Parcæ

, powerful godde es, who presided over the birth and the life of mankind. They were three in number, Clotho, Laches is, and Atropos, daughters of Nox and Erebus, according to Hesiod, or of Jupiter and Them is, according to the same poet in another poem. Some make them daughters of the sea. Clotho, the youngest of the sisters, presided over the moment in which we are born, and held a distaff in her hand; Laches is 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 sci ors. Their different functions are well expre ed in this ancient verse: Clotho colum retinet, Laches is net, et Atropos occat. The name of the Parcæ, according to Varro, is derived a partu or parturiendo , because they presided over the birth of men; and by corruption the word parca is formed from part a or part us : but, according to Servius, they are called so by antiphrasis, quod nemini parcant . The power of the Parcæ was great and extensive. Some suppose that they were subjected to none of the gods but Jupiter, while others support that even Jupiter himself was obedient to their commands; and, indeed, we see the father of the gods, in Homer’s Iliad, unwilling to see Patroclus perish, yet obliged, by the superior power of the Fates, to abandon him to his destiny. According to the more received opinion, they were the arbiters of the life and death of mankind, and whatever good or evil befalls us in the world, immediately proceeds from the Fates or Parcæ. Some make them ministers of the king of hell, and represent them as sitting at the foot of his throne; others represent them as placed on radiant thrones, amidst the celestial spheres, clothed in robes spangled with stars, and wearing crowns on their heads. According to Pausanias, the names of the Parcæ were different from those already mentioned. The most ancient of all, as the geographer observes, was Venus Urania, who presided over the birth of men; the second was Fortune; Ilythia was the third. To these some add a fourth, Proser pin a, who often disputes with Atropos the right of cutting the thread of human life. The worship of the Parcæ was well established in some cities of Greece, and though mankind were well convinced that they were inexorable, and that it was impo ible to mitigate them, yet they were eager to show a proper respect to their divinity, by raising them temples and statues. They received the same worship as the Furies, and their votaries yearly sacrificed to them black sheep, during which solemnity the priests were obliged to wear garlands of flowers. The Parcæ were generally represented as three old women with chaplets made with wool, and interwoven with the flowers of the narci us. They were covered with a white robe, and fillet of the same colour, bound with chaplets. One of them held a distaff, another the spindle, and the third was armed with sci ors, with which she cut the thread which her sisters had spun. Their dre is differently represented by some authors. Clotho appears in a variegated robe, and on her head is a crown of seven stars. She holds a distaff in her hand, reaching from heaven to earth. The robe which Laches is wore was variegated with a great number of stars, and near her were placed a variety of spindles. Atropos was clothed in black; she held sci ors in her hand, with clues of thread of different sizes, according to the length and shortne of the lives, whose destinies they seemed to contain. Hyginus attributes to them the invention of these Greek letters, α, β, η, τ, υ , and others call them the secretaries of heaven, and the keepers of the archives of eternity. The Greeks call the Parcæ by the different names of μοιρα, αἰσα, κηρ, εἰμαρμενη , which are expre ive of their power and of their inexorable decrees. Hesiod , Theogony & Shield of Heracles .— Pausanias , bk. 1 , ch. 40 ; bk. 3 , ch. 11 ; bk. 5 , ch. 15 .— Homer , Iliad , bk. 20 ; Ody ey , bk. 7 .— Theocritus. — Call i mach us , Hymn to Artemis .— Ælian , De Natura Animalium , bk. 10 .— Pindar , Olympian , poem 10; Nemean , poem 7.— Euripi des , I phi gene i a .— Plutarch , de Faciæ Quæ in Orbe Lunæ Apparet . — Hyginus , in preface to fables & fable 277.— Varro. — Orpheus , hymn 58.— A poll on i us , bk. 1 , . — Claudian , de Raptu Proser pinæ .— Lycophron & Tzetzes, . — Horace , bk. 2 , ode 6, . — Ovid , Metamorphoses , bk. 5 , li. 533 .— Lucan , bk. 3 .— Virgil , Eclogues , poem 4; Æneid , bk. 3 , . — Seneca , Hercules Furens .— Statius , Thebaid , bk. 6 .