Lycus’ relationship with his child was of a very different nature. He spent no time coddling the newborn, preferring to stare at him from a distance with a scrutinous eye that spoke more of skepticism than love. While it was the burden of the father to determine an infant’s worthiness in the first seven days after birth, Sophia found his treatment harsh in view of the circumstances—their child was neither illegitimate, unhealthy, nor deformed, and he was male. It was a blessing. Still, Sophia worried, for even on the day of their son’s birth, her husband had taken on a strange demeanor that foretold bad tidings. She prayed that by the seventh day, Lycus would smile upon their son.
The first week of life was a period of uncertainty, the burden of birth and life outside the womb being too heavy for many infant hearts to bear. For this reason, seven days were allowed to pass before newborns became recognized as individuals—bestowed a name during a family festival around the hearth that signaled their inclusion into the family and society. For infants who survived, and who were deemed worthy by their fathers, the festival was an occasion of great merriment.
Sophia imagined their home’s exterior being covered with olive branches. Friends and relatives would arrive once daylight had faded, bringing gifts of cuttlefish, marine polyp, and wine. Sophia imagined herself, along with her mother, sisters, the midwife and her attendants, undergoing a purification ritual, ridding themselves of the pollution of birth. Sophia would then dance around the family hearth, lifting her newborn on high, presenting him to the gods above, while the name of the child would finally be said aloud. Sophia imagined all this with intense longing, but in actuality, she could do nothing to help these events transpire for her son’s thread of life had already been drawn.
At the moment of each man’s birth and in counsel with the gods, the Fates—three sisters kneeling beside the throne of Zeus—busily draw man’s thread of life. The first sister, who oversees birth, spins out his thread from her distaff onto her spindle; the second sister, in charge of life, measures his thread with her rod; and the third sister, decider of death, cuts his thread with her shears. And in this way, the sisters, relaxed in white robes, spin, measure, and cut each man’s thread the moment he is born, determining his fate—his birth, his life, and his death.
Sophia sent innumerable prayers up to the Fates, hoping they would greet her by the hearth on the seventh day. But it seemed her prayers were muttered in vain. Lycus ordered their son be immersed in ice-cold water, so testing his temperament. “If he remains silent, he shall be called my son, but if he cries, he is not worthy,” he said. As the infant began weeping, Sophia shed tears to match, draining her bottomless grief.
“He is to be exposed,” Lycus ordered. Sophia opened her mouth to protest, but could only produce shrill shrieks from the depths of her throat. She threw herself onto her son, defying his fate, but Lycus promptly ripped her off.
“Stop your mad freak, woman!” he said, enraged. “Expose him, now!” he roared.
The family’s attendants quickly placed the child in a clay pot, carried him to the outskirts of town, and deserted him along a roadway—common practice for those not wishing to keep their babies. In this way, the parents bear no responsibility, for the child dies of natural causes—dehydration, exposure to the elements, or an attack of wild beasts. Some exposed infants were rescued by passers-by, adopted and raised as children or as slaves, though many were left for dead.
When he returned, Lycus found Sophia splayed out on the floor, patches of hair missing, having been ripped from her head in a show a grief. In whispers, she issued abuses against the gods, her voice growing bold as she addressed the Fates themselves. “His thread was cut almost as quickly as it was spun!” Sophia cried aloud before falling silent, lying limp and defeated.
But her temper was unwarranted, for her son’s thread of life was not cut short. A traveling caravan, having spotted the clay pot, took the infant into their care. They intended to raise him as a slave, though they would find the child so enjoyable he would, in time, become their adopted son.
Lycus would wonder for years to come whether the gods, insulted by Sophia’s slanders, had ordered the Fates to redraw her thread, for Zeus was known to intervene in the pre-ordained fate of man from time to time. But he surmised the gods knew she would react in such a callow manner and that, in fact, Sophia had died that day of a broken heart. For on the day her son was exposed, she had fallen to the floor, overcome by her sorrow, never again to rise. “It was her fate,” Lycus would say.
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