The three MOIRAI, or Fates, were named CLOTHO, LACHESIS, and ATROPOS. These daughters of Nyx are to be thought of as sitting round a spinning wheel: Clotho spins the thread that represents a life, Lachesis measures out its length, and Atropos (the relentless, remorseless one, literally the “un-turning”) chooses when to shear the thread and cut the life short.30 I picture them as sunken-cheeked crones, clothed in black rags, sitting in a cave cackling and nodding as they spin, but many sculptors and poets represented them as pink-cheeked maidens, dressed in white robes and smiling
