Theater of Fate

the book of nature, which has deceived almost all who interpret it. This is the Gordian knot, the riddle of the Sphinx, the Labyrinth of Minos, and whatever else Antiquity imagined to be obscure and inevitable.

When Epicurus, that counselor of insane wisdom, perceived this, he dared with reckless intent to cut the knot with a sword and to abolish Providence entirely. On the other hand, the school of Socrates, when it contemplated the wonderful order of things in astonishment, introduced harsh necessity and inexorable Fate. Those who write about Fates, and who most acutely interpret the laws of the Parcae the Fates/destinies, do not despair of being able to investigate this. But farewell to Epicurus, a sparing and infrequent worshiper of the Divine; farewell to the school of the Stoics, too rigid and perplexed; farewell to the prophets, unless they set limits for their premature ingenuity, rushing into sudden and unexpected occurrences:

A prudent God hides in a dark night the outcome of future time.

• Horace, Book 3, Odes, 29.