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 13 of 54
On Nature · Proem · Fragments 118–120
Ancient Greek
p. 23Clem. Alex., Strom. III 14, 2; Hierokl. in Carm. aur. 24
κλαῦσά τε καὶ κώκυσα ἰδὼν ἀσυνήθεα χῶρον.Clem. Alex., Strom. III 14, 2; Hierokl. in Carm. aur. 24
(1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ἀτερπέα χῶρον,ἔνθα Φόνος τε Κότος τε καὶ ἄλλων ἔθνεα Κηρῶν(2) Ἄτης ἀν λειμῶνα κατὰ σκότος ἠλάσκουσιν.Plut., De exil. 607 D
ἐξ οἵης τιμῆς τε καὶ ὅσσου μήκεος ὄλβου . . .Porph., Antr. 8
ἠλύθομεν τόδ' ὑπ' ἄντρον ὑπόστεγον...Plut., De trans. an. 474 B; Cornut. Epidr. 17
ἔνθ' ἦσαν Χθονίη τε καὶ Ἡλιόπη ταναῶπις,Δῆρίς θ' αἱματόεσσα καὶ Ἁρμονίη θεμερῶπις,Καλλιστώ τ' Αἰσχρή τε, Θόωσά τε Δηναίη τε,Νημερτής τ' ἐρόεσσα μελάγκουρός τ' Ἀσάφεια.Φυσώ τε Φθιμένη τε, καὶ Εὐναίη καὶ Ἔγερσις, 5Κινώ τ' Ἀστεμφής τε, πολυστέφανός τε Μεγιστώκαὶ Φορύη, Σωπή τε καὶ Ὀμφαίη . . .Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I: On Nature · Proem
p. 24Clem. Alex., Strom. III 14, 2; Hierokl. in Carm. aur. 24
I wept and wailed when I saw the unfamiliar place.
Clem. Alex., Strom. III 14, 2; Hierokl. in Carm. aur. 24
(1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . the joyless place,
where Murder and Wrath and the tribes of the other Dooms,
(2) through the meadow of Ruin, roam about in darkness.
Plut., De exil. 607 D
From what honour, and from what a height of blessedness . . .
Porph., Antr. 8
We came into this roofed cave . . .
Plut., De trans. an. 474 B; Cornut. Epidr. 17
There were Earth-Maid and far-glancing Sun-Maid,
and bloody Quarrel and grave-eyed Harmony,
Fairest and Foulest, Swift-One and Slow-One,
and lovely Truth-Unerring and dark-haired Obscurity.
Growth and Decay, and She-of-the-Bed and Waking, 5
Movement and Immobility, and much-garlanded Greatness
and Squalor, and Silence and Utterance . . .
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I · On Nature · Proem · Fragments 118–120
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.