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 30 of 54
On Nature · Book I · Fragments 91–96
Ancient Greek
p. 57Alex. Aphrod., Quaest. nat. II 23, p. 72,9 sq.
οἴνωι . . . μᾶλλον ἐνάρθμιον, αὐτὰρ ἐλαίωιοὐκ ἐθέλει.Simplic. in Cael., p. 529,26 sq.
Κύπριδος ἐν παλάμηισιν ὅτε ξὺμ πρῶτ' ἐφύοντο.Simplic. in Phys., p. 331,6 sq.
ἡ δὲ φλὸξ ἱλάειρα μινυνθαδίης τύχε γαίης.Simplic. in Phys., p. 300,20 sq.
ἡ δὲ χθὼν ἐπίηρος ἐν εὐστέρνοις χοάνοισιτὼ δύο τῶν ὀκτὼ μερέων λάχε Νήστιδος αἴγλης,τέσσαρα δ' Ἡφαίστοιο· τὰ δ' ὀστέα λευκὰ γένοντοἉρμονίης κόλληισιν ἀρηρότα θεσπεσίηθεν.Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I: On Nature · Book I
p. 58Alex. Aphrod., Quaest. nat. II 23, p. 72,9 sq.
with wine . . . more in union; but with oil
it will not.
Simplic. in Cael., p. 529,26 sq.
when they first grew together in the palms of Cypris.
Simplic. in Phys., p. 331,6 sq.
And the gentle flame met with a scant portion of earth.
NOTE: the B-number read back for this heading was inconsistent (B 86 / B 85); in Diels-Kranz this verse is B 85.
Simplic. in Phys., p. 300,20 sq.
And kindly earth, in her broad-breasted crucibles,
obtained two parts out of the eight of the bright gleam of Nestis,
and four of Hephaestus; and white bones came to be,
fitted together by the gluings of Harmony, divinely.
NOTE: read back consistently as B 85; in Diels-Kranz this fragment is B 96.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I · On Nature · Book I · Fragments 91–96
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.