Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the first edition
- Preface to the second edition
- Introduction: The Earliest Greeks
- PART I THE MIND AND THE BODY
- PART II THE IMMORTAL SOUL AND THE BODY
- PART III FATE AND TIME
- Chapter I ‘On the Knees of the Gods’
- Chapter II Πείρατα
- Chapter III Καιρός
- Chapter IV The Weaving of Fate
- Chapter V Other Peoples—Fate and Magic
- Chapter VI Μοῖραν ἐπιτιθέναι, πεπρωμένος, etc.
- Chapter VII ʿΥπὲρ μόρον and the Relation of the Gods of Fate
- Chapter VIII The Jars of Zeus, the Scates of Zeus, and the Κῆρες
- Chapter IX Time—Ἦμαρ
- Chapter X Lachesis, Klotho, and Atropos
- Chapter XI Phases of Body and Mind, Sorrow, Sleep, Death, etc.
- Chapter XII Τέλος
- ADDENDA
- Indexes
Chapter IV - The Weaving of Fate
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the first edition
- Preface to the second edition
- Introduction: The Earliest Greeks
- PART I THE MIND AND THE BODY
- PART II THE IMMORTAL SOUL AND THE BODY
- PART III FATE AND TIME
- Chapter I ‘On the Knees of the Gods’
- Chapter II Πείρατα
- Chapter III Καιρός
- Chapter IV The Weaving of Fate
- Chapter V Other Peoples—Fate and Magic
- Chapter VI Μοῖραν ἐπιτιθέναι, πεπρωμένος, etc.
- Chapter VII ʿΥπὲρ μόρον and the Relation of the Gods of Fate
- Chapter VIII The Jars of Zeus, the Scates of Zeus, and the Κῆρες
- Chapter IX Time—Ἦμαρ
- Chapter X Lachesis, Klotho, and Atropos
- Chapter XI Phases of Body and Mind, Sorrow, Sleep, Death, etc.
- Chapter XII Τέλος
- ADDENDA
- Indexes
Summary
From later Greece there survives evidence for this variation of the binding process on the part of the powers determining man's fate. The Μοĩραι are thus addressed: περιώσιʾ ἄϕυκτά τε μήδεα/παντοδαπᾶν βουλᾶν ἀδαμαντίναισιν ὑϕαίνετε κερκίσιν. To this weaving of the Μοĩραι epitaphs allude. It is not always clear, however, whether binding or weaving is in point, e.g. οὐδὲ πικρὸν μοιρῶν μίτον ἔκϕυγον, or again οὐκ ἔϕυγον δʾ ἀτρεκέως μοιρῶν μίτον ὅς μοι ἐπεκλώσθη, or μοιρῶν οὐκ ἔϕυγον τρισσῶν μίτον. In Phaeacia, we may remember, it was Odysseus' lot ἐκϕυγέειν μέγα πεĩραρ ὀïзύος, i.e. the πικρὸς μίτος, that was upon him. But often it is the length of a man's life which is represented by the thready, e.g. ἑπτὰ δέ μοι μοĩραι…ἐνιαυτοὺς ἐκλώσαντο. On the loom this would seem to mean the vertical, i.e. the warp-threads. In the web of the Norse fate-goddesses we shall see that from each of these was suspended, as loom-weight, a head. We are reminded of the proverb ἀπὸ λεπτοũ μίτου τὸ зῆν ἤρτηται and its Latin equivalent
omnia sunt hominum tenui pendentia filo.
Warp-thread and the thread from which the spindle hangs are the same, but Latin epitaphs appear to refer to the loom, e.g.
stamina ruperunt subito tua Candida Parcae.
Juvenal speaks thus of Nestor, who finds his span too long:
attendes quantum de legibus ipse queratur
Fatorum et nimio de stamine.
A different feeling but the same image is involved by Parcarum putria fila querens.
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- Information
- The Origins of European ThoughtAbout the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time and Fate, pp. 349 - 351Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1988