Chapter 9: The Tale of Helios and The Fates
The Tale of Helios
Helios was one of the Titans, son of Hyperion and Theia and brother of Eos (the Dawn) and Selene (the Moon). The personification of the Sun, he was portrayed as driving a four-horse chariot across the sky on a daily basis. Helios was married to Perse, but he had quite a few extramarital affairs, and a number of children; these include the Charites, Phaethon, Circe, Aeetes, Pasiphae, Heliadae, and Heliades. At a later time, Helios was conflated with Apollo; to the Romans, he was known as Sol.
Helios was married to Perse, but just like many other male gods, he had quite a few well-known affairs, most famously with Clymene, Rhode, and Leucothoe.
According to most accounts, Helios was married to the Oceanid Perse (or Perseis) with whom he had at least four children: Aeetes and Perses, both kings of Colchis at different times; Pasiphae, the wife of Minos and the mother of the Minotaur; and Circe, the powerful enchantress of Aeaea.Possibly the most famous mistress of Helios was the Oceanid Clymene, with whom he had three (or, some say, five) daughters known collectively as the Heliades, and a son by the name of Phaethon.
Once, after being granted permission by Helios to borrow his chariot for a day, the inexperienced Phaethon sped it out of control and had to be killed with a thunderbolt by Zeus, lest he should set fire to the entire earth.
Phaethon's sisters, the Heliades, grieved his death of their brother for so long that, eventually, their tears turned into amber and they themselves into poplar trees.
Rhode was the nymph of the island of Rhodes, which Helios claimed as his own even before it had been created, being the first one to see it rising magnificently from the sea. Soon after, the Sun God lay with Rhode, who bore him seven sons, the Heliadae, and a daughter, Electryone. The Heliadae surpassed all men in both strength and learning (especially, astrology) and, soon enough, they came to rule Rhodes, whose three chief cities (Ialysos, Cameiros, and Lindos) are named after some of their sons to this very day.
Journeying through the sky from sunrise to sunset on a daily basis, Helios could see and hear everything happening during most of the day; naturally, sometimes, this meant that he was able to notice things others would rather keep as topmost secrets. Such was the case when he spotted the affair of Aphrodite with Ares, the disclosing of which led to the humiliation of both deities.
Aphrodite decided to take revenge, so she made Helios (who was, at the time, happily consorting Clytie) fall madly in love with Leucothoe, the daughter of the Persian king Orchamus and Eurynome. Enraptured with Leucothoe's beauty, Helios disguised himself as her mother and gained entrance to her room, after which he changed his form back to his customary beauty which left Leucothoe speechless and presently inspired her love.
Wanting Helios all for herself and being unable to bear the pain of his newest affair, Clytie spread around the story of someone secretly defiling Leucothoe until it reached the ears of Orchamus. The king would listen to no excuses: he buried her daughter alive in the cold earth as soon as he found her. Helios uncovered her promptly and tried resuscitating her with the warmth of his rays, but it was too little too late: Leucothoe was dead forevermore. "Nothing should stop you to reach the skies," Helios exclaimed in anger and pain and transformed Leucothoe into the tree which gives frankincense.
Clytie hoped that by eliminating Leucothoe from the story, she could once again earn Helios' love; she managed to earn his utmost hatred instead. As Helios stopped paying her any attention, she started wasting away in sorrow, sitting all alone away from her sister Nymphs and turning her face into the direction of the Sun God constantly in hope for a single glance. Eventually, she passed away, and her body was transformed into the heliotrope, whose flowers follow the sun throughout the whole day.
Helios did not play a major part in Greek mythology, as he was eventually replaced by Apollo. However, he does appear as an extra in the myths of other gods and mortals. Helios is the one who tells Demeter that her daughter Persephone has been abducted by Hades. He also lends his golden bowl to Heracles to help the hero cross the river of Ocean and fetch the cattle of Geryon.
Journeying back from the Trojan War, Odysseus and his surviving crew land on the Thrinacian island, sacred to the Sun God. Starving and short of food – against the better advice of Odysseus – his men decide to kill some of Helios' cattle and eat it. Infuriated, Helios complains to Zeus and threatens that he would take the sun with him and make it shine in the Underworld lest the perpetrators are punished. So, Zeus sends a violent storm that destroys the ship of Odysseus, killing all of his men except for him, since he had taken no part in the sacrilege.
