The name of the Parcffi, according to Yarro, is derived a partu or parturiendo, because they presided over the birth of men, and, by corruption, the word jutrca is formed (wm paifa or partus; but, according to Servius, they are called so by antiphrasis, quod newini par cant. ' The power of the Parcaj was great and extensive. Some suppose that they were subject to none of the gods but Jupiter; while others suppose that even Jupiter himself was obedient to their commands; and indeed we see the father of the gods, in Homer's Iliad, unwill- ing to see Patroclus perish, yet obliged, by the superior power of the Fates, to abandon him to his destiny. Ac- cording to the more received o|iiniou, they were the arbiters of the life and death of mankind, and whatever good or evil befalls us in the world immediatelj' pro- ceeds from the Fates or.Parcix;. Some make them min- isters of the king of hell, and represent them as sitting at the foot of his throne ; others represent them as placed on radiant thrones, amid the celestial spheres, clothed in robes spangled with stars, and wearing crowns on their heads. According to Pausanias, tlie names of the Parcaj were different from those alreadj' mentioned. The most ancient of all, as the geographer observes, was Venus Urania, who presided over tlie birth of men ; the second was Fortune; Ilythia was the third. To these some add a fourth, Proserpina, who often disputes with Atropos the right of cutting the thread of human life. The worship of the Parcce was well established in some cities of Greece, and though mankind were well convinced tliat they were inexorable, and that it was impossible to mitigate them, yet they were eager to show a proper respect to their divinity by raising them temples and statues. They received the same worship as the Furies, and their votaries yearly sacrificed to them black sheep, during wliich solemnity the priests were obliged to wear garlands of flowers. The Pare* were generally represented as three old women with chaplets made of wool, and interwoven with the flow- ers of the narcissus. They were covered with a white robe, and fillets of the same color, bound with chap- lets. One of them held a distaff, another the spindle, and the tliird was armed with scissors, with which she cut the thread wliich her sisters had spun. Their dress is differently rciiresented by some authors. Clo- tho apjiears in a variegated rol)e, and on her head is a crown of seven stars. She holds a distaff in her hand reaching from heaven to earth. The robe which La- chesis wore was variegated with a great number of stars, and near her were placed a variety of spindles. Atropos was clothed in black; slie held ;>iis.sors in her hand, with clews of thread of different sizus, according to the length or shortness of the lives whose destinies they seemed to contain, llyginus attribfited to them the invention of these Greek letters, «, /3, »;, r, v, and oth- ers called them the secretaries of heaven, and the keep- ers of fhe archives of eternil}-. The Parcie had places
consecrated to them throughout all Greece, at Corinth, Sparta, Thebes, ( )ivmpia, etc. See Hesiod, Theo<j. et scut. Her. ; Pausan. 1. 1," c. 40 ; 1. 3, c. 11 ; 1. 5, c. 15 ; Homer, //. xxiv, 49; Callimach. in Dian.; yElian, Anim. 10; Pindar, O/yw^j. 10; Neni.7; Euu^t. in Iphiy. ; Plutarch, De facie in orbe Lunm ; Hygin. in prmf. fah, 277; Orph. Hymn. 58; ApoUon. 1, etc.; Claudian. De rapt. Pros. ; Horace, Od. 6, etc. ; Ovid, Met. v. 533 ; Lucan, 3 ; Virgil, ^En. i, 22, etc. ; Senec. in Here. Fur. ; Stat. Theb. 6. See also Smith, Diet, of Class. Biorj. and My- thol. s. V. Moira.
Parched Corn is the rendering in the A. V. of
■'Pp [once X"?p, 1 Sam. xvii, 17], kali', an edible sub- stance (Lev. xxiii, 14; Puth ii, 14; 1 Sam. xvii, 17; XXV, 18 ; 2 Sam. xvii, 28, twice, the last " parched pulse"), and of uX(piTa in Judith x, 5. The correctness of this translation has not, hoAvever, been assented to by all commentators. Thus, as Celsius {Hierobof, ii, 231) says, "Syrus interpres, Onkelos, et Jonathan Ebrfca voce utuntur, Lev. xxiii, 14; 1 Sam. xvii, 17; xxv, 18; 2 Sam. xvii, 18." Arias Montanus and others, he adds, render kali by the word tostum, considering it to be de- rived from nbp, kalah', which in Hebrew signifies "to toast" or *' parch." So in the Arabic kali signifies any- thing cooked in a frying-pan, and is applied to the common Indian dish whicli by Europeans is called cur- rie or curry ; kidi and kulla signify one that fries, or a cook. From the same root is supposed to be derived the word kali or al-kali, now so familiarly known as al- kali, which is obtained from the ashes of burned vege- tables. But as, in the various passages of Scripture where it occurs, kali is without any adjunct, different opinions have been entertained respecting the substance which is to be understood as having been toasted or parched. By some it is supposed to have been grain in general; by others, only wheat. Some Hebrew writers maintain that flour or meal, and others that parched meal, is intended, as in the passage of Ruth ii, 14, where the Sept. translates kali by dXfiTor, and the Vnlg. by polenta. A difficulty, however, arises in the case of 2 Sam. xvii, 28, where the word occurs twice in the same verse. We are told that Shobi and others, on David's arrival at Mahanaim, in the farther limit of the tribe of Gad, " brought beds, and basins, and earthen vessels, and wheat, and barley, and flour, and patched corn (kali), and beans, and lentils, and patched jmlse (kali), and honey, and butter, and sheep, and cheese of kine, for David and for the people that were with him to eat." This is a striking representation of what may be seen every day in the East: when a traveller arrives at a village, the common light beds of the country are brought him, as well as earthen pots, with food of dif- ferent kinds. The meaning of the above passage is ex- plained by the statement of Hebrew writers that there are two kinds of kali — one made of parched corn, the other o( parched pulse ; which are described by P. Salo- mon, on .4 boda Zarah, fol. xxxviii, 2. There is no doubt that in the East a little meal, either parched or not, mixed with a little water, often constitutes the dinner of the natives, especially of those engaged in la- borious occupations, as boatmen while dragging their vessels up rivers, and unable to make any long delay. Another principal preparation, much and constantly in use in Western Asia, is buri/id, that is, corn first boiled, then bruised in the mill to take the husk off, and after- wards dried or parched in the sun. In this state it is preserved for use, and emploj-ed for the same pnqioses as rice. The meal of parched corn is also much used, ))articnlarly by travellers, who mix it with honey, but- ter, and spices, and so eat it; or else mix it witli water only, and drink it as a draught, the refrigerating and satisfying qualities of which they justly extol (Kitto, Pictorial Bible, ii, 537). I'archcd grain is also, no doubt, very common. Thus in the bazars of India not only may rice be obtained in a parched state, but also the seeds of the Nymphaa, and of the Nelurnbsluin specio-