Clotho replied: "Upon my word, I did wish to give him another hour or two, until he should make Roman citizens of the half dozen who are still outsiders.

"According to you, then," said Euphronius, "the fates of men are not spun for them by Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, but by their predecessors?"

Cornelia, man hath power by some instinct And gracious revolution of the stars, To conquer kingdoms, not to master fate: For when the course of mortal life is run, Then Clotho ends the web her sister spun.

Clotho, iii.; v. Cocytus, i.; ii.

Stern CLOTHO weaves the chequer'd thread of life; 125 Hour after hour the growing line extends, The cradle and the coffin bound its ends; [Paphian curves.

"O Clotho," Megapetus the tyrant in Lucian exclaims, now ready to depart, "let me live a while longer.

The Fates having played their pawn, swept it from the board, and Cock-eye Flinks disappeared in Clotho's capacious pocket.

Clotho showed her the threads, which "were thin as those spun by a spider."

The shrouds were of that cloth Which Clotho weaveth in her blackest wrath: The dismal tinct oppress'd the eye, that dwelt Upon it long, like darkness to be felt.

Her name was Clotho, and she held a distaff full of flax, from which she was spinning a golden thread.

She gently drew out the thread which Clotho spun, and turning to stern Atropos, said: "Lay aside those shears, sister, and give the child your gift.

'Clotho spins, Lachesis weaves, and Atropos cuts,' I said, 'and the poor illusion vanishes; the loud laughter, the fierce wailing, die on pale lips; the foolish and the wise, the merciful and the pitiless, the workers in the vineyard and the idlers in the market-place, are huddled into one grave, and the heart of Mary Mother and of Mary Magdalen are one dust.'

AT`ROPOS, one of the three Fates, the one who cut asunder the thread of life; one of her sisters, Clotho, appointed to spin the thread, and the other, Lachesis, to direct it.

CLOTHO, that one of the three Fates which spins the thread of human destiny.