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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Facing Pages · Branch 19 of 54
On Nature · Book I · Fragments 23–35
Ancient Greek
p. 35Simplic. in Phys., p. 160,1 sqq.
ἀλλὰ τορῶς ταῦτ' ἴσθι, θεοῦ πάρα μῦθον ἀκούσας.Simplic. in Phys., p. 33,18 sqq.
ἐν δὲ μέρει κρατέουσι περιπλομένοιο κύκλοιο,καὶ φθίνει εἰς ἄλληλα καὶ αὔξεται ἐν μέρει αἴσης.αὐτὰ γὰρ ἔστιν ταῦτα, δι' ἀλλήλων δὲ θέονταγίγνονται ἄνθρωποί τε καὶ ἄλλων ἔθνεα θηρῶνἄλλοτε μὲν Φιλότητι συνερχόμεν' εἰς ἕνα κόσμον, 5ἄλλοτε δ' αὖ δίχ' ἕκαστα φορούμενα Νείκεος ἔχθει,εἰσόκεν ἓν συμφύντα τὸ πᾶν ὑπένερθε γένηται.οὕτως ἧι μὲν ἓν ἐκ πλεόνων μεμάθηκε φύεσθαι,ἠδὲ πάλιν διαφύντος ἑνὸς πλέον' ἐκτελέθουσι,τῆι μὲν γίγνονταί τε καὶ οὔ σφισιν ἔμπεδος αἰών· 10ἧι δὲ τάδ' ἀλλάσσοντα διαμπερὲς οὐδαμὰ λήγει,ταύτηι δ' αἰὲν ἔασιν ἀκίνητοι κατὰ κύκλον.Simplic. in Cael., p. 529,1 sqq.
αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ παλίνορσος ἐλεύσομαι ἐς πόρον ὕμνων,τὸν πρότερον κατέλεξα, λόγου λόγον ἐξοχετεύων,κεῖνον· ἐπεὶ Νεῖκος μὲν ἐνέρτατον ἵκετο βένθοςδίνης, ἐν δὲ μέσηι Φιλότης στροφάλιγγι γένηται,ἐν τῆι δὴ τάδε πάντα συνέρχεται ἓν μόνον εἶναι, 5Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I: On Nature · Book I
p. 36Simplic. in Phys., p. 160,1 sqq.
but know this clearly, since you have heard the tale from a god.
Simplic. in Phys., p. 33,18 sqq.
And they hold sway in turn as the cycle comes round,
and they wane into one another and grow again in the turn appointed.
For these very things are, and running through one another
they become men and the tribes of the other beasts,
at one time coming together through Love into a single order, 5
at another each borne apart by the hatred of Strife,
until, grown together into one, the All is brought under.
So, in so far as the one has learned to grow out of many,
and again, as the one grows apart, many come forth,
to that extent they come to be, and their lifetime is not steadfast; 10
but in so far as these never cease from interchanging continually,
to that extent they are forever unmoved throughout the cycle.
Simplic. in Cael., p. 529,1 sqq.
But I shall turn back again to the path of songs
which I told before, channelling one argument out of another —
to that one. When Strife had reached the lowest depth
of the whirl, and Love had come to be in the middle of the eddy,
there indeed do all these things come together to be one alone, 5
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I · On Nature · Book I · Fragments 23–35
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.