Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I

Simplic. in Phys., p. 157,25 sqq.

No mortal man has perceived her as she wheels among them; 25

but you, listen to the undeceiving course of my argument.

For all of these are equal and of like age in their birth,

but each has charge of a different office, and each its own character,

and they hold sway in turn as time comes round.

And besides these nothing comes to be, nor ceases; 30

for if they were being destroyed continually, they would be no longer.

And what could increase this All? and coming from where?

and how could it perish, since nothing is empty of these?

But these very things are, and running through one another

they become now one thing, now another, and yet forever and continuously the same. 35

Simplic. in Phys., p. 159,13 sqq.

But come, look upon the witnesses to my earlier words,

if anything in what came before was wanting in substance as to form:

the sun, warm to look on and bright in every direction,

and all the immortal things that are steeped in heat and in shining ray,

and rain, in all things dark and chilling; 5

and out of earth stream forth things deep-rooted and solid.

In Wrath they are all of different form and set apart,

but they come together in Love and are longed for by one another.

For out of these comes everything that was and is and shall be: