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 21 of 54
On Nature · Book I · Fragments 20–16
Ancient Greek
p. 39Simplic. in Phys., p. 1124,12 sqq.
τοῦτο μὲν ἀν βροτέων μελέων ἀριδείκετον ὄγκον·ἄλλοτε μὲν Φιλότητι συνερχόμεν' εἰς ἓν ἅπανταγυῖα, τὰ σῶμα λέλογχε, βίου θαλέθοντος ἐν ἀκμῆι·ἄλλοτε δ' αὖτε κακῆισι διατμηθέντ' Ἐρίδεσσιπλάζεται ἄνδιχ' ἕκαστα περὶ ῥηγμῖνι βίοιο. 5ὡς δ' αὔτως θάμνοισι καὶ ἰχθύσιν ὑδρομελάθροιςθηρσί τ' ὀρειλεχέεσσιν ἰδὲ πτεροβάμοσι κύμβαις.Tzetzes, Ex. in Iliad., p. 53,22 sq.; Aetios I 3,20
τέσσαρα γὰρ πάντων ῥιζώματα πρῶτον ἄκουε·Ζεὺς ἀργὴς Ἥρη τε φερέσβιος ἠδ' ἈιδωνεύςΝῆστίς θ', ἣ δακρύοις τέγγει κρούνωμα βρότειον.Hesychios, «ἀγένητα»
‹ῥιζώματα› . . . ἀγένητα . . .Hippolytos, Haer. VII 29,10
ἧι γὰρ καὶ πάρος ἔσκε, καὶ ἔσσεται, οὐδέ ποτ', οἴω,τούτων ἀμφοτέρων κενεώσεται ἄσπετος αἰών.Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I: On Nature · Book I
p. 40Simplic. in Phys., p. 1124,12 sqq.
This is conspicuous in the bulk of mortal limbs:
at one time, coming together through Love, all
the limbs that have obtained a body meet into one, at the peak of flourishing life;
at another, cut apart again by wicked Quarrels,
each wanders separately about the breakers of life. 5
And just so it is with bushes, and with water-housed fish,
and mountain-lying beasts, and wing-faring boats.
Tzetzes, Ex. in Iliad., p. 53,22 sq.; Aetios I 3,20
Hear first the four roots of all things:
shining Zeus, and life-bearing Hera, and Aidoneus,
and Nestis, who with her tears moistens the mortal spring.
Hesychios, «ἀγένητα»
‹the roots› . . . ungenerated . . .
Hippolytos, Haer. VII 29,10
For as it was before, so shall it be; nor ever, I think,
shall boundless time be emptied of these two.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I · On Nature · Book I · Fragments 20–16
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.