The Seba library treats Atropos in 7 passages, across 5 authors (including Onians, R B, Liz Greene, Kerényi, Karl).
the binding or weaving of it by ‘ATporos. Apart from the evidence already adduced, Aeschylus provides confirmation that the Aaxos was the wool to be spun… ‘ATpoiros, ‘she who cannot be turned’ aside or backward, remain.
Onians argues that Atropos’s original function was the binding or weaving of fate onto the recipient, not the cutting of the thread, and her name signifies irresistible irreversibility.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988thesis
Atropos becomes almost superfluous; she merely spins again what Klotho had spun — an
Onians demonstrates that Plato’s version of the myth of Er displaces Atropos from her original function, rendering her nearly redundant by having her repeat Klotho’s spinning rather than perform the distinct act of binding.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988thesis
differentiated as Lachesis, Klotho, Atropos, 416-19. See also s. v. fate
Onians’s index entry confirms that the differentiation of the three Moirai — including Atropos — receives sustained analytical treatment in relation to fate’s spinning, binding, and allotment.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988supporting
Atropos 13, 18, 27, 348
Greene’s index locates Atropos at multiple structurally significant points in her astrological-psychological account of fate, signaling her role as a recurring symbolic referent throughout the work.
, The Astrology of Fate, 1984supporting
All through our mythology one comes across three goddesses. What is more, they do not merely form accidental groups of three — usually a group of three sisters — but actually are real trinities, sometimes almost forming a single Threefold Goddess.
Kerenyi situates the Moirai, of whom Atropos is one, within the pervasive Greek archetype of the Triple Goddess, linked structurally to lunar triads and the cosmic principle of threefold feminine power.
, The Gods of the Greeks, 1951supporting
wild men of fiery aspect, who were standing by and heard the sound, seized and carried them off; and Ardiaeus and others they bound head and foot and hand, and threw them down and flayed them with scourges, and dragged them along the road at the side, carding them on thorns like wool
The Er myth’s imagery of binding, carding wool, and irrevocable punishment forms the mythological context within which Atropos’s binding function in Plato’s eschatology operates.
, Republic, -380aside
Psychology has already recognized the faceless, nameless Chaos, this ‘scared and crazy movement’ in the soul, as anxiety, and by naming it such, psychology has directly evoked the goddess Ananke, from whom the word anxiety derives.
Hillman’s identification of Ananke — the goddess of necessity most closely associated with the Moirai’s inescapability — provides the depth-psychological framework within which Atropos’s function as irresistible finality is conceptually grounded.
, Mythic Figures, 2007aside