exitum.
Hominis exitum innuentes, fuſum pingebant, & fili extremum reſectum, quaſi à colo diuulſum, finguntur ſiquidem à poetis Parcæ hominis vitam nere: Clotho quidem colum geſtans: Lacheſis quæ Sors exponitur, nens: Atropos verò inconuertibilis ſeu inexorabilis Latinè redditur, filum abrumpens.
The question is asked, “How do they represent the death or end of man?” Thus answered,—“To intimate the end of man they paint a spindle, and the end of the thread cut off, as if broken from the distaff: so indeed by the poets the Fates are feigned to spin the life of man: Clotho indeed bearing the distaff; Lachesis spinning whatever lot is declared; but Atropos, breaking the thread, is rendered unchangeable and inexorable.”
This thread of life Prospero names when he speaks to Ferdinand (Tempest, act iv. sc. 1, l. 1, vol. i. p. 54) about his daughter,—
“If I have too austerely punish’d you,
Your compensation makes amends; for I
Have given you here a thread[[179]] of mine own life
Or that for which I live.”
“Their thread of life is spun,” occurs in 2 Henry VI. (act iv. sc. 2, l. 27).
So the “aunchient Pistol,” entreating Fluellen to ask a pardon for Bardolph (Henry V., act iii. sc. 6, l. 44, vol. iv. p. 544). says,—