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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Ancient Greek Page · Branch 18 of 54
On Nature · Book I · Fragments 21–23
Ancient Greek
p. 33Simplic. in Phys., p. 159,13 sqq.
δένδρεά τ' ἐβλάστησε καὶ ἀνέρες ἠδὲ γυναῖκες, 10θῆρές τ' οἰωνοί τε καὶ ὑδατοθρέμμονες ἰχθῦς,καί τε θεοὶ δολιχαίωνες τιμῆισι φέριστοι.αὐτὰ γὰρ ἔστιν ταῦτα, δι' ἀλλήλων δὲ θέονταγίγνεται ἀλλοιωπά· τόσον διὰ κρῆσις ἀμείβει.Plut., Quaest. conv. 618 B
τοῦτο μὲν ἐν κόγχαισι θαλασσονόμων βαρυνώτοις,ἔνθ' ὄψει χθόνα χρωτὸς ὑπέρτατα ναιετάουσαν.ναὶ μὴν κηρύκων τε λιθορρίνων χελύων τε·Simplic. in Phys., p. 160,1 sqq.
ὡς δ' ὁπόταν γραφέες ἀναθήματα ποικίλλωσινἀνέρες ἀμφὶ τέχνης ὑπὸ μήτιος εὖ δεδαῶτε,οἵτ' ἐπεὶ οὖν μάρψωσι πολύχροα φάρμακα χερσίν,ἁρμονίηι μείξαντε τὰ μὲν πλέω, ἄλλα δ' ἐλάσσω,ἐκ τῶν εἴδεα πᾶσιν ἀλίγκια πορσύνουσι, 5δένδρεά τε κτίζοντε καὶ ἀνέρας ἠδὲ γυναῖκαςθῆράς τ' οἰωνούς τε καὶ ὑδατοθρέμμονας ἰχθῦςκαί τε θεοὺς δολιχαίωνας τιμῆισι φερίστους·οὕτω μή σ' ἀπάτη φρένα καινύτω ἄλλοθεν εἶναιθνητῶν, ὅσσα γε δῆλα γεγάκασιν ἄσπετα, πηγήν, 10Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I: On Nature · Book I
p. 34Simplic. in Phys., p. 159,13 sqq.
trees have sprung from them, and men and women, 10
and beasts and birds and water-nurtured fish,
and the long-lived gods, highest in honours.
For these very things are, and running through one another
they come to look otherwise — so far does blending change them.
Plut., Quaest. conv. 618 B
This, for one, in the heavy-backed shells of sea-dwellers,
where you will see earth dwelling on the uppermost parts of the flesh.
Yes, and in stony-skinned whelks and in tortoises.
Simplic. in Phys., p. 160,1 sqq.
As when painters are decorating votive tablets —
men well taught in their craft by skill —
who, when they have seized pigments of many colours in their hands,
and mixed them in harmony, more of these and less of those,
out of them furnish shapes resembling all things, 5
fashioning trees and men and women,
and beasts and birds and water-nurtured fish,
and the long-lived gods, highest in honours:
so let no deceit overcome your mind, that from any other source
comes the spring of mortal things, all the countless things that have plainly come to be, 10
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I · On Nature · Book I · Fragments 21–23
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.