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PARCAS. Parcae is the Latin name for the Three Fates, daughters of Night: Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos were their Greek names; Nona, Decuma, and Morta their Latin names. Clotho held the distaff with the thread of life; Lachesis allotted the span of life; and Atropos cut the thread short at death (Hesiod, Theogony, 217-222; Isidore, Etym VIII.11.93.) The narrator invokes the "angry Parcas, sustren thre" to help him tell the fatal destiny of Troilus, Tr V.3-7. The Fates are called the "fatal sustren," Tr III.733 and LGW 2630.

Parcas, Latin accusative plural of Parcae, appears medially, Tr V.3.


Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, ed. and trans. H.G. Evelyn-White, 94-95; Isidore, Etymologiae, ed. W.M. Lindsay, I.
From CHAUCER NAME DICTIONARY
Copyright © 1988, 1996 Jacqueline de Weever
Published by Garland Publishing, Inc., New York and London.

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