9. Μοῖρα has yet another sense, that of κοσμὸς, order. The force of the term κατὰ μοῖραν is generally ‘with propriety,’ while κατ’ αἶσαν is ‘with right.’
Thus in Il. xix. 256 the Greeks sit still, κατὰ μοῖραν, in order to hear Agamemnon: and we have an instance of κατὰ μοῖραν meaning ‘with propriety’ in Il. x. 169. Here Nestor has been chidden by Diomed, not for a moral offence, but for over-activity: and he replies,
ναὶ δὴ ταῦτά γε πάντα, φίλος, κατὰ μοῖραν ἔειπες.
Lastly, we come to the word μόρος. There are several shades of distinction between it and μοῖρα.
1. It is never personified in Homer, nor even approaches to impersonation.
2. It draws peculiarly to the dispensation of death, in conformity with the law by which in Latin it became _mors_. See Il. xviii. 465. xxi. 133: and, except in this connection, it does not seem to be used to express individual destiny.
3. Accordingly it is never associated with deity; in conformity with the fixed character of the dispensation of death. We have no μόρος θεῶν, μόρος Διός.
4. Yet this is not because μόρος is stronger than μοῖρα. On the contrary, we have no case in Homer of a thing done ὑπὲρ μοῖραν, though it is sometimes apprehended. Thus in Il. xx. 335 Neptune warns Æneas to retire from before Achilles,
μὴ καὶ ὑπὲρ μοῖραν δόμον Ἄϊδος εἰσαφικήαι.
But μόρος receives the sense of αἶσα as the law of right: a relationship curiously maintained in _mos_, _moris_, compared with _mors_, _mortis_. Men bring woe upon themselves ὑπέρμορον, by obstinate wickedness: and the crimes of Ægisthus (Od. i. 35.) have been committed ὑπέρμορον.
We thus see that, on the whole, the force of destiny, as it appears in Homer, although it commonly prevails, is not uniformly irresistible. We never find the deities actually fighting against it, or it against them. So full and large were Homer’s conceptions of the freedom of the human will, that fate is sometimes on the point of giving way before the energy of his heroes, and this even when the strength of some god is brought in aid of it. Thus Jupiter fears, lest ὑπὲρ μόρον Achilles should dash the Trojan walls[552] to the ground. Apollo enters the city[553], lest the Greeks should take it ὑπὲρ μόρον on the day of the battle with Hector. In the Second Book, after the rush from the assembly, the Greeks would ὑπέρμορα have returned home, unless Juno had urged Minerva to bestir herself by influence among them. Many things are done contrary to αἶσα, or the ordained law of right; whereas, although μοῖρα is not in the abstract insurmountable, yet in fact it rarely is surmounted. But then the Fate of Homer, the thing spoken, is not in conflict with him that speaks it.