νόσφιν ἀποκρύψαι, ὅτε μιν μόρος αἰνὸς ἱκάνοι[548].
Vulcan indeed is a deity of limited powers; but in this case he seems to express a general law.
Death inexorable to Fate or Deity.
The death, therefore, at some time within a given space, of every person remaining in the state of a mortal man, was a point settled and immovable, and so was accordingly the αἶσα of death: but it was that the αἶσα was fixed, because death was fixed, and not that death was fixed, because αἶσα ordained it. We must distinguish between a single incident of a mortal career, an order which nothing can infringe, unchangeable but uncaused, and the supposition of a power, which causes that, and likewise all other parts of it, irrespective of personal will, whether in the gods or in men.
It appears, I think, on the whole, that αἶσα has but a limited and equivocal connection with the idea of fate; it seems never to mean more than the fate of a single individual, never to signify the large-handed destiny that grasps nations and the world. It may be overridden, as by the Greeks, after the battle of the ships. And the reason of this seems to be that its meaning has so strong a bias to the side of a moral law, as opposed to a mere force. This comes out clearly in the sense of the word αἴσιμος: αἴσιμα εἴδειν is little less or more, than to be a good man. Its predominating sense is the ordained law of right; and as such, it is a law very liable to be broken.
Destiny under the form of Μοῖρα.
It is in the Μοῖρα, if anywhere, that we must seek for destiny, in the sense which approximates to fatalistic ideas. Here, far differently from αἶσα, the moral idea is subordinate in nearly all cases, and in some it is wholly suppressed.
Like αἶσα, μοῖρα, properly means a portion or share, a part accruing to some one under a law. Thus we have οὐδ’ αἰδοῦς μοῖραν ἔχουσιν Od. xx. 171; and παρώχηκεν δὲ πλέων νὺξ τῶν δύο μοιράων, τριτάτη δ’ ἔτι μοῖρα λέλειπται (Il. x. 252). Thus it appears to pass into the following senses, which may be usefully compared with those of αἶσα.
The scope of its meaning is far wider: it hardly stoops to signify the destiny of a single man; Homer could not well have said (see Il. i. 416.) ἐπεί νύ τοι μοῖρα μίνυνθά περ: although he can make μοῖρα as a power, appoint a destiny for a man, (Il. xxiv. 209.) it is not the μοῖρα of a man. But it is