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

Μοίραις μου, μοιράνετέ με, καὶ καλὸ φαγὶ σας φέρνω,

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

or may be a simple prose formulary,

Μοίραις τῶν Μοιρῶν καὶ τῆς τάδε ἡ Μοῖρα, κοπιάστε νὰ φᾶτε καὶ νὰ ξαναμοιράνετε τὴν τάδε νἄχῃ καλὴ μοῖρα[276],

‘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, ὅτι γράφουν ᾑ Μοίραις, δὲν ξεγράφουν, ‘what the Fates write, that they make not unwritten[277].’ 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. Perhaps all unconsciously they reconcile the ideas as did Aeschylus of old: