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.
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
1. The appointing power as separate from any thing else. It hovers between the state of an abstraction and of a person: and it comes nearer to the latter than αἶσα. Not only have we μοῖρα κραταιὴ γεινομένῳ ἐπένησε λίνῳ, (Il. xxiv. 209.) but especially,
τλητὸν γὰρ Μοῖραι θυμὸν θέσαν ἀνθρώποισιν[549].
A passage by which, unless its effect were modified from elsewhere, the μοῖραι seem in principle to take the whole administration of moral government into their hands, by fixing dispositions as well as outward actions.
2. Besides being thus personal, μοῖρα reaches to mankind at large, and expresses a general law, in the passage last quoted.
This may be a law of good fortune, as in Od. xx. 76[550]: