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 12 of 54
On Nature · Proem · Fragments 115–117
Ancient Greek
p. 21Plut., De exil. 607 C; Hippol., Haer. VII 29, 14-23
‹Νείκεΐ θ'› ὅς κε ἐπίορκον ἁμαρτήσας ἐπομόσσηι,δαίμονες οἵτε μακραίωνος λελάχασι βίοιο, 5τρίς μιν μυρίας ὧρας ἀπὸ μακάρων ἀλάλησθαι,φυομένους παντοῖα διὰ χρόνου εἴδεα θνητῶνἀργαλέας βιότοιο μεταλλάσσοντα κελεύθους.αἰθέριον μὲν γάρ σφε μένος πόντονδε διώκει,πόντος δ' ἐς χθονὸς οὖδας ἀπέπτυσε, γαῖα δ' ἐς αὐγὰς 10ἠελίου φαέθοντος, ὁ δ' αἰθέρος ἔμβαλε δίναις·ἄλλος δ' ἐξ ἄλλου δέχεται, στυγέουσι δὲ πάντες.τῶν καὶ ἐγὼ νῦν εἰμι, φυγὰς θεόθεν καὶ ἀλήτης,Νείκεϊ μαινομένωι πίσυνος.Plut., Quaest. conv. 745 C
. . . χάρις . . . στυγέει δύστλητον Ἀνάγκην.Diog. Laert. VIII 77
ἤδη γάρ ποτ' ἐγὼ γενόμην κοῦρός τε κόρη τεθάμνος τ' οἰωνός τε καὶ ἔξαλος ἔλλοπος ἰχθύς.Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I: On Nature · Proem
p. 22Plut., De exil. 607 C; Hippol., Haer. VII 29, 14-23
‹or, following Strife,› swears falsely in his erring —
those spirits, that is, whose portion is life of long duration — 5
he must wander thrice ten thousand seasons far from the blessed,
growing through time into all manner of mortal shapes,
exchanging one grievous path of life for another.
For the force of the upper air drives him out to sea,
and the sea spits him onto the floor of earth, and earth into the rays 10
of the blazing sun, and he flings him into the eddies of the aither;
one takes him from another, and all abhor him.
Of these I too am now one, an exile from god and a wanderer,
having put my trust in raving Strife.
Plut., Quaest. conv. 745 C
. . . Grace . . . loathes Necessity, that is hard to bear.
Diog. Laert. VIII 77
For I have already been, at some time, a boy and a girl,
a bush and a bird and a mute fish out of the sea.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I · On Nature · Proem · Fragments 115–117
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.