The Fates – or Moirai – are a group of three weaving goddesses who assign individual destinies to mortals at birth. Their names are Clotho (the Spinner), Lachesis (the Alloter), and Atropos (the Inflexible). In the older myths, they were the daughters of Nyx, but later, they are more often portrayed as the offspring of Zeus and Themis. In Orphic cosmogony, their mother is said to have been Ananke or Necessity. Either way, they had enormous power and even Zeus was unable to recall their decisions.
The Tale of The Fates
The Fates were originally called Moirai in Ancient Greece. The word moira means "share" or "portion" of something, whether meal, land, or victory spoils (compare this with the English word "merit" from the Latin meritum, "a reward"). By extension, Moirai means "The Apportioners," i.e., the ones who give to each his own (portion of life). The Moirai's Roman counterpart were the Parcae, probably because the Romans confused the origin of their name, thinking it stems from pars which is the Latin translation of moira; it's actually derived from parere, "to bring forth," which explains why the Parcae were initially birth spirits, and also why the Romans weren't so far off when they merged them with the Moirai.
The Fates have at least three different genealogies, two of which go way back to Hesiod. In his "Theogony," the poet first informs us that the Fates are the fatherless daughters of Nyx, the Night, only to later describe them as daughters of Zeus and Themis, and, thus sisters of the Horae, Eunomia, Dike, and Eirene. Both genealogies make sense: in the first case, the Moirai are linked through Nyx with Death, and in the second they are clearly associated with the unchanging order of things. At a later date, in the Orphic cosmogony, the Fates got a new mother: Ananke, or Necessity.
Consistently portrayed as three women spinners, each of the three Fates had a different task, revealed by her very name: Clotho spun the thread of life, Lachesis measured its allotted length, and Atropos cut it off with her shears. Sometimes, each of the Fates was assigned to a specific period of time: Atropos – the past, Clotho –the present, and Lachesis – the future.
The representation of the Fates evolved through time, and it seems that it often depended on the medium through which they were portrayed. Thus, in the visual arts, they were usually depicted as handsome women, but in literature, they are often imagined as both old and ugly. In any case, they are almost always pictured as weaving or binding thread. Sometimes, one – or all – of them can be seen reading or writing the book of fate.
It's difficult to say whether Zeus had anything to say in the matters of the Fates, but, to the Ancient Greeks, it seems that even he wasn't able to overrule their decrees.
Thus, even though at one point during the Trojan War he is aware that his beloved son Sarpedon will die at the hands of Patroclus, Zeus can do nothing to save him. Just as well, before the duel between Hector and Achilles, the All-Powerful God merely weighs their destinies on his golden scales and learns the outcome, as opposed to having any control over it.
However, the Fates and Zeus seem to have an understanding between each other at all times, their friendship going way back to the Gigantomachy. During it, the Fates killed the Giants Agrius and Thoas, clubbing them to death with bronze cudgels. They helped Zeus, even more, when they tricked Typhoeus into eating some power-weakening fruits, which they successfully persuaded him to do by convincing him to believe in the opposite.
The Fates do not appear that frequently in myths. True, they are usually portrayed attending the births of both mortals and gods, but, all in all, they rarely need to intervene in any way whatsoever. There are, however, two interesting exceptions.
The only time the Fates said anything to a mortal was at the birth of Meleager when they informed his mother Althaea that her son would live until a log, then burning in the hearth, was burnt entirely to ashes. Naturally, Althaea put the log away in a chest and kept it safe for many years. However, when Meleager murdered her brothers after a quarrel over a boar skin, she threw the log into the fire, thus killing her son. Afterward, out of remorse and despair, she killed herself as well.
Only once were the Fates deceived by someone, and that someone was none other than Apollo. Upon learning that Admetus, his favorite, was destined to die, Apollo got the Fates drunk and persuaded them to spare Admetus' life if he was able to find a substitute. He didn't. But Admetus' wife, Alcestis, ever the epitome of faithfulness and love, voluntarily stepped forth and ultimately saved her husband's life.
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