The symbols, however, which the fable attributes to them, magnificently celebrate their kingdoms. For their walking on the [celestial] circles, signifies their exempt and separate dominion. But their sitting on thrones, and not on the circles themselves, as the Sirens do, indicates that the receptacles which are primarily illuminated by them, are established above the celestial bodies. For a throne is the vehicle and receptacle of those that are seated on it. And all the participants of the participable Gods, are placed under them like vehicles, and the [participable] Gods are eternally established in, ride on, and energize through them. But the Fates being seated at equal distances from each other, manifest the orderly separation of them, their remission proceeding according to analogy, and the distribution supernally derived to them from their mother. For from thence, that which is arranged in progression, and that which is according to desert in energies, are imparted to the Fates. Moreover, the having a crown on their heads, signifies that their summits are surrounded with a divine light, and that they are adorned by prolific and undefiled causes, through which also they fill the heavens with generative power, and immutable purity. But their being invested with white garments evinces that all their externally emitted reasons, and the lives which they propose to themselves, are intellectual and luciform, and full of divine splendour. And the garments indeed appear to indicate the essences which participate of the Fates; but the thrones, the receptacles in the first firmaments. For with us also, garments are proximately connected with our bodies; but vehicles are apprehended to be more remote from us. This, however, is assumed from another theology, from which we are instructed in the orders that are above the inerratic sphere. But the assertion that one of the Fates sings the past, another the present, and the third the future, evinces that all their externally proceeding energies are elegant and intellectual, and full of harmony. For the Fates perfect the songs of the Sirens, and the very orderly and elegant motions of the heavens, and fill all things with their hymns; calling forth indeed the production of their mother into the universe, through intellectual hymns, but converting all things to themselves through the harmonious motion of wholes. All these particulars, however, sufficiently demonstrate to us the perfect, undefiled, and supercelestial order of the Fates. CHAPTER XXIV.