Unbroken Thread The Fates weave many threads into their tapestry of life. "Whose deeds, both great and small/Are close-knit strands of an unbroken thread/Where love ennobles all." ~attributed to Elizabeth Barrett Browning The Moirae shuddered as a tremor disturbed the calm of their work room. A current of anger and violence blew through the elaborate web of threads on the ancient loom, tangling them in a new pattern. The three sisters rarely felt any influence from outside, although they influenced everything that happened in the outer realm, in the lives of both men and gods. "Great Zeus, your son is born!" called Clotho as she worked a new thread into the tapestry she wove. "Woe to the world of men!" muttered Lachesis, as she saw the course that the blood red thread began to take through the pattern. "I shall have to sharpen my shears," said Atropos. "There will be many deaths caused by the son of Zeus." The king of the gods appeared among the three in a flash of white light, a rare visit. He knew he could not influence their work, but he sometimes enjoyed watching the intricate process as the cloth they wove entwined the lives of the world. Now he was curious to see the fate of his new son by the mortal woman Alcmene. "Oh king, you have created a monster!" Clotho greeted him. "Look at the blood on his thread!" "What do you say?" cried the king of the gods. "My son a monster?" "His destiny is one of violence," said Lachesis, drawing her shawl up over her head. "He is unable to bear the heritage of an immortal. Your strength does not become him. Mortals will long tell the story of his mighty deeds, but it will be filled with horror and death." Zeus watched in fascination as the red thread began to weave its way through the tapestry, its rough texture pushing aside other threads in the pattern. Atropos came close and snipped a thread that crossed the red one. "His temper is violent. He disdains the company of mere mortals." She shivered as another draft blew through the weaving room. Zeus followed the path of his son's thread among the vast and intricate pattern of innumberable mortal lives as the sisters worked around him. "What's that thread?" he asked suddenly, distracting Clotho from a pattern of empire building where she had woven such an intricate pattern that Lachesis had to look closely to find the many threads that Atropos must cut short. "Which thread is that, O mighty Zeus?" the weaver asked, leaving the rising tide of Rome to its own devices for a moment. "This bright yellow one." Zeus pointed to a somewhat knotty thread that had seemed to have wound itself around the red one of Alcmene's son. "Hmm," Clotho frowned. "That thread was not supposed to touch your son's life. They must have gotten tangled while I was focused on the other pattern. I will straighten it out." With a fine needle, she carefully pulled a few stitches of the golden thread and rewove it into the pattern. Zeus stepped back as the red thread tangled itself among many others and Atropos approached with her shears ready to snip those which crossed it. Lachesis turned from an intricate pattern on the far side of the tapestry, where lives far from the Middle Sea were woven together, to find for her sister those she knew must be cut short when they crossed the red thread. "Sister," she said to Clotho after examining the close weave, "I thought you changed the weave of that golden thread." "I did," said Clotho, glancing up from her work on the empire of Rome. "Well, somehow it's worked its way back. It's looped around so many other threads I don't know what happened but it's tangled with the red one again!" Lachesis pointed out the unusual pattern. "Let me see!" Zeus craned over the heads of the three sisters as they peered closely at the twisted threads. They moved aside enough for him to see that his son's thread had become smoother and its path through the tapestry straighter since the golden thread had begun weaving its way stitch by stitch through the tapestry with it. "I don't understand it," said Clotho. "There are very few who weave their own pattern in the tapestry." "Yes, the last one I remember was Alexander," said Lachesis. "But even his thread was cut short," sighed Atropos. "This thread looks very long," said Lachesis. "What is happening to my son?" asked Zeus. "Look at the pattern! So many threads are now woven with his, woven in and out in such a beautiful pattern, I've never seen anything like it!" "It is not my doing, O king," said Clotho. "Since the red and gold threads twisted together, I fear to separate them again unless I undo the whole pattern." "How long does this pattern go on?" asked the Thunderer. "I know not, O king," said Lachesis. "I do not see a time to cut these threads. They seem to weave themselves throughout the history of mortals." "My shears are not sharp enough to cut them with so many other threads woven around them," said Atropos. "Sisters," said Clotho, "We must continue the rest of the pattern of the tapestry and let these threads weave their own way. Together they are strong enough to create their own pattern without any help from us." She turned back to the complex weave with many threads that extended through many patterns, Lachesis pointing out the threads to be cut and Atropos snipping where her sister indicated. December 2006 |