I feel my veins spreading on thanatos’s thumb
Reaching out, seeking cold and wet memories
Hammered to the stone
If I was murky in mind I might think
The thing-in-itself is terror
And irrational thought is tightening my mask
I don’t know of the lost kitchen of my heart
Warming the body and daring to sharpen its tongue
I cut the Lachesis cords without recourse to Law
Night is suffering in your thorn of a paw
Lachesis -- Pietro Bellotti
Thanatos was the Greek personification of death. He and his twin brother Hypnos (Sleep) were the sons of Nyx (Night) and Erebos (Darkness). The Oneiroi (Dreams) were either their brothers or the sons of Hypnos and Pasithea Relaxation), one of the Charites. Though the Charites were usually thought to be the daughters of Zeus and the Oceanid, Eurynome (Broad Law), Pasithea was the child of Hera and Dionysus. Thanatos' other (fatherless) siblings included Geras (Old Age), Oizys (Suffering), Moros (Doom), Apate (Deception), Momus (Blame), Eris (Strife), Nemesis (Retribution), Philotes (Friendship), and Charon, the boatman who took the deceased to the underworld. He was associated with the three Moirai (the Fates), who were also daughters of Nyx (or in the Orphic cosmogony the daughters of Ananake [Neessity], who was entwined with Chronos [Time] at the beginning of time); in later myths they were the daughters of Zeus and the titaness Themis (the Institutor), the embodiment of divine order and law; they were the sisters of Eumonia (Lawfulness), Dike (Justice), and Eirene (Peace), as well as the Horai (the goddesses of the seasons and the natural portions of time) and the Keres (the goddesses of violent death). Hesiodos claimed Thanatos had "a heart of iron, and his spirit within him is pitiless as bronze: whomsoever of men he has once seized he holds fast and he is hateful even to the deathless gods." As the notion of a peaceful afterlife in Elysium gained hold, Thanatos became more associated with a gentler death, often portrayed as a winged boy, a slumbering baby in the arms of Nyx, or a yoth carrying a butterfly or a wreath of poppies. Psychoanalysts postulate a life instinct (eros) and a death instinct (thanatos) that drive people to engage in risky, self-destructive behavior. The number of Moirai varied over time, sometimes being a single deity, but generally there were three: the white-robed, old, ugly, sometimes lame sisters Clotho (Spinner), Atropos (Unturnable), and Lachesis (Alotter). Accompanying Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth and midwifery who was the daughter of Zeue and Hera (and was poetically referred to as "the clever spinner"), they controlled the thread of life and intervened to make sure that the assigned fate occurred. Clotho spun the thread onto her spindle, Lachesis measured the thread allotted to each person, and Atropos, the sister who was most closely associated with Thanatos, chose the manner of death and cut the thread with her shears. Platon claimed that they sang in unison with the Sirens: Lachesis sang the things that were, Clotho the things that are, and Atropos the things those that will be. Perhaps only Zeus was beyond their power and able to alter destinies. "Moira" and "nomos" (law) both meant "portion." According to the notion of justice ("dike"), if people crossed their specified boundaries or got more than their ordained part, they would be punished by law.
ReplyDeleteI use the philosophical term "thing-in-itself" to show that life is not our enemy-- we fear the evil and meanness in life, but ultimately these things do not change. "Thing-in-itself" refers to a purely objective existence of something. A table is a table. We can form conceptions of the table but ultimately it remains a table. This use was my way of telling the reader to see things as they are and not be frightened.
ReplyDeleteYears ago I wrote a song with the line, "Time is a Cyclops with a bloodshot eye. The moirai have fallen into the sty."
ReplyDelete