atropos, placed in the sphere of the sun, spread here below the first principles of life; Clotho who made her residence in the moon, forms the eternal bonds, and Lachesis, whose stay is on the earth, presides over the destinies that govern us. [9]

These goddesses were represented under the guise of three women burdened by age, with crowns made of large flakes of white wool, interwoven with narcissus flowers; a white robe completely covered their bodies and ribbons of the same color formed their crowns; one held the distaff, the second the spindle, and the third the scissors for cutting the thread, when the moment of death, which Virgil calls the day of the Fates , would arrive. [10] The great age of these goddesses denotes, according to the Moralists, the eternity of the divine order: the distaff and the spindle taught that it was up to them to regulate its course, and the mysterious thread marked the little depth that one could make of a life that holds little. [11] They add that in order to spin long and happy days, the Fates used white wool, but they used black wool for a short and unhappy life: the crowns placed on their heads signified their absolute power over the universe.

Pausanias places near to the tomb of Eteocles and Polynices one of the three Fates , to whom he gave a fierce air, large teeth, crooked hands, in a word, a terrifying figure; this is in order to teach us that a more horrible destiny cannot be imagined than that of these two unhappy brothers, whose days were spun by the most barbarous of the Fates . [12]

But the same Pausanias names three very different Fates than those just spoken of. The first and the oldest, he says, is Venus – Uranus; [13] it was she, much more than Clothos who presided over the birth of man, following this dogma of the Pagan philosophy, that Love, the oldest of all the gods, is the link between all the principles of the world. The second Fate , says the same author, is named Tyche, or Fortune ,  [14] on the occasion of which he cites Pindar. [15] Ilithyia was the third. [16]

As the Fates passed for relentless goddesses whom it was impossible to sway, people did not believe that it was necessary to put out any expense to honor them, because one hardly celebrates those who only do the good that they cannot prevent themselves from doing for us; nevertheless they had a few temples in Greece. The Spartans built one to them in Sparta near the Tomb of Orestes. The Sicyonians dedicated another one to them in a sacred wood, where they offered them the same worship as to the Furies, in other words they sacrificed black sheep to them. In the city of Olympia, there was an alter consecrated to Jupiter, [17] controller of the Fates , near which these goddesses had another one, but if these types of homage were not capable of affecting them, maybe that which has been rendered to them by our modern poets would have more success, although Catullus assures us that no one ever came to bow to these relentless goddesses. [18]

Lanificas nulli très exorare sorores Contigit . [19]

Nevertheless Rousseau dares to try this undertaking and transporting himself to Hell in spirit, he begs the favor of the Fates for M. Le Comte du Luc, in verses that seem dictated by the tenderness of feeling.  [20] Here are the prayers that he addresses to them.

If you would like more details, read the dissertation of abbé Banier in the Mémoires des Inscriptions . [22]

Notes

1. Night, also known as Nyx is a Greek goddess, and wife to Erebus. She brought night to the world. See Theoi Greek Mythology. Erebus is the embodiment of primordial darkness. His mists of darkness enveloped the edges of the earth. See Encyclopedia Mythica. Necessity, or Ananke, is said to have emerged self-formed at the beginning of time. She is necessity or fate personified. She has been called the mother of the Fates, and possibly the only one to have any control over their destinies. For a complete profile see Gnostic Teachings. Destiny also most likely refers to Ananke, because when she is referred to as the mother of the Fates a consort is not named. See the section on “Ananke’s Kingdom” in Greek Mythology Link. Themis is the goddess of divine law and natural order personified. Her affiliation with divine law draws an important superiority over human ordinance. Rather than serving a term of imprisonment, Themis offered her services to Jupiter as a counselor of legal matters, thus resulting in their potential children. For more information see the tree of Olympian Gods in Greek Mythology.

2. Mete out: from the verb, regler : to control, to regulate. Keeping with the theme of “distribution,” as if one would distribute by measurement, like with a ruler (FR: une règle)

3. Marcus Terentius Varro: (116 BC – 27 BC), considered Rome’s greatest scholar and writer, a satirist of stature, he is best known for Saturae Menippeae. More in N.S. Gill’s article on Varro.

