Clotho- Greek GodDeity"The Spinner"

The Spinner at the Spindle

Hesiod names Clotho twice in the Theogony, giving her two parentages. In one she is a daughter of Night, born alongside her sisters Lachesis and Atropos from darkness without a father (Theogony 217-222). In the other she is a daughter of Zeus and Themis, sister not only to the other Moirai but to the Horai, the goddesses of the seasons (Theogony 904-906). Hesiod does not reconcile the two accounts.

Plato gives the Moirai their fullest scene. In the Myth of Er, a soldier named Er dies in battle and returns to life with a vision of the afterlife. He sees the Spindle of Necessity, a great shaft of light running through the cosmos, with eight nested whorls turning within each other to move the stars and planets. The three Moirai sit on thrones around it. Clotho sits at the right and touches the outermost whorl with her hand, keeping it turning. Lachesis touches the inner whorls. Atropos touches them all (Republic 10.617c).

Before the spindle, the souls of the dead choose their next lives from patterns laid out before them. A herald arranges them in order, and Lachesis casts lots to determine who chooses first. Each soul picks a life: one chooses a tyrant's power, another a quiet craftsman's days. Once chosen, the soul passes before Clotho, who spins the thread of the chosen destiny and ratifies it. The choice becomes fate. Then the soul passes beneath the hand of Atropos, who makes the thread irreversible (Republic 10.617d-620e).