Chapter 1: The Early Gods
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♠ Pindar fr 30.3 SM – Pindarus 2, pp. 8-9, ed. B. Snell and H. Maehler. Leipzig 1975.
♠ Pindar fr 41 SM – Pindarus 2, p. 12, ed. B. Snell and H. Maehler. Leipzig 1975.
♠ Simonides (?) 1018 PMG – Poetae Melici Graeci, p. 536, ed. D. L. Page. Oxford 1962.
♠ Aischylos, Eumenides 723-28
Chorus
You did such things also in the house of Pheres, when you persuaded the Fates to make mortals free from death.
Apollo
Is it not right, then, to do good for a worshipper, especially when he is in need?
Chorus
It was you who destroyed the old dispensations when you beguiled the ancient goddesses with wine. Greek Text
♠ Aischylos, Prometheus Desmotes (Prometheus Bound) 515-20
Chorus
Who then is the helmsman of Necessity?
Prometheus
The three-shaped Fates and mindful Furies.
Chorus
Can it be that Zeus has less power than they do?
Prometheus
Yes, in that even he cannot escape what is foretold.
Chorus
Why, what is fated for Zeus except to hold eternal sway?
Prometheus
This you must not learn yet; do not be over-eager. Greek Text
♠ Bakchylides, Ode 5.140-44
She [Althaia] took the log of my swift doom out of the ornate chest, and burned it. Fate had marked off that this should be the boundary of my life. Greek Text
♠ Ovid, Metamorphoses 8.451-59
She remembered well,
how, when she lay in childbirth round her stood
the three attendant sisters of his fate.
There was a billet in the room, and this
they took and cast upon the wasting flames,
and as they spun and drew the fatal threads
they softly chanted, “Unto you we give,
O child new-born! only the life of this;
the period of this billet is your life.”
And having spoken so, they vanished in the smoke.
Althaea snatched the billet from the fire,
and having quenched it with drawn water, hid
it long and secretly in her own room,
where, thus preserved, it acted as a charm
to save the life of Meleager. Latin Text
♠ ApB 1.8.1 – Apollodoros, Bibliotheke (Library)
Reigning over Calydon, Oeneus was the first who received a vine-plant from Dionysus. He married Althaea, daughter of Thestius, and begat Toxeus, whom he slew with his own hand because he leaped over the ditch. And besides Toxeus he had Thyreus and Clymenus, and a daughter Gorge, whom Andraemon married, and another daughter Deianira, who is said to have been begotten on Althaea by Dionysus. This Deianira drove a chariot and practised the art of war, and Hercules wrestled for her hand with Achelous. Greek Text
♠ Hyginus, Fabulae 171
ALTHAEA: Oineus and Mars both slept one night with Althaea, daughter of Thestius. When Meleager was born from them, suddenly in the palace the Fates, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, appeared. They thus sang his fate: Clotho said that he would be noble, Lachesis that he would be brave, but Atropos looking at a brand burning on the hearth and said, “He will live only as long as this brand remains unconsumed.” When Althaea, the mother, heard this, she leaped from the bed, put out the fatal brand, and buried it in the midst of the palace, so that it shouldn’t be destroyed by fire. Latin Text
♦ Florence, Museo Archeologico 4209 (François Krater): Attic black-figure volute krater by Kleitias (painter) and Ergotimos (potter), with Moirai from wedding of Peleus and Thetis
A. Furtwaengler, and K. Reinhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei: Auswahl hervorragender Vasenbilder (vol. 1, 1904), pls. 1-2 (detail)
Beazley Archive Pottery Database
Perseus Art & Archaeology Artifact Browser (and bibliographic abbreviations)
♦ London, British Museum 1971.11.1: Attic black-figure dinos (Sophilos or Erskine Dinos) by Sophilos, with Moirai from wedding of Peleus and Thetis
Beazley Archive Pottery Database
Perseus Art & Archeology Artifact Browser (and bibliographic abbreviations)
♠ Homer, Iliad 2.302
even as many as the fates of death have not borne away. Greek Text
♠ Homer, Iliad 18.535-38
And amid them Strife and Tumult joined in the fray, and deadly Fate, grasping one man alive, fresh-wounded, another without a wound, and another she dragged dead through the mellay by the feet. Greek Text
♠ Homer, Odyssey 17.547
nor shall one of them escape death and the fates. Greek Text
♠ Hesiod, Theogony 218-19
Also she [Nyx] bore the Destinies and ruthless avenging Fates, Clotho and Lachesis and Atropos, who give men at their birth both evil and good to have. Greek Text
♠ Mimnermos 2.5-7 W – Iambi et Elegi Graeci 2, p. 83, ed. M. L. West. Oxford 1972.
The dark Keres stood by, one bringing the toll of grievous old age, the other of death. (Transl. E. Bianchelli)
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Artistic sources edited by Frances Van Keuren, Prof. Emerita, Lamar Dodd School of Art, Univ. of Georgia, September 2017
Literary sources edited by Elena Bianchelli, Senior Lecturer of Classical Languages and Culture, University of Georgia, June 2020
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