Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/140

 cave; but more usually the realisation of the conjugal aspirations is not assured, unless a second visit to the sanctuary, three days or a month later, proves that the sweetmeats have been accepted by the Fates and are gone. This, I am told, occurs with some frequency. Dodwell mentions that his donkey ate some ; and considering the character of the offerings—cakes and honey for the most part, for only in the 'hollow hill' at Athens was salt added thereto—it is not surprising if the Fates find many willing proxies, human and canine as well as asinine.

At the moment when these delicacies are proffered, an invocation is recited. This may take the form of a metrical line,

[Greek: Moirais mou, moiranete me, kai kalo phagi sas phernô],

'Kind Fates, ordain my fate, for I bring you good fare,'

or may be a simple prose formulary,

[Greek: Moirais tôn Moirôn kai tês tade hê Moira, kopiaste na phate kai na xanamoiranete tên tade nachê kalê moira] ,

'Fates above all Fates, and Fate of N., come ye, I pray, and eat, and ordain anew the fate of N., that she may have a good fate.'

Various other versions are also on record, one of which will be considered later; but these two examples illustrate sufficiently for the present the simple Homeric tenour of such prayers.

The words which I have quoted, it must be admitted, give clear expression to the hope that the Fates may revise the decrees which they have already pronounced on the fortunes of the suppliant. Nevertheless that such a hope should be fulfilled is contrary to the general beliefs of the people. The Fates, they know, are inexorable so far as concerns the changing of any of their purposes once set; for, as their proverb runs, [Greek: hoti graphoun hê Moirais, den xegraphoun], 'what the Fates write, that they make not unwritten .' They are not, it would appear, subordinate, as Charon is sometimes deemed to be, even to the supreme God; I can find no song or story that would so present them. They are absolute and irresponsible in the fashioning of human destiny. But the Greek peasants are not the first who have at the same time believed both in predestination and in the efficacy of prayer. p. 222.], 'It was my written lot,' i.e. destiny, and other similar phrases cited by Schmidt, das Volksleben, p. 212, and [Greek: Politês, Meletê], pp. 218, 219.]