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 32 of 54
On Nature · Book II · Fragments 72–59
Ancient Greek
p. 61Athenaios VIII 10, 334 B
πῶς καὶ δένδρεα μακρὰ καὶ εἰνάλιοι καμασῆνεςSimplic. in Cael., p. 586, 12, p. 587, 1 sq.
ἧι πολλαὶ μὲν κόρσαι ἀναύχενες ἐβλάστησαν,γυμνοὶ δ' ἐπλάζοντο βραχίονες εὔνιδες ὤμων,ὄμματά τ' οἶ' ἐπλανᾶτο πενητεύοντα μετώπων.Simplic. in Cael., p. 587, 18 sq.
μουνομελῆ ἔτι τὰ γυῖαὄντα ἐπλανᾶτοPorph., Abst. II 31
(5) οἴμ' ὅτι οὐ πρόσθεν με διώλεσε νηλεὲς ἦμαρ,πρὶν σχέτλι' ἔργα βορᾶς περὶ χείλεσι μητίσασθαι.Simplic. in Cael., p. 587, 20 sq.
αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ κατὰ μεῖζον ἐμίσγετο δαίμονι δαίμων,ταῦτά τε συμπίπτεσκον, ὅπηι συνέκυρσεν ἕκαστα,ἄλλα τε πρὸς τοῖς πολλὰ διηνεκῆ ἐξεγένοντο.Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I: On Nature · Book II
p. 62Athenaios VIII 10, 334 B
How too the tall trees, and the fishes of the sea
Simplic. in Cael., p. 586, 12, p. 587, 1 sq.
Here many neckless heads sprouted up,
and bare arms wandered, widowed of shoulders,
and eyes strayed alone, in want of foreheads.
Simplic. in Cael., p. 587, 18 sq.
the limbs, being still single-membered,
wandered about
Porph., Abst. II 31
Alas that the pitiless day did not destroy me sooner,
before I contrived cruel deeds of devouring about my lips.
1 Versus ex papyro Strasburgensi
2 Versus ex papyro Strasburgensi
3 Versus ex papyro Strasburgensi
4 Versus ex papyro Strasburgensi
Simplic. in Cael., p. 587, 20 sq.
But when divinity was mingled with divinity in greater measure,
these things fell together as each chanced to meet,
and many others besides these came to be continuously.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I · On Nature · Book II · Fragments 72–59
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.