Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition
Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I
On Nature · The Purifications · Ancient Greek with a new English translation.
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English Page · Branch 24 of 54
On Nature · Book I · Fragments 36–27a
Ancient Greek
p. 45Stob. I, p. 121,14
τῶν δὲ συνερχομένων ἐξ ἔσχατον ἵστατο Νεῖκος.Hippol., Haer. VII 29,13
οὐ γὰρ ἀπὸ νώτοιο δύο κλάδοι ἀίσσονται,οὐ πόδες, οὐ θοὰ γοῦνα, οὐ μήδεα γεννήεντα,ἀλλὰ σφαῖρος ἔην καὶ ‹πάντοθεν› ἶσος ἑαυτῶι.Plut., De fac. 926 E; Simplic. in Phys., p. 1183,30 sq.
ἔνθ' οὔτ' Ἠελίοιο διείδεται ὠκέα γυῖαοὐδὲ μὲν οὐδ' αἴης λάσιον μένος οὐδὲ θάλασσα·οὕτως Ἁρμονίης πυκινῶι κρύφωι ἐστήρικταιΣφαῖρος κυκλοτερὴς μονίηι περιηγέι γαίων.Stob. I, p. 144,20 sq.
ἀλλ' ὅ γε πάντοθεν ἶσος ‹ἔην› καὶ πάμπαν ἀπείρωνΣφαῖρος κυκλοτερὴς μονίηι περιηγέι γαίων.Plut., Max. cum princ. 777 C
οὐ στάσις οὐδέ τε δῆρις ἀναίσιμος ἐν μελέεσσιν.Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I: On Nature · Book I
p. 46Stob. I, p. 121,14
And as they came together, Strife stood out at the furthest edge.
Hippol., Haer. VII 29,13
For no two branches dart out from his back,
no feet, no swift knees, no begetting parts,
but he was a sphere, and ‹from every side› equal to himself.
Plut., De fac. 926 E; Simplic. in Phys., p. 1183,30 sq.
There neither are the swift limbs of the Sun made out,
nor yet the shaggy strength of earth, nor the sea:
so fast is he fixed in the close covert of Harmony,
a rounded Sphere, rejoicing in his encircling solitude.
Stob. I, p. 144,20 sq.
But he ‹was› equal from every side and altogether without limit,
a rounded Sphere, rejoicing in his encircling solitude.
Plut., Max. cum princ. 777 C
No faction, nor unseemly quarrel, in his limbs.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I · On Nature · Book I · Fragments 36–27a
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Empedocles of Acragas wrote philosophy as poetry: a cosmic account of the four roots, Love, and Strife alongside a religious vision of exile, purification, and return. This Volume I reader preserves the supplied edition’s complete English introduction before changing to Ancient Greek and line-for-line English facing pages for the surviving fragments of On Nature and The Purifications.
Historical Text and Translation
The Ancient Greek reading text follows Hermann Diels’s Poetarum philosophorum fragmenta (1901) and Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (1903). The supplied edition retains Diels’s iota adscripts, editorial brackets, fragment numbering, and the ancient author and location that preserve each quotation. It excludes the Strasbourg and Cairo papyri, later papyrological reconstructions, and the Diels-Kranz A-fragments for the reasons stated in its Introduction.
About Diotimos Editions
Diotimos Editions prepared this new translation directly from the Greek printed opposite it. The translation is line-for-line: each English line answers the Greek line that faces it, while English syntax is allowed to continue across verse boundaries when clarity requires it.
Rights
Empedocles’s ancient Greek work and Hermann Diels’s 1901/1903 Greek editions are in the public domain. The 2026 English translation, introduction, and editorial matter are original to this edition and remain © 2026 Diotimos.