Atropos- Greek GodDeity"The Inflexible"

The Spindle of Necessity

Hesiod names the Moirai twice in the Theogony. First as daughters of Night, born without a father, alongside Death and Sleep. Then again as daughters of Zeus and Themis, sisters to the Horai. Atropos is the eldest, the one whose name means "she who cannot be turned." Clotho spins the thread of life, Lachesis measures it, and Atropos cuts it. Once cut, no god can mend it.

In Plato's Republic, the soldier Er dies on the battlefield, travels through the afterlife, and returns to tell what he saw. At the center of the cosmos he found a great spindle turning on the knees of Necessity. Around it sat her three daughters, the Moirai, each on a throne. Lachesis sang of the past, Clotho of the present. Atropos sang of the future and with each turn of the spindle made what Clotho had spun irreversible. The souls of the dead filed past, chose their next lives, and Atropos sealed each choice. Once she had spun the thread onto her spindle, no soul could undo what it had chosen.