4. quod nemini parcant: spare no one

5. Hesiod (lived ca. 700 BC) was one of the earliest Greek poets and is often called the “Father of didactic poetry.” One of his two complete surviving epics, Theogony , tells the myths of the gods. View more in the article on The Works of Hesiod.

6. Pluto was a Greek god, ruler of the underworld. See complete entry on Princeton’s mythology page.

7. Aristotle: (384-322 BC) Considered one of the greatest Greek philosophers; in terms of influence only Plato is his peer. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy provides a complete entry.

8. Plato: (429 – 347 BC) Central to Western Philosophy, Plato was a mathematician as well as a philosopher. For more, again see the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

9. Plutarch: (46 AD – 120 AD), Greek historian, writer, and a Platonist Philospher. See Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .

10. Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro 70 - 19 BC). Most known for his greatest work, the Aeneid. BBC provides a thorough history.

11. The French Moralists, “moralist” writers were most often called philosophes . They studied “morals” i.e. customs or manners and wrote about humankind succinctly. Much of classical French literature following the 17 ^th century is considered moralist. See page 327 of Denis Hollier and R. Howard Bloch, A New History of French Literature (Harvard University Press, 1994). Google Book edition.

12. Pausanias (115 – 180 AD) was a Greek geographer whose only work is the Periegesis Hellados , “Guide to Greece,” a sort of descriptive map of Greece’s mainland. See the Oxford Bibliography entry on this topic.

Eteocles and Polynices were sons of Oedipus who were intended to share their father’s throne, but when Eteocles refused to share his rule and inheritance with his brother, Polynices declared war on him and , in the end, the brothers killed each other. N.S. Gill provides another description.

13. The reference is to the Greek goddess Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, which follows the author’s continuation on how love is a universal link. Her Roman name is Venus. See Aphrodite in Encyclopedia Mythica.

14. Tyche or Tykhe, the Greek goddess of spirit, fortune, providence, chance and fate. Her Roman name is Fortuna, and Theoi Greek Mythology notes that she is considered a Fate.

15. Pindar (518-428 BC): Known as the greatest lyric poet of Ancient Greece. A complete bibliography is available through the Encyclopedia Britannica.

16. Ilithyia or Eileithyia, meaning “she who comes to aid” is the Greek goddess of childbirth. See the Theoi Greek Mythology entry.

17. Jupiter is a Roman god of the light and the sky. As the ruler of the universe, he distributes laws and controls the realm, which explains his ability to control the otherwise all-powerful Fates. See Encyclopedia Mythica.

18. Catullus (Gaius Valerius Catullus 84 – 54 BC). Roman poet whose works focus on love and hatred, particularly to a woman whom he refers to as “Lesbia.” The complete entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica is available.

19. Lanificas nulli très exorare sorores Contigit: No one came to pass to plead to the three spinning sisters.

20. Jean-Baptiste Rousseau (1671-1741) was a well-known poet, sometimes referred to as the “great” Rousseau to distinguish him from the subsequently more famous philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, to whom he was not related. Charles-François de Vintimille, comte du Luc (1653 -1740) was a French diplomat and a patron of Rousseau. When he fell ill, Rousseau begged the favor of the Fates for him in this poem. Read a complete description of Rousseau’s act in The Guernsey and Jersey Magazine (1836), 144-46. The author of the essay calls this poem not only Rousseau’s best, but “the finest specimen of lyric poetry in French literature.”

21. The River Styx, in Greek mythology, separated the world of the living from the world of the dead. See other histories in the Encyclopedia Mythica.

22. Abbé Antoine Banier (1673-1741) was a French clergyman and member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres who was recognized for his writings on Greek Mythology. Jaucourt is referring here to Banier’s treatise on the Fates in vol. 5 of the Mémoires de l’Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres (1729). See pages 14-32 of “Memoires” via Hathi Trust. English dictionaries printed around this same time referenced Banier’s work as well. See, e.g., the entry on “Mythology” in volume 3 of the Encyclopaedia Britannica published in Edinburgh in 1771.