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Inancient Greek religion andmythology,Ananke (/əˈnæŋkiː/;Ancient Greek:Ἀνάγκη), from the common nounἀνάγκη ("force, constraint, necessity"), is apersonification of inevitability, compulsion, andnecessity, and is customarily depicted as holding aspindle. The births of Ananke and her brother and consort,Chronos (thepersonification of time, not to be confused with theTitanCronus), were thought to mark the division between the eon ofChaos and the beginning of thecosmos. Ananke is considered the most powerful dictator of fate and circumstance. Mortals and gods alike respected her power and paid her homage. She is also considered the mother ofthe Fates, hence she is thought to be the only being to overrule their decisions[1] (according to some sources, exceptingZeus also). According to Daniel Schowalter and Steven Friesen, she and the Fates "are all sufficiently tied to early Greek mythology to make their Greek origins likely".[2]
The ancient Greek travellerPausanias wrote of a temple in ancientCorinth where the goddesses Ananke andBia (meaning force, violence or violent haste) were worshiped together in the same shrine. Ananke is also frequently identified or associated withAphrodite, especiallyAphrodite Urania, the representation of abstract celestial love; the two were considered to be related, as relatively unanthropomorphised powers that dictated the course of life.[3][4][5][6] Her Roman counterpart isNecessitas ("necessity").[7]
"Ananke" is derived from the commonAncient Greek nounἀνάγκη (Ionic:ἀναγκαίηanankaiē), meaning "force, constraint or necessity". The common noun itself is of uncertainetymology.[8]Homer refers to her being as necessity, often abstracted in modern translation (ἀναγκαίη πολεμίζειν, "it is necessary to fight") or force (ἐξ ἀνάγκης, "by force").[9] InAncient Greek literature the word is also used meaning "fate" or "destiny" (ἀνάγκη δαιμόνων, "fate by thedaemons or by the gods"), and by extension "compulsion or torture by a superior".[10] She appears often in poetry, asSimonides does: "Even the gods don't fight againstananke".[11]
The pre-modern is carried over and translated (by reduction) into a more modern philosophical sense as "necessity", "logical necessity",[12] or "laws of nature".[13]
InOrphic mythology, Ananke is aself-formed being who emerged at the dawn of creation with anincorporeal, serpentine form, her outstretched arms encompassing the cosmos. Ananke andChronos are mates, mingling together in serpent form as a tie around the universe. Together, they have crushed the primal egg of creation of which constituent parts became earth, heaven and sea to form the ordered universe.[14] Ananke is the mother (or another identity) ofAdrasteia, the distributor of rewards and punishments.[15]
In theOrphic Hymns, Ananke is described as the child ofAphrodite.[16]
The Greek philosopherPlato in hisRepublic discussed the parentage of the Moirai or the Fates in the following lines:[17]
And there were another three who sat round about at equal intervals, each one on her throne, the Moirai (Moirae, Fates), daughters of Ananke, clad in white vestments with filleted heads, Lakhesis (Lachesis), and Klotho (Clotho), andAtropos (Atropus), who sang in unison with the music of theSeirenes, Lakhesis singing the things that were, Klotho the things that are, and Atropos the things that are to be ... Lakhesis, the maiden daughter of Ananke (Necessity).
Aeschylus, the famous tragedian, gave an account in hisPrometheus Bound where the Moirai were called the helmsman of the goddess Ananke along with the threeErinyes:[18]
Prometheus: Not in this way is Moira (Fate), who brings all to fulfillment, destined to complete this course. Only when I have been bent by pangs and tortures infinite am I to escape my bondage. Skill is weaker by far than Ananke (Necessity).
Chorus: Who then is the helmsman of Ananke (Necessity)?
Prometheus: The three-shaped (trimorphoi) Moirai (Moirae, Fates) and mindful (mnêmones) Erinyes (Furies).
Chorus: Can it be that Zeus has less power than they do?
Prometheus: Yes, in that even he cannot escape what is foretold.
Chorus: Why, what is fated for Zeus except to hold eternal sway?
Prometheus: This you must not learn yet; do not be over-eager.
Chorus: It is some solemn secret, surely, that you enshroud in mystery.
Here Prometheus speaks of a secret prophecy, rendered ineluctable by Ananke, that any son born of Zeus and Thetis would depose the god. (In fact, any son ofThetis was destined to be greater than his father.)
In theTimaeus, Plato has the character Timaeus (not Socrates) argue that in the creation of the universe, there is a uniting of opposing elements, intellect ('nous') and necessity ('ananke'). Elsewhere, Plato blendsabstraction with his ownmyth making: "For this ordered world (cosmos) is of a mixed birth: it is the offspring of a union of Necessity andIntellect. Intellect prevailing over Necessity by persuading (from Peitho, goddess of persuasion) it to direct most of the things that come to be toward what is best, and the result of thissubjugation of Necessity to wise persuasion is the initial formation of the universe".[19] InVictor Hugo's novelNotre-Dame of Paris, the word "Ananke" is written upon a wall of Notre-Dame by the hand of DomClaude Frollo. In hisToute la Lyre, Hugo also mentions Ananke as a symbol of love. In 1866, he wrote:
Religion, society, nature; these are the three struggles of man. These three conflicts are, at the same time, his three needs: it is necessary for him to believe, hence the temple; it is necessary for him to create, hence the city; it is necessary for him to live, hence the plow and the ship. But these three solutions contain three conflicts. The mysterious difficulty of life springs from all three. Man has to deal with obstacles under the form of superstition, under the form of prejudice, and under the form of the elements. A triple "ananke" (necessity) weighs upon us, the "ananke" of dogmas, the "ananke" of laws, and the "ananke" of things. InNotre-Dame de Paris the author has denounced the first; inLes Misérables he has pointed out the second; in this book (Toilers of the Sea) he indicates the third. With these three fatalities which envelop man is mingled the interior fatality, that supremeananke, the human heart.
— Victor Hugo,Toilers of the Sea, 1866[20]
Sigmund Freud inCivilization and Its Discontents (p. 140) said: "We can only be satisfied, therefore, if we assert that the process of civilization is a modification which the vital process experiences under the influence of a task that is set it byEros and instigated by Ananke — by the exigencies ofreality; and that this task is one of uniting separate individuals into a community bound together by libidinal ties."
Wallace Stevens, in a poem of the 1930s, writes: "The sense of the serpent in you, Ananke, / And your averted stride / Add nothing to the horror of the frost / That glistens on your face and hair."[21] This connects with Stevens's sense of necessity or fate in his later work, especially in the collectionThe Auroras of Autumn.
Robert Bird's essay "Ancient Terror",[22] inspired byLéon Bakst's paintingTerror Antiquus, speculates on the evolution of Greek religion, tracing it to an original belief in a single, supreme goddess.Vyacheslav Ivanov suggests that the ancients viewed all that is human and all that is revered as divine as relative and transient: "OnlyFate (Eimarmene), or universal necessity (Ananke), the inevitable 'Adrasteia', the faceless countenance and hollow sound of unknown Destiny, was absolute." Before the goddess, who is both indestructible Force of Love and absolute Fate the Destroyer, Life-Giver and Fate-Death, as well as incorporatingMnemosyne (Memory) andGaia (Mother Earth), masculine daring and warring are impotent and transient, and the masculine order imposed byZeus and the other Olympian Gods is artificial.[23]
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