The Fates

This has always fascinated me – the seeming “randomness” of our life span. Some people live to a ripe old age, while others barely survive birth and some don’t even get that far, much to the grief of the expectant mother. 

 

What started it all? Every effect has a cause. But what? And why? That we can never know – which is why I’m attracted to the Ancient Greek idea of the Fates. Those mysterious "forces" which the Greeks portrayed as three women. Each of the three Fates had a different task, revealed by her name: Clotho spun the thread of life, Lachesis measured its allotted length, and Atropos cut the thread with her shears. 

 

But what determines our “allotted length” of life? I suspect that Hubris and Nemesis play a part but then, maybe so does the Eastern idea of Karma. Karma – the concept that we carry forward our deeds, good or bad, into our next manifestation of life. 

 

To me that is only fair.  We reap what we sow. 

 

Two “quatrains” from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam emphasise our impotence:-

 

49

‘Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days

Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:

Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,

And one by one back in the Closet lays.

 

50

The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and Noes,

But Right or Left, as strikes the Player goes;

And He that toss’d Thee down into the Field,

He knows about it all – He knows – HE knows!

 

 

As a reminder – Hubris, to the ancient Greeks, is when a human, with over weening arrogance and pride, tries to alter the course of events and by so doing encroaches on the realm of the Gods. Something not  to be recommended!

 

Hubris always invited the arrival of Nemesis – the female Goddess of retribution – implacable in her task of tracking every wrong back to its doer and dispensing justice commensurate with the wrong committed. Nemesis was generally portrayed holding the Scales of Justice on one hand and a sword or dagger in the other.  

 

But all this brings me back to where I started, that, to me, fascinating and totally unknowable concept of Life (with a capital L) and what determines its span or length of time? 

 

And I have absolutely no idea! 

Some thoughts.

In these times of great tribulation it is worthwhile, I think, to carefully consider one’s situation. Some, of course, might not agree with me but I derive my thoughts from a variety of sources – some very old – for instance the Ancient Greeks.

Fate, or Chance, or Providence does not play a fair game with us humans. It does not abide by any rules; is not moved by any considerations; is not turned aside by any prayers; or made malignant by any curses. Its onset can neither be retarded, nor hurried, tempered nor envenomed, avoided or way-laid by anything we do.

Why blame it? It moves at its own inexorable pace towards its own determined end.

It is we, humans, who make the rules of the games we play, who plead for consideration, who try to shelter behind the situations we caused. Why blame it if we are thin skinned, if we are unready, if we are cowards, if we did not for-see the consequences, if we are fatuous enthusiasts for our causes?

All we should know is that there is no armour, no shield, no antidote. Some of us trust in fortitude, some in fatalism, some in a hereafter, and a few hardy ones in a grim, derisive, humorous cynicism.

And if at the end of things our trust fails – it does not matter! 

To again quote from The Rubaiyat, by Omar Khayyam, quatrain 52:-

And that inverted Bowl we call the Sky,

Whereunder crawling coop’t we live and die,

Lift not thy hands to It for help – for It

Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.

But then as with Pandora's box - there is always Hope!!