The Fates

The Fates – or Moirai – are a group of three goddesses who assign individual destinies to mortals at birth. Their names are Clotho (the Spinner), Lachesis (the Alloter) and Atropos (the Inflexible). In Hesiod’s Theogony they are first the daughters of Nyx (Night), and later the daughters of Zeus and Themis (Theogony 217–222, 901–906); in Plato’s Republic they are the daughters of Necessity (Ananke). Either way, they had enormous power, and even Zeus was unable to recall their decisions.

The Fates: A Quick Profile

Their Name and their Names

The Fates were originally called Moirai in Ancient Greece. The word moira means “share” or “portion”, and by extension the Moirai are “The Apportioners,” the ones who give to each his own portion of life. The Moirai’s Roman counterpart were the Parcae, who appear in Virgil’s Aeneid (1.22) as the Fates that spin out the destiny of Troy and Rome.

There were three Fates. Their names were: Clotho (meaning “The Spinner”), Lachesis (or “The Alloter”) and Atropos (literally “The Unturning” or, more freely, “The Inflexible”). All three names are given by Hesiod (Theogony 218, 905).

Fates' Family

The Fates have at least three different genealogies, two of which go back to Hesiod. In his Theogony, the poet first tells us that Night bore, without a father, the Fates, together with the Keres and Death, Sleep, Nemesis and Strife (217–225). Later in the same poem, he names them as daughters of Zeus and Themis, and thus sisters of the Horae, Eunomia, Dike and Eirene (901–906). Hesiod says that Zeus gave the Fates “the greatest honor” and that they give mortals evil and good to have. A third genealogy appears in Plato’s Republic, where the Fates are the daughters of Necessity (Ananke), sitting on thrones at equal intervals, clothed in white, and singing in unison with the Sirens (10.617b–c).

Fates' Functions · Portrayal and Symbolism

Homer speaks of Fate spinning a man’s thread at his birth: Achilles must suffer whatever Fate spun for him with her thread when his mother bore him (Iliad 20.127–128), and Hector’s mother says that when she bore him the threads of overruling fate were spun that dogs should eat his flesh (Iliad 24.209–210). The three names of the goddesses describe the three stages in Plato’s account: Lachesis gives each soul its lot and its guardian spirit, Clotho confirms the choice under her turning spindle, and Atropos makes the spun threads irreversible (Republic 10.620e–621a).

Plato also assigns each Fate a part of time: Lachesis sings of the things that were, Clotho of the things that are, and Atropos of the things that are to come (Republic 10.617c). Plato is the clearest ancient statement of this division. Hesiod and Homer do not describe how the Fates looked. Pausanias saw a sacred image of the Fates above the head of Zeus at Megara, and noted that Zeus is the only god whom Destiny obeys (1.40.4).

The Fates were worshipped at several places. Pausanias mentions a sanctuary of the Fates at Sparta, next to the grave of Orestes (3.11.10), a temple of the Fates at Corinth (2.4.7), an altar of the Fates in a grove at Sicyon (2.11.4), and, at Delphi, images of only two Fates, with Zeus, Guide of Fate, and Apollo, Guide of Fate, standing in place of the third (10.24.4). In Pindar they are present at births: Apollo placed Eileithyia and the Fates beside Evadne when she bore Iamus, and Eileithyia is said to sit beside the Fates (Olympian 6.42; Nemean 7.1).

Relationship with Zeus

Zeus Powerless: Sarpedon and Hector

It’s difficult to say whether Zeus had anything to say in the matters of the Fates, but, to the Ancient Greeks, it seems that even he wasn’t able to overrule their decrees. In Prometheus Bound, the question “Who then is the helmsman of Necessity?” is answered: “The three-shaped Fates and mindful Furies” (515–516).

Thus, even though at one point during the Trojan War Zeus considers snatching his son Sarpedon away from the fight, since he is fated to die at the hands of Patroclus, Hera reminds him that a man long doomed by fate would then be set free, and that the other gods would not all approve. Zeus gives way (Iliad 16.431–461). Likewise, before the duel between Hector and Achilles, the Father lifts up his golden scales and puts in them two fates of grievous death, one for Achilles and one for Hector, and Hector’s day of doom sinks (Iliad 22.208–213). He weighs their destinies and learns the outcome, rather than deciding it.

The Fates Helping Zeus: The Giants and Typhon

The Fates and Zeus also appear as allies. In the Gigantomachy, according to Apollodorus, the Fates fought with bronze clubs and killed the Giants Agrius and Thoas (Library 1.6.2). Apollodorus also says that, when Zeus pursued the wounded Typhon to Mount Nysa, the Fates beguiled the fugitive: Typhon tasted the “ephemeral fruits” in the belief that they would make him stronger, and was weakened instead (Library 1.6.3).

The Fates in Particular Myths

The Fates do not appear that frequently in myths. True, they are usually portrayed attending the births of both mortals and gods, but, all in all, they rarely need to intervene. There are, however, two interesting exceptions.

Meleager

According to Apollodorus, when Meleager was seven days old, the Fates came and declared that he would die when the brand then burning on the hearth was burnt out. His mother Althaea snatched up the brand and kept it in a chest. Later Meleager killed his mother’s brothers, his uncles, in a quarrel over the skin of the Calydonian boar; Althaea then put the brand on the fire, and Meleager died. Afterwards, out of remorse, she hanged herself (Library 1.8.2–3). Homer tells the story of Meleager’s anger, but without the burning brand (Iliad 9.529–599).

The Fates – Tricked for Once

Only once were the Fates deceived by someone, and that someone was none other than Apollo. In Apollodorus, Apollo obtained from the Fates the favor that, when Admetus was about to die, he could be released from death if someone chose voluntarily to die for him. When the day came, neither his father nor his mother would die for him, but his wife Alcestis did (Library 1.9.15). In Euripides’ Alcestis, Apollo says that he saved Admetus by cheating the goddesses of fate, who had promised that Admetus would escape if he could find a substitute; Admetus tried all his friends and his aged parents, and only his wife was willing (Alcestis 12–18). Aeschylus, in the Eumenides, has the Furies accuse Apollo of having made the Fates drunk in order to save Admetus (723–728).

The Fates Sources

Compare the Fates’ genealogies in Hesiod’s Theogony (217–225 and 901–906) by reading the relevant excerpts Theogony 217 and Theogony 901. Other ancient sources used: Homer, Iliad 9.529–599, 16.431–461, 20.127–128, 22.208–213, 24.209–210; Plato, Republic 10.617b–621a; Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 515–516 and Eumenides 723–728; Euripides, Alcestis 12–18; Pindar, Olympian 6.42 and Nemean 7.1; Apollodorus, Library 1.6.2–3, 1.8.2–3, 1.9.15; Pausanias 1.40.4, 2.4.7, 2.11.4, 3.11.10, 10.24.4; Virgil, Aeneid 1.22.

See Also: Zeus, Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos, Nyx, Themis, Giants, Typhon, Meleager, Admetus