{ "id": "moirai", "type": "entity", "name": "The Moirai", "summary": "The Fates — Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos — \"who give men at their birth both evil and good to have\". Hesiod gives them two parentages in one poem, daughters of Night and daughters of Zeus and Themis; Apollodorus keeps the second; Homer never names three but speaks of Fate and \"the dread Spinners\" who spin a man's thread at birth.", "locale": "en", "tags": [ "greek", "deities", "fate", "birth", "death" ], "relations": [ { "rel": "child_of", "target": "nyx" }, { "rel": "child_of", "target": "zeus" }, { "rel": "child_of", "target": "themis" }, { "rel": "attested_in", "target": "theogony" }, { "rel": "attested_in", "target": "works-and-days" }, { "rel": "attested_in", "target": "iliad" }, { "rel": "attested_in", "target": "odyssey" }, { "rel": "attested_in", "target": "bibliotheca" } ], "questions": [ "Who are the Moirai?", "What are the names of the three Fates?", "Who are the parents of the Fates?", "Are the Fates daughters of Zeus or of Night?", "Do the Fates spin a thread in Homer?", "Can Zeus overrule the Fates?" ], "claims": [ { "id": "c1", "text": "Among the children Night bore alone are \"the Destinies and ruthless avenging Fates, Clotho and Lachesis and Atropos, who give men at their birth both evil and good to have, and they pursue the transgressions of men and of gods: and these goddesses never cease from their dread anger until they punish the sinner\" (Theog. 217–222).", "sources": [ "hesiod-theogony" ], "confidence": 0.95 }, { "id": "c2", "text": "Later in the same poem they are Zeus's daughters: Themis bore him the Horae \"and the Moerae (Fates) to whom wise Zeus gave the greatest honor, Clotho, and Lachesis, and Atropos who give mortal men evil and good to have\" (Theog. 904–906). The Theogony gives the Fates two mothers and does not reconcile them.", "sources": [ "hesiod-theogony" ], "confidence": 0.93 }, { "id": "c3", "text": "Apollodorus keeps only the second genealogy: by Themis Zeus had the Seasons \"also the Fates, to wit, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropus\" (Apollod. 1.3.1).", "sources": [ "apollodorus-library" ], "confidence": 0.93 }, { "id": "c4", "text": "Homer's fate is spun, and its spinners are unnamed: \"On this wise for him did mighty Fate spin\" (Il. 24.209); \"on this wise have the gods spun the thread for wretched mortals\" (Il. 24.525); Odysseus \"shall suffer whatever Fate and the dread Spinners spun with their thread for him at his birth, when his mother bore him\" (Od. 7.197–198). The three names and the parentage are Hesiod's, not Homer's.", "sources": [ "homer-iliad", "homer-odyssey", "hesiod-theogony" ], "confidence": 0.92 }, { "id": "c5", "text": "Works and Days ties them to sickness and age: before Pandora men lived \"free from ills and hard toil and heavy sicknesses which bring the Fates upon men\" (WD 90–92).", "sources": [ "hesiod-works-and-days" ], "confidence": 0.9 } ], "takeaways": [ "Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, allotters of good and evil at birth (Theog. 217–222).", "Two mothers inside Hesiod: Night (Theog. 217) and Themis by Zeus (Theog. 904) — Apollodorus chose the second.", "The spun thread is Homer's image; the three names are Hesiod's." ], "faqs": [ { "q": "What are the names of the three Fates?", "claim": "c1" }, { "q": "Are the Fates daughters of Zeus or of Night?", "claim": "c2" }, { "q": "Who are the parents of the Fates?", "claim": "c3" }, { "q": "Do the Fates spin a thread in Homer?", "claim": "c4" } ], "evidence_tier": "primary", "evidence": { "level": "theoretical", "source_types": [ "paper" ] }, "moat_flag": false, "winning_edge": "Shows that \"daughters of Night\" and \"daughters of Zeus\" are both Hesiod, cited to the line, and that Homer's Spinners are nameless.", "confidence": 0.92, "last_verified": "2026-09-03", "media": [], "x": { "myth": { "pantheon": "greek", "kind": "deity", "group": "other", "domains": [ "fate", "allotment at birth", "punishment of transgression" ], "symbols": [ "spun thread" ], "wikidata": "Q180287" } }, "canonical_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/moirai", "api_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/api/k/moirai.json", "jsonld": { "@context": "https://schema.org", "name": "The Moirai", "description": "The Fates — Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos — \"who give men at their birth both evil and good to have\". Hesiod gives them two parentages in one poem, daughters of Night and daughters of Zeus and Themis; Apollodorus keeps the second; Homer never names three but speaks of Fate and \"the dread Spinners\" who spin a man's thread at birth.", "url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/moirai", "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html", "dateModified": "2026-09-03", "citation": [ { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Hesiod, Theogony — tr. Hugh G. Evelyn-White (Loeb, 1914), Perseus TEI edition", "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0020/tlg001/tlg0020.tlg001.perseus-eng2.xml" }, { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Hesiod, Works and Days — tr. Hugh G. Evelyn-White (Loeb, 1914), Perseus TEI edition", "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0020/tlg002/tlg0020.tlg002.perseus-eng2.xml" }, { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Apollodorus, The Library (Bibliotheca) — tr. Sir James George Frazer (Loeb, 1921), Perseus TEI edition", "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0548/tlg001/tlg0548.tlg001.perseus-eng2.xml" }, { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Homer, Iliad — tr. A. T. Murray (Loeb, 1924), Perseus TEI edition", "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0012/tlg001/tlg0012.tlg001.perseus-eng3.xml" }, { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Homer, Odyssey — tr. A. T. Murray (Loeb, 1919), Perseus TEI edition", "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0012/tlg002/tlg0012.tlg002.perseus-eng3.xml" } ], "@type": "Article", "headline": "The Moirai" } }