The Fates, A Myth Exploded

Clotho my dear, it is you I fear
While spinning your thread of varied quality
Churning out destiny in prolific quantity
Impervious to the glowing dewdrop tear,
Born of Hera pouring poison in her philandering husbands’ ear

******

O Clotho, your sister Lachesis keeps me amused
deciding the fate of fools and who, by the bickering gods, is used
in determining who exactly shall vanquish or fool who.
She alone determines the length of the thread
And she alone sanctions the journey across the valley of the dead
She believes your work to be of a superior sort
But then again, where exactly were the supplies of thread bought,
My dear Clotho, are you in league with Hades and his motley crew
Taking non-taxable kickbacks on record poor quality sales,
On non-quality controlled wholesale thread bales?

******

And Atropos, what exactly do I think of you?
Your scissors is never blunted by rain nor smoke,
your eyesight fails by the year as you crack wise and joke,
Yet who cuts your thread you wizened crone
With jutting jaw-line, and emaciated body of skin and bone,
Do you cackle with laughter when a man dies as he finds meaning
to worldly existence and a new love of feeling?

******

At your tea parties, who laughs the loudest?
The one favouring the man, a Hector or Achilles, who is heroically killed,
The wanton, by lusting Zeus’s attentions, so tastelessly thrilled
or the vanity of puffed and proud Arachnae with superior spinning skilled.
examples of the proudest cut down by the Fates in their prime,
though vanity is supposed to be a victimless crime.
Is it the man who dies before his time
the one that outwits your crusty triumvirate
By taking interest in life, love of action, the purposeful spirit
Or the zestless clod who ambulates with pedestrian prowess?
Please don’t tell me, I can guess…

Responses

1 comment so far.

1. Orpheus . says:

   Humour? I was deadly serious! I bluff. The images make the poem a little unaccessible but the underlying story is true - when it comes to quality of life, the underserving are often at the front of the queue, taking the choicest spans of thread while the rest of us are not sold a silken thread but a piece of discarded string.
   This ode asks us to make up our own minds about the quality of our lives and question the degree to which our lives are the product of our own choice or the product of choices of creatures outside the usual channels. Zeus is the father of the gods, the institution and the ideal, but the fates are the ones calling the shots behind the scenes - very much like life in modern society. Most power is not invested with easily perceived and accountable sources.
   I give it a comic feel because we live a farce macabre so offensively egregious that if it were not so sad, it would be funny. "Hercules", the animated film, covers this theme well. Hades is powerless and subservient to the Fates - he cannot change history without consulting the tooth and eyeball sharing trio.