Fate and necessity
idea · 2 works · 2 mentions · 7 anchored passages
fate · necessity · destined · the Fates
in the texts
Helen
The idea that necessity and destined fate override the will of both mortals and gods, invoked to explain Helen and Menelaos's escape and the play's resolution.
And it is destined by the gods that the wanderer Menelaos will dwell in the islands of the blessed;
but we are weaker than fate and also than the gods, who decreed these things to happen in this way.
For it was ordained that Helen should live in your house up to the present time;
Iphigenia in Tauris
The idea of an inescapable, predetermined course of suffering governing the lives of Iphigenia, Orestes, and their family.
from the beginning the Fates attendant on my birth directed a hard upbringing for me, wooed by Hellenes, the first-born child in the home, whom the unhappy daughter of Leda, by my father’s fault, bore as a victim and a sacrifice not joyful, she brought me up as an offering.
But I am dedicated to necessity, which must be kept.
we must let fate alone.