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 39 of 54
On Nature · Book II · Fragments 90–105
Ancient Greek
p. 75Plut., Quaest. conv. 663 A
ὣς γλυκὺ μὲν γλυκὺ μάρπτε, πικρὸν δ' ἐπὶ πικρὸν ὄρουσεν,ὀξὺ δ' ἐπ' ὀξὺ ἔβη, δαερὸν δ' ἐποχεῖτο δαηρῶι.Theophr., Sens. 9 sq.
ἐκ τούτων ‹γὰρ› πάντα πεπήγασιν ἁρμοσθέντακαὶ τούτοις φρονέουσι καὶ ἥδοντ' ἠδ' ἀνιῶνται.Arist., De an. A 2, 404b 13 sq.
γαίηι μὲν γὰρ γαῖαν ὀπώπαμεν, ὕδατι δ' ὕδωρ,αἰθέρι δ' αἰθέρα δῖον, ἀτὰρ πυρὶ πῦρ ἀίδηλον,στοργὴν δὲ στοργῆι, νεῖκος δέ τε νείκεϊ λυγρῶι.Simplic. in Phys., p. 331,10 sq.
τῆιδε μὲν οὖν ἰότητι Τύχης πεφρόνηκεν ἅπαντα.Simplic. in Phys., p. 331, 10 sq.
καὶ καθ' ὅσον μὲν ἀραιότατα ξυνέκυρσε πεσόντα.Porph., De Styge, ap. Stob. I, p. 424, 17 sq.
αἵματος ἐν πελάγεσσι τεθραμμένη ἀντιθορόντος,τῆι τε νόημα μάλιστα κικλήσκεται ἀνθρώποισιν·αἷμα γὰρ ἀνθρώποις περικάρδιόν ἐστι νόημα.Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I: On Nature · Book II
p. 76Plut., Quaest. conv. 663 A
So sweet seized upon sweet, and bitter rushed upon bitter,
sour went to sour, and hot rode upon hot.
Theophr., Sens. 9 sq.
For out of these ‹are› all things fitted together and compacted,
and by these they think, and feel pleasure and pain.
Arist., De an. A 2, 404b 13 sq.
For by earth we see earth, and by water water,
by aither divine aither, and by fire destroying fire,
love by love, and strife by baleful strife.
Simplic. in Phys., p. 331,10 sq.
In this way, then, all things have thought, by the will of Chance.
Printed by Harsch under the heading B 104; separated here per Diels-Kranz.
Simplic. in Phys., p. 331, 10 sq.
And in so far as they came together most loosely as they fell.
Porph., De Styge, ap. Stob. I, p. 424, 17 sq.
nourished in the seas of blood that leaps to and fro,
where above all is what men call thought;
for the blood about men's hearts is thought.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I · On Nature · Book II · Fragments 90–105
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.