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The Fates
Their names, amongst the Greeks, were Atropos, Clotho, and
Lachesis, and among the Latins, Nona, Decima and Morta. They
are called Parcae, because, as Varro thinks, they distributed
to mankind good and bad things at their birth; or, as the
common and received opinion is, because they spare nobody.
They were always of the same mind, so that though
dissensions sometimes arose among the other gods, no
difference was ever known to subsist among these three
sisters, whose decrees were immutable. To them was entrusted
the spinning and management of the thread of life; Clotho
held the distaff, Lachesis turned the wheel, and Atropos cut
the thread.
Plutarch tells us they represented the three parts of the
world - the firmament of the fixed stars, the firmament
of the planets, and the space of air between the moon and
the earth; Plato says they represented time past, present,
and to come. There were no divinities in the pagan world who
had a more absolute power than the Fates. They were looked
upon as the dispensers of the eternal decrees of Jupiter,
and were all of them sometimes supposed to spin the
party-colored thread of each man's life. Thus are they
represented on a medal, each with a distaff in her hand. The
fullest and best description of them in any of the poets, is
in Catullus: he represents them as all spinning, and at the
same time singing, and foretelling the birth and fortunes of
Achilles, at Peleus' wedding.
The Fates
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