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 28 of 54
On Nature · Book I · Fragments 46–84
Ancient Greek
p. 53Plut., De fac. 925 B
†ἅρματος ὡς πέρι χνοίη ἑλίσσετα醆ἥ τε παρ' ἄκρην† . . .Achilles, Isag. 16, p. 43,6
κυκλοτερὲς περὶ γαῖαν ἑλίσσεται ἀλλότριον φῶς.Plut., De fac. 929 C
ἀπεστέγασεν δέ οἱ αὐγάςἔστ' ἂν ἴηι καθύπερθεν, ἀπεσκνίφωσε δὲ γαίηςτόσσον ὅσον τ' εὖρος γλαυκώπιδος ἔπλετο μήνης.Tzetzes, Alleg. Iliad. O 84
Ἶρις δ' ἐκ πελάγους ἄνεμον φέρει ἢ μέγαν ὄμβρον.Plut., Quaest. conv. 683 E
ἀέρα . . . νεφεληγερέτην.Arist., Sens. 2, 437b 26 sqq.
ὡς δ' ὅτε τις πρόοδον νοέων ὡπλίσσατο λύχνονχειμερίην διὰ νύκτα, πυρὸς σέλας αἰθομένοιοἅψας, παντοίων ἀνέμων λαμπτῆρας ἀμοργούς,οἵ τ' ἀνέμων μὲν πνεῦμα διασκιδνᾶσιν ἀέντων,Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I: On Nature · Book I
p. 54Plut., De fac. 925 B
†as the nave revolves about the chariot†
†which along the rim† . . .
Achilles, Isag. 16, p. 43,6
A light not her own circles round the earth in a ring.
Plut., De fac. 929 C
And she cut off his rays
for as long as she goes above, and she darkened of the earth
as much as was the breadth of the gray-eyed moon.
Tzetzes, Alleg. Iliad. O 84
Iris brings from the sea a wind, or a great rain.
Plut., Quaest. conv. 683 E
the air . . . the cloud-gatherer.
Arist., Sens. 2, 437b 26 sqq.
As when a man, with a journey in mind, makes ready a lamp,
a gleam of blazing fire, through a wintry night,
kindling it, and fitting linen screens against winds of every kind,
which scatter the breath of the blowing winds,
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I · On Nature · Book I · Fragments 46–84
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.