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Meaning & History
One of the three goddesses of fate in relation to birthing. See also Nona and Decima. Parca or Partula oversees partus, birth as the initial separation from the mother's body (as in English '"postpartum"). At the very moment of birth, or immediately after, Parca establishes that the new life will have a limit, and therefore she is also a goddess of death called Morta (English "mortal"). The profatio Parcae, "prophecy of Parca," marked the child as a mortal being, and was not a pronouncement of individual destiny. The first week of the child's life was regarded as an extremely perilous and tentative time, and the child was not recognized as an individual until the dies lustricus.