Trying To Be A Tree
“Adrasteia, Moira, Tyche, Ananke, Ate, Aisa, Dike, Nemesis, Erinyes, Heimarmene: such are the names that embody necessity. And they are all women. While Kronos dreams, deep in ambrosia, and in his dreams calculates the measures of the universe, these women keep watch, making sure that every being plays his part, no more and no less, so that nothing and no one may exceed their established bounds. Yet all life is excess. That is why we find these women on the prowl everywhere.
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With Homer we are still at a stage when the Good isn’t even mentioned: happy and unhappy, the poet’s warriors know only the many-colored weave of necessity and sate themselves with its splendor, which at the end of the day will destroy them. “The mortal cannot go intrepid through these many-colored beauties,” says Agamemnon, a few seconds before falling underneath Clytemnestra’s ax.”
-Roberto Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, p. 124