Lachesis

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Lachesis, in classical mythology, is the Fate who spins the thread of life. Dante mentions her in Purgatorio XXV, v. 79, in the speech in which Statius illustrates how the soul, once the assigned thread is concluded, frees itself from the body and preserves within itself, virtually, the vegetative, sensitive, and intellective faculties. The authorized notes for the same canto clarify that the reference to Lachesis (written Làchesis) indicates the moment in which, the linen allotted to the individual having been exhausted, the soul frees itself from the bonds of the body, rising back toward the sky. The same commentary recalls a prior Dantesque passage in Purgatorio XXI 27, where Lachesis is again evoked as dispenser of life. Her presence in the scene of the Purgatorio is exclusively allegorical and paradigmatic: she serves Statius to explain the mystery of the separation of the intellect from the other powers of the soul at the moment of death.