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Atropos
Atropos
Minor DeityFate — the Inflexible who cuts the Thread of Life
Third and smallest of the three Moirai, yet the most dreaded: Klotho spins the thread, Lachesis measures it, and Atropos cuts it, ending the life. Her name means 'she who cannot be turned,' the inflexible. Hesiod gives the Moirai both as fatherless daughters of Night (Hes. *Theog.* 217–222) and as daughters of Zeus and Themis, sisters of the Seasons, to whom Zeus gave the highest honour (Hes. *Theog.* 904–906). In Plato's myth of Er the three turn the whorls of the cosmic Spindle of Necessity, Atropos singing of what is to come (Pl. *Rep.* 10.617c).
Origin
Daughter of Zeus and Themis in the Theogony's civic genealogy (sister of the Seasons); a fatherless daughter of Night in the poem's earlier catalogue. Third of the three Moirai.