The Seba library treats Parcae in 8 passages, across 3 authors (including Onians, R B, Cicero, Marcus Tullius, Liz Greene).
cunctis fila parant Parcae nec par(c)itur ullis. The Latin for woof-thread as opposed to stamen or warp-thread is subtemen.
Onians identifies the grave inscription as the definitive Latin statement of the Parcae’s universality, connecting the woof-thread they cut to the binding mechanism of mortal fate.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988thesis
in the Carmen Saeculare Horace prays to the Parcae: quod semel dictum est stabilisque rerum terminus servet, bona iam peractis iungite fata.
Onians demonstrates that the Parcae are invoked as guardians of the terminus — the irrevocable fixed boundary — fusing the concepts of fate and spatial-temporal limit in Latin thought.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988thesis
Fatum Senectus Mors Tenebrae Miseria Querella Gratia Fraus Pertinacia Parcae Hesperides Somnia, quos omnis Erebo et Nocte natos ferunt.
Cicero places the Parcae in a cosmological genealogy as children of Erebus and Night, situating them alongside Fatum and Mors in a systematic enumeration of cosmic necessity.
, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45thesis
More probably the lots (and possibly the vessel from which they were shaken) were either credited with a virtue of their own… or thought to be controlled by higher powers who thus revealed their will.
Onians contextualizes the Parcae within the broader ancient framework of fate disclosed through divination and lot-casting, where higher powers — including the Fates — govern outcomes.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988supporting
unless we take aicrrj as personal: ‘bound by Fate’ — which the parallel we are about to consider (Il. xv, 208 ff.)
Onians examines the Greek πεπρωμένον as originally meaning ‘bound,’ offering the philological underpinning for the Parcae’s binding imagery across Greco-Roman traditions.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988supporting
it is a fate which above all else resents being unrecognised or treated without humility. Nor is this resentment ever questioned on a moral basis within the tale.
Greene articulates the depth-psychological principle underlying the Parcae’s function: fate as impersonal natural law that operates beyond ethical challenge, reflected in fairy-tale enchantments.
, The Astrology of Fate, 1984supporting
‘Nor was there any loosing of the dire Ipis nor end for either side, but the TEAOS of war was extended evenly.’ AVCTIS, ‘loosing’, implies that what is loosed is a bond and is used of the bonds of fate.
Onians connects the Greek concept of fate-as-bond (relevant to the Parcae’s thread-cutting) to the idea of τέλος as an end that is simultaneously a loosing of binding threads.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988supporting
Labor, iii. 44 Laelius (C. Sapiens, friend of younger Africanus, and chief speaker in De Amicitia), ii. 165 ; iii. 5, 43
The index to De Natura Deorum situates Parcae within the broader cataloguing of divine and personified forces discussed by Cicero, confirming their systematic theological placement.
, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45aside