Editing Moirai (section)

==Mythology==
[[File:Sarcophagus Prometheus Louvre Ma339.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|[[Prometheus]] creates man: [[Clotho]] and [[Lachesis (mythology)|Lachesis]] besides [[Poseidon]] (with his trident), and presumably [[Atropos]] besides [[Artemis]] (with the moon crescent) are seen, [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] [[sarcophagus]] ([[Louvre]]).]]

The Moirai were three sisters: [[Clotho]] (the spinner), [[Lachesis (mythology)|Lachesis]] (the allotter), and [[Atropos]] (the inevitable, a metaphor for death). But according to a Latin verse,<ref>{{cite web |title=The Princeton Dante Project (2.0) - Long Toynbee "Cloto" |url=https://dante.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/dante/DispToynbeeByTitOrId.pl?INP_ID=241795 |at=Clotho colum retinet, Lachesis net, et Atropos occat}}</ref> their roles and functions were somewhat different: "Clotho, the youngest of the sisters, presided over the moment in which we are born, and held a distaff in her hand; Lachesis spun out all the events and actions of our life; and Atropos, the eldest of the three, cut the thread of human life with a pair of scissors."<ref>{{cite web |title=Parcae from the McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia |url=https://www.biblicalcyclopedia.com/P/parcae.html}}</ref>

In the [[Homer]]ic poems Moira or Aisa are related to the limit and end of life, and Zeus appears as the guider of destiny. In the ''[[Theogony]]'' of [[Hesiod]], the three Moirai are personified, daughters of [[Nyx]] and are acting over the gods.<ref name="Hesiod221" /> Later they are daughters of Zeus and [[Themis]], who was the embodiment of divine order and law. In [[Plato|Plato's]] ''[[The Republic (Plato)|Republic]]'' the Three Fates are daughters of [[Ananke (mythology)|Ananke]] (necessity).<ref>''Plato, Republic 617c (trans. Shorey) (Greek philosopher 4th century BC)'': [http://www.theoi.com/Protogenos/Ananke.html Theoi Project – Ananke].</ref>

The Moirai were supposed to appear three nights after a child's birth to determine the course of its life, as in the story of [[Meleager]] and the firebrand taken from the hearth and preserved by his mother to extend his life.<ref>Pseudo-Apollodorus, story of Meleager in ''[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Bibliotheke]]'' 1.65.</ref> Bruce Karl Braswell from readings in the [[Hesychius of Alexandria|lexicon of Hesychius]], associates the appearance of the Moirai at the family ''hearth'' on the ''seventh'' day with the ancient Greek custom of waiting seven days after birth to decide whether to accept the infant into the Gens and to give it a name, cemented with a ritual at the hearth.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Braswell |first=Bruce Karl |title=Meleager and the Moirai: A Note on Ps.-Apollodorus 1. 65 |journal=Hermes |volume=119 |issue=4 |year=1991 |pages=488–489 |jstor=4476850 }}</ref> At [[Sparta]] the temple to the Moirai stood near the communal hearth of the ''[[polis]]'', as [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] observed.<ref>Pausanias, 3.11. 10–11.</ref>

As goddesses of birth who even prophesied the fate of the newly born, [[Eileithyia]], the ancient [[Minoan civilization|Minoan]] goddess of childbirth and divine midwifery, was their companion. Pausanias mentions an ancient role of Eileythia as "the clever spinner", relating her with destiny too.<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+8.21.3&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160 8.21.3].</ref> Their appearance indicate the Greek desire for health which was connected with the Greek cult of the body that was essentially a religious activity.<ref>[[Pindar]], ''Nemean'' VII 1–4</ref>

The [[Erinyes]], a group of [[chthonic]] goddesses of vengeance, served as tools of the Moirai, inflicting punishment for evil deeds, particularly upon those who sought to avoid their rightful destiny. At times, the Moirai were conflated with the Erinyes, as well as the death-goddesses the [[Keres]].<ref name=Theoi.Moirai>{{cite web|url=http://www.theoi.com/Daimon/Moirai.html |title=Theoi Project Moirai |publisher=Theoi.com |access-date=24 January 2013}}</ref>

[[File:Clotho (Washington, DC).jpg|thumb|left|upright|Bas relief of [[Clotho]], lampstand at the Supreme Court of the United States, [[Washington, D.C.]]]]

In earlier times they were represented as only a few—perhaps only one—individual goddess. Homer's ''Iliad'' (xxiv.209) speaks generally of the Moira, who spins the thread of life for men at their birth; she is ''Moira Krataia'' "powerful Moira" (xvi.334) or there are several Moirai (xxiv.49). In the ''Odyssey'' (vii.197) there is a reference to the ''Klôthes'', or Spinners. At Delphi, only the Fates of Birth and Death were revered.<ref>Kerenyi 1951:32.</ref> In Athens, [[Aphrodite]], who had an earlier, pre-Olympic existence, was called ''[[Aphrodite Urania]]'' the "eldest of the Fates" according to Pausanias (x.24.4).

<!-- .There is not any reference for the Eteocretan text. 
A bilingual [[Eteocretan]] text<ref>The inscription, from the Delphinion in [[Dreros]], was published by Henri van Effenterre in ''Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique'' '''70''' (1946:602f); the original inscription has disappeared: [http://www.carolandray.plus.com/Eteocretan/Dreros2.html on-line text.]</ref> has the Greek translation "Ομοσαι δαπερ Ενορκίοισι" (''Omosai d-haper Enorkioisi'', "But may he swear [these] very things to the Oath-Keepers"). In [[Eteocretan]] this is rendered —<small>S|TUPRMĒRIĒIA</small>, in which <small>MĒRIĒIA</small> may refer to the divinities the Hellenes knew as the Moirai.{{Citation needed|date=May 2011}}-->Some Greek mythographers went so far as to claim that the Moirai were the daughters of Zeus—paired with Themis ("fundament"), as [[Hesiod]] had it in one passage.<ref>Hesiod, ''Theogony'', 904.</ref> In the older myths they are daughters of primeval beings like Nyx ("night") in [[Theogony]], or Ananke in Orphic cosmogony. Whether or not providing a father even for the Moirai was a symptom of how far Greek mythographers were willing to go, in order to modify the old myths to suit the [[patrilineal]] Olympic order,<ref>"Zeus obviously had to assimilate this spinning Goddess, and he made them into his daughters, too, although not by all accounts, for even he was bound ultimately by Fate", observe Ruck and Staples (1994:57).</ref> the claim of a paternity was certainly not acceptable to [[Aeschylus]], [[Herodotus]], or Plato.

Despite their forbidding reputation, the Moirai could be placated as goddesses. Brides in [[Athens]] offered them locks of hair, and women swore by them. They may have originated as birth goddesses and only later acquired their reputation as the agents of destiny.

According to the mythographer [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], in the [[Gigantomachy]], the war between the Giants and Olympians, the Moirai killed the Giants [[Agrios]] and [[Thoon (mythology)|Thoon]] with their bronze clubs.<ref>[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Apollod.+1.6.1 1.6.1–2].</ref>

The Moirai were also credited to be inventors of seven Greek letters — A B H T I Y.<ref>[[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]], ''Fabulae'' [https://topostext.org/work/206#277 277]</ref>