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 25 of 54
On Nature · Book I · Fragments 30–55
Ancient Greek
p. 47Arist., Met. B 4, 1000b 14 sq.
αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ μέγα Νεῖκος ἐνὶ μελέεσσιν ἐθρέφθηἐς τιμάς τ' ἀνόρουσε τελειομένοιο χρόνοιο,ὅς σφιν ἀμοιβαῖος πλατέος παρ' ἐλήλαται ὅρκου...Simplic. in Phys., p. 1184,4
πάντα γὰρ ἑξείης πελεμίζετο γυῖα θεοῖο.Arist., Gen. corr. B 6, 333b 2 sq.
αὔξει δὲ χθὼν μὲν σφέτερον δέμας, αἰθέρα δ' αἰθήρ.Arist., Phys. B 4, 196a 21 sq.; Gen. corr. B 6, 334a 3
οὕτω γὰρ συνέκυρσε θέων τοτέ, πολλάκι δ' ἄλλως.Herod. Alex., Schem. Hom., in: Etym. Gud., p. 745
καρπαλίμως δ' ἀνόπαιον . . .Arist., Meteor. B 3, 356a 25
ἱδρῶτα τῆς γῆς ‹θάλασσαν›Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I: On Nature · Book I
p. 48Arist., Met. B 4, 1000b 14 sq.
But when great Strife had been nursed up within the limbs
and leapt to its honours as the time was fulfilled —
the time that has been driven for them in turn by a broad oath . . .
Simplic. in Phys., p. 1184,4
For one after another all the limbs of the god were shaken.
Arist., Gen. corr. B 6, 333b 2 sq.
Earth increases its own frame, and aither increases aither.
Arist., Phys. B 4, 196a 21 sq.; Gen. corr. B 6, 334a 3
For so it chanced to run together then, though often otherwise.
Herod. Alex., Schem. Hom., in: Etym. Gud., p. 745
and swiftly upward . . .
Arist., Meteor. B 3, 356a 25
‹the sea,› sweat of the earth
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I · On Nature · Book I · Fragments 30–55
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.