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 46 of 54
The Purifications · Fragments 131–127
Ancient Greek
p. 89Hippol., Haer. VII 31,4
εἰ γὰρ ἐφημερίων ἕνεκέν τινος, ἄμβροτε Μοῦσα,ἡμετέρας μελέτας ‹ἅδε τοι› διὰ φροντίδος ἐλθεῖν,εὐχομένωι νῦν αὖτε παρίστασο, Καλλιόπεια,ἀμφὶ θεῶν μακάρων ἀγαθὸν λόγον ἐμφαίνοντι.Demetr. Lak., Pap. Herc. 1012, col. 25 de Falco
τὸν δ' οὔτ' ἄρ τε Διὸς τέγεοι δόμοι αἰγ[ιόχοιοοὔ]τε [. . .] Ἀΐδεω δέ[χεται . . .]κ[. . .]η στέγος [. . .]δ[. . .Hierokl. in Carm. aur. 24
. . . αἰῶνος ἀμερθείςὀλβίου . . .Plut., Quaest. conv. 683 E
. . . ἀμφιβρότην χθόνα.Aelian., Nat. an. XII 7
ἐν θήρεσσι λέοντες ὀρειλεχέες χαμαιεῦναιγίγνονται, δάφναι δ' ἐνὶ δένδρεσιν ἠυκόμοισιν.Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I: The Purifications
p. 90Hippol., Haer. VII 31,4
For if for the sake of any creature of a day, immortal Muse,
‹it pleased you› that our studies should pass through your thought,
stand by me now once more as I pray, Calliopeia,
as I bring to light a good account concerning the blessed gods.
Demetr. Lak., Pap. Herc. 1012, col. 25 de Falco
Him neither the roofed halls of aegis-bearing Zeus
nor [. . .] the roof of Hades receives [. . .
Hierokl. in Carm. aur. 24
. . . bereft of an age
of blessedness . . .
B 158 stands outside the numbered corpus B 1–B 153a; it is printed here as Diels's arrangement transmits it, among the Purifications.
Plut., Quaest. conv. 683 E
. . . the earth that wraps mortals round.
Aelian., Nat. an. XII 7
Among beasts they are born lions, mountain-lying, couching on the ground,
and laurels among fair-leaved trees.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I · The Purifications · Fragments 131–127
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.