PAR'CZE (Lat.. fates; connected with parcre, to forth. hence originally Farce, a god dess of childbirth: later associated by popular etymology with pars, part. identified with the Gk. Moipa, Moira. and then tripled into three Parca' to correspond to the three 3loipar. or Fates). The name given by the Roman poets to the Greek Moire. or goddesses of fate. They have no place in Roman worship. though the name appears in Gallic territory applied to Cel tic divinities. who are also called Fati (mascu line) or (feminine). In the poets they play an important part as spinners of the thread of life. -‘111011g the Greeks the conception of the ..\loirze is somewhat different. The name in the singular denotes the portion of life al lotted to each man at his birth, with the in evitable death at the appointed moment. In Homer Moira is the goddess who allots this por tion to man, though it is often hard to tell whether the word is a proper name or common noun, destiny. Here we find, however, :Moira or Aisa as a spinner of a thread of destiny for every man at his birth, or in one place associated with the Mollies, or spinners, who work under her direction. From this idea of the spinner of the thread of life developed the conception of two or three goddesses who begin, control. and end this thread, but the Moira. are only once named in Homer, and their development in the cult is of a later date. In Hesiod they appear as the three daughters of Zeus and Themis—Clotho, the spinner: Lachesis. the assigner of the lot: Atropos. the inflexible, who cuts the thread.
They were worshiped in Athens. Corinth, Sieyon, Sparta, Thebes. and elsewhere. They are gloomy, invisible goddesses, who know- the future and at times reveal it. Their cult was in some places without images, and their offerings those appro priate to chthonic divinities. To them honors were paid not only in connection with birth and death, but at any important epoch in human life. To a later period belongs the close division of functions between the three sisters, which does not appear in art till Boman times. In the ear lier art they are not distinguished as individuals. but are only represented as fully draped female figures of youthful dignity. The so-called Fates of the Parthenon pediment are not certainly identified. Later Clotho is regularly indicated by the spindle, Lachesis with a globe on which she traces the fate or little rods from which she draws the lot of man, and Atropos by a roll or tablet in which she records man's fate, or the sun-dial to which she points. The relation of the Moire to the gods is not always clearly defined. In Homer the decree of Moira is in accord with the will of Zeus, and once determined cannot be altered. Later writers, while keeping the con nection with Zeus, seem at times to regard the as binding even the gods. Later philo sophical speculation naturally gave much atten tion to the Fates, and even in popular belief they held a high place among the gods.