Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition
Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I
On Nature · The Purifications · Ancient Greek with a new English translation.
Explore the LexiconSwipe or use the arrow keys.
Ancient Greek Page · Branch 22 of 54
On Nature · Book I · Fragments 8–12
Ancient Greek
p. 41Aetios I 30,1 (Ps.-Plut.)
ἄλλο δέ τοι ἐρέω· φύσις οὐδενός ἐστιν ἁπάντωνθνητῶν, οὐδέ τις οὐλομένου θανάτοιο τελευτή,ἀλλὰ μόνον μίξις τε διάλλαξίς τε μιγέντωνἐστί, φύσις δ' ἐπὶ τοῖς ὀνομάζεται ἀνθρώποισιν.Plut., Adv. Col. 1113 D
οὐκ ἂν ἀνὴρ τοιαῦτα σοφὸς φρεσὶ μαντεύσαιτο,ὡς ὄφρα μέν τε βιῶσι, τὸ δὴ βίοτον καλέουσι,τόφρα μὲν οὖν εἰσίν, καί σφιν πάρα δειλὰ καὶ ἐσθλά,πρὶν δὲ πάγεν τε βροτοὶ καὶ ‹ἐπεὶ› λύθεν, οὐδὲν ἄρ' εἰσιν.Plut., Adv. Col. 1113 C
νήπιοι· οὐ γάρ σφιν δολιχόφρονές εἰσι μέριμναι,οἳ δὴ γίγνεσθαι πάρος οὐκ ἐὸν ἐλπίζουσινἤ τι καταθνήισκειν τε καὶ ἐξόλλυσθαι ἁπάντηι.Ps.-Arist., De Mel. Xen. Gorg. 2, 975b 1 sq.
ἔκ τε γὰρ οὐδάμ' ἐόντος ἀμήχανόν ἐστι γενέσθαικαί τ' ἐὸν ἐξαπολέσθαι ἀνήνυστον καὶ ἄπυστον·αἰεὶ γὰρ τῆι γ' ἔσται, ὅπηι κέ τις αἰὲν ἐρείδηι.Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I: On Nature · Book I
p. 42Aetios I 30,1 (Ps.-Plut.)
And another thing I shall tell you. There is no birth of any one
of all mortal things, nor any ending in accursed death,
but only mixture, and interchange of what has been mixed,
is there; and 'birth' is the name men give to it.
Plut., Adv. Col. 1113 D
A wise man would not divine such things in his heart:
that, for as long as they live what they call a lifetime,
for so long they are, and evils and goods attend them,
but before mortals were compacted and ‹after› they were loosed, they are nothing at all.
Plut., Adv. Col. 1113 C
Fools — for their thoughts are not far-reaching —
who suppose that what was not before comes to be,
or that anything dies and is utterly destroyed.
Ps.-Arist., De Mel. Xen. Gorg. 2, 975b 1 sq.
For out of what in no way is, it is impossible that anything come to be,
and that what is should perish is unaccomplishable and unheard of;
for it will always be there, wherever one may ever press it.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I · On Nature · Book I · Fragments 8–12
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.