Prophetic midwives

V Welcome and bounding

We come face to face with a figure that radiates serenity and wisdom. Is she a craftswoman? A grandmother? A Celestina maybe? Her maturity is accentuated. However, her face shows neither the fatigue nor the pallor that old age tends to leave behind. In fact, her weathered skin and gray eyebrows contrast with the vivacity of her clothes, and with the luminescence of her appearance. In her gaze, we seem to detect the shadows of past, present, and, perhaps even, future events. Her hands hold spindle and thread – two instruments replicated in the dim background. There, a piece of paper reveals the old woman’s identity: «Lachesis I am […] with the fatal thread and spindle in hand» («Lachesi io son qui finta / con lo stame fatal col fuso in ma(no). »). We’re facing, thus, the Parca, ancient goddess of destiny who sings her carmen at the birth of a human being. Baroque culture links her to the midwife. Like the Parca, the midwife renders predictions. She forecasts the fertility of women and the course of a pregnancy. When a child is born, she contributes to its identity by articulating vitality, sex and character. Like the Parca, the midwife shapes destiny with her hands. She handles the body, straightens it by swaddling it in linen, and thereby contributes to its becoming a social being. And like the Parca, lanifica soror, the midwife works with thread. She binds the navel of a newborn and mends the body of a woman in childbed. In this way, she takes care of their (re-)incorporation into the community. Through word and gesture, the midwife turns into a Parca. She unravels the thread of life, elongates it at her discretion and proclaims its properties. Her art touches the sublime —just as the glowing thread in the hands of our Parca extends, after all, into the darkness. [Sabrina Grohsebner]