More than twenty centuries have passed and the mythology of the Hellenes continues to surprise us. The Greeks, fathers of philosophy and Western thought, knew very well how to revolutionize the different aspects of the academy of their time. Or, rather, they invented the academy of their time, as we know it, and that is why they have been so influential in history. His mythology and his thought meant an important advance in the history of human thought, and even today we continue to study all his curiosities. That is why at we wanted to dedicate this note to the myth of the Fates. Do you know what the Fates are? Possessing divine power, the Fates have fascinated scholars of Greek mythology for centuries. Join us to discover the history of these powerful fortune tellers.
What are the Moiras and the myth of the goddesses of destiny
One of the things you may not have known about Greek mythology is that the Fates were, even more than Hades himself, the ones who controlled life and death. And although Hades was the master of the underworld, the owner of what happened after death, it was the Fates who guarded the thread of each man’s life and, therefore, each person’s destiny. According to the mythology of the Hellenes, the job of these divinities was, in essence, to control the life of every man from the moment of his birth until his death, and many times even after death.
At the moment of birth, they were the ones who wove the fine thread that marked our existence, and they were also the ones who, at the moment of our death, irrevocably cut it. For this very reason, there were those who attributed to them powers greater than those of Zeus and any other god of Olympus, since these entities were capable of controlling the very flow of life, the destiny of each person, and, therefore, their Powers went beyond even that of the immortal gods. But what is the origin of the myth of the Fates? And what is hidden behind them? Goddesses of destiny or workers of death, what are the Fates? Join us to learn more about these divinities.
1. The origin of the myth of the Moiras
As with all Greek mythology, this myth was born from oral tradition that was later immortalized in various texts of classical literature. According to their first appearance, these controllers of the thread of life were not three, but one, or at least Homer refers to only one in one of his fundamental works, the Iliad. However, for his second work, the Odyssey, Homer clarified that it was about three beings, which coincides with what was found in later works by other authors. However, the origin of the Fates is not completely clear within Greek mythology.
In fact, for some authors these divinities who control our destiny are daughters of Zeus and the goddess Themis. However, Other authors conclude that they are the daughters of the Night, and those who defend this point out that the powers and attributes of the Fates are above the power of the gods., and that therefore they could not be daughters of gods but of titans, like Night, and that these in themselves would be titans and, therefore, capable of going beyond the power of mortals and even of the immortals. Now, to continue delving into the topic of what the Fates are, we also have to find out what defines the goddesses of destiny. Let’s see it.
2. What defines the goddesses of destiny?
The Fates are inflexible, nothing can change their minds, they represent a law and it is impossible to alter that immutable premise of the universe, hence, for example, no God could save the life of a hero if his time had really come. These characters were known in Rome as the Fates, having essentially the same characteristics and similar capabilities: they wove the thread of life and brought death to people. There were three sisters: one symbolized birth, another, marriage, and the third, death.
In fact, the idea that they were more powerful than the gods is well founded, since in the Odyssey several gods try to intercede to change the destiny of men, saving them from death, and It is these creatures who frustrate the plans of the gods because, according to them, the destiny of the men they were trying to save had to be realized, and those destiny were to walk, irremediably, towards death.. Goddesses or titans, the truth is that the Fates were fundamental within Greek mythology, since destiny, always marked by a sacred fate and painted with tragedy, was a fundamental idea for the Greeks.
There were three Moiras and these, at the moment of birth, stood around the newborn and began to extract that vital thread to weave his present and his future, the design that was going to remain attached for life in that new being that had just arrived into the world. The Fates had names and each one had a particular function, within this important task within the Greek pantheon: Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos.
Rather than asking what the Fates are, we should ask who they are and what they did. Well, the first of these three, Clotho, was the spinner, and it was she who was in charge of extracting the thread of life from the creatures newly arrived in the world. The function of Lachesis, on the other hand, was to provide luck, since this dark and wiry lady had a rod with which she measured the length of the thread of each person’s life, predestining with her rod what the life they would be like would be. those individuals. Lastly, Atropos was the most inexorable and inevitable of all, since it was she who made the spinning wheel of life spin and cut it off when the time was right. It was the latter, precisely, who sealed our death when the time came, and not even the gods could prevent it from doing its job.
The design of the Fates was unappealable, unassailable, definitive. No one, absolutely no one, could escape their destiny, and as proof of this the Greeks erected a few tragic works, such as the myth of Oedipus the King, or that of Antigone.
3. Zeus and the Moirai
To close our article about what the Fates are, it would be good for us to review a little the relationship between Zeus, the most important god of all Olympus and all of Greek culture, and the Fates. And even the strongest and most imposing god of all Olympus was subject to the designs of the Fates, even when he was an immortal being, which, of course, translated into a conflictive relationship. An all-powerful god or, at least, very powerful, faced with deities that exceeded his will and power. In fact, even Zeus himself was subject to his designs, he honored and respected them because they were daughters of primordial figures such as Night and Necessity.
If we follow the texts of Herodotus and Plato, we could conclude that Zeus was the one who had the final say in many aspects of the destiny of men. However, It is enough to know the power and functions of the Fates to realize that this was not so, because even the strongest god of Olympus could not have the last word regarding who lives and who dies., but rather this ends up being one of the tools that destiny, which is the Fates, uses to achieve its unwavering goals. In fact, in front of them Zeus could only honor, reward and punish, but he had no knowledge of destiny nor did he know what his fate would be like. He did not control birth or death. This competition was exclusive to the Fates.
ANDSo what are the Fates? Nothing more and nothing less than the personification of destinyone of the most important figures in Greek culture and who would have a special rise towards the end of this culture, although destiny was no longer presented in the form of Moira by then.
What did you think of our article about these particular Greek figures? Did you know what the Moiras are? And, do you know any other curiosity about these unique figures? Leave us your opinion in the comments, we will be looking forward to reading you!