BOOK
From this point the mytholog)', which has grown up, such as it
is, round the fatal sisters, may be regarded as thoroughly artificial.
Sisters. The division of time into the past, the present, and the future once
made, it only remained to assign these divisions severally to one
personal being, and to invest this being with attributes suited to the
office which it has to perform. It may be instructive to trace the
process by which the single Moira of the Iliad and Odyssey suggests
the notion of many Moirai, and is represented by the Hesiodic sisters,
Klotho, Lachesis, and Atropos ; but the process is altogether different
from that which, starting with phrases denoting simply the action of
wind or air in motion, gives us first the myths of Hermes, Orpheus,
Pan, and Amphion, and ends with the folk-lore of the Master Thief
and the Shifty Lad. In the latter case, the myth-maker knew little,
probably nothing, of the source and the meaning of the story, and
worked in unconscious fidelity to traditions which had taken too
strong a root to be lightly dislodged or materially changed. In the
fonner we have the work rather of the moralist or the theologian.
The course of human existence and of all earthly things is regarded
as a long coil of thread, and the gods are the spinners of it. Thus
this work is specially set apart to Aisa, the spoken word of Zeus, the
Fatum of the Latins, or to Moira, the apportioner; for to both alike
is this task of weaving or spinning assigned,^ and Aisa and Moira are
alike the ministers of Zeus to do his will, not the despotic and
irresponsible powers before whom, as before the Ananke of Euripides,
Zeus himself must bow. Nay, even a mortal may have a certain
power over them, and Achilleus may choose either a brief career and
a brilliant one, or a time of repose after his return home which shall
stand him in the stead of glory.^ The dualism of the ideas of birth
and death would lead us to look for two Moirai in some traditions,
and accordingly we find the two at Delphoi, of whom Zeus and
ApoUon are the leaders and guides.^ The three Hesiodic Moirai,
who are sisters of the Erinyes, are also called the Keres, or masters
of the destinies of men.* Of these three one alone is, by her name
Klotho, charged with the task of spinning; but in some later versions
this task is performed by all three; nor is the same account always
- //. XX. 128 ; xxiv. 209. the grinding, crushing power, the fj.o7pa
• //. ix. 411. KpaTati] of the J/iai/. Yet the elymo- • Faus. x. 24, 4, log>' was not wholly without reason,
- These are the Krjpfs ravrjXcyeos which connected the word with fitpos, a
9avdroio — the name belonging to the share or portion, the idea of pieces or same root which has yielded the words fragments being naturally ex]iressed by Kvpios, Koipavos, and the Latin creare the root used to denote the working of (cf. Gr. Kpt'iai), creator. The name the hammer or the millstone. Moira answers to that of the Latin Mors,
