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 29 of 54
On Nature · Book I · Fragments 84–34
Ancient Greek
p. 55Arist., Sens. 2, 437b 26 sqq.
φῶς δ' ἔξω διαθρῶισκον, ὅσον ταναώτερον ἦεν, 5λάμπεσκεν κατὰ βηλὸν ἀτειρέσιν ἀκτίνεσσιν·ὣς δὲ τότ' ἐν μήνιγξιν ἐεργμένον ὠγύγιον πῦρλεπτῆισίν ‹τ'› ὀθόνηισι λοχάζετο κύκλοπα κούρην,‹αἳ› χοάνηισι δίαντα τετρήατο θεσπεσίηισιν·αἳ δ' ὕδατος μὲν βένθος ἀπέστεγον ἀμφιναέντος, 10πῦρ δ' ἔξω διίεσκον, ὅσον ταναώτερον ἦεν.Simplic. in Cael., p. 529,21 sq.
ἐξ ὧν ὄμματ' ἔπηξεν ἀτειρέα δῖ' Ἀφροδίτη.Simplic. in Cael., p. 529,24 sq.
γόμφοις ἀσκήσασα καταστόργοις Ἀφροδίτη.Plut., De am. mult. 95 A
ὡς δ' ὅτ' ὀπὸς γάλα λευκὸν ἐγόμφωσεν καὶ ἔδησε . . .Ps.-Arist., Meteor. Δ 4, 382a 1 sq.
ἄλφιτον ὕδατι κολλήσας . . .Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I: On Nature · Book I
p. 56Arist., Sens. 2, 437b 26 sqq.
while the light, leaping out — as much of it as was finer — 5
shone across the threshold with unwearying rays:
so then the primeval fire, shut up in membranes
and in fine tissues, lay in ambush in the round pupil,
‹tissues› which were pierced right through with wondrous channels;
and these kept out the deep of the water flowing round, 10
but let the fire pass out — as much of it as was finer.
Simplic. in Cael., p. 529,21 sq.
Out of which divine Aphrodite fashioned unwearying eyes.
Simplic. in Cael., p. 529,24 sq.
Aphrodite, having wrought them with rivets of affection.
Plut., De am. mult. 95 A
As when fig-juice has riveted white milk and bound it . . .
Ps.-Arist., Meteor. Δ 4, 382a 1 sq.
having glued barley-meal together with water . . .
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I · On Nature · Book I · Fragments 84–34
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.