Necessity
deity figure · 2 works · 2 mentions · 5 anchored passages
also in the atlas: Necessity the idea
dread goddess · the knees of Necessity · the only goddess · the spindle of Necessity · the throne of Necessity
in the texts
Alcestis
Personified goddess of Necessity/Ananke, described by the Chorus as more powerful than any other god, art, or medicine.
This is the goddess that hath gripped thee too in chains thou canst not’scape;
O come not to me, dread goddess, in greater might than heretofore in my career.
Thou too it is that by sheer force dost bend the steel among the Chalybes;
Republic
The personified cosmic power whose spindle governs the revolutions of the heavens and who is mother of the three Fates.
And from the extremities was stretched the spindle of Necessity, through which all the orbits turned.
And there were another three who sat round about at equal intervals, each one on her throne, the Fates, daughters of Necessity, clad in white vestments with filleted heads, Lachesis, and Clotho, and Atropos, who sang in unison with the music of the Sirens, Lachesis singing the things that were, Clotho the things that are, and Atropos the things that are to be.
and after contact with her the genius again led the soul to the spinning of Atropos to make the web of its destiny irreversible, and then without a backward look it passed beneath the throne of Necessity.