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.
English Page · Branch 38 of 54
On Nature · Book II · Fragments 100–101
Ancient Greek
p. 73Arist., Resp. 13, 473b 9 sqq.
εὖτε δ' ἀναθρώισκηι, πάλιν ἐκπνέει ἶσον ὀπίσσω. 25Plut., Quaest. nat. 916 D
γνοὺς ὅτι πάντων εἰσὶν ἀπορροαί, ὅσσ' ἐγένοντο . . .Arist., Poet. 21, 1458a 5
μία γίγνεται ἀμφοτέρων ὄψ . . .Plut., Quaest. nat. 39
et niger in fundo fluvii color exstat ab umbra,atque cavernosis itidem spectatur in antris.Plut., De def. or. 433 B
βύσσωι δὲ γλαυκῆς κόκκος καταμίσγεται ἀκτῆς.Theophr., Sens. 22
ὧδε μὲν οὖν πνοιῆς τε λελόγχασι πάντα καὶ ὀσμῶν.Plut., Quaest. nat. 917 E; Ps.-Alex., Probl., p. 22,7
κέρματα θηρείων μελέων μυκτῆρσιν ἐρευνῶν,‹ζώονθ'› ὅσσ' ἀπέλειπε ποδῶν ἁπαλῆι περὶ ποίηι . . .Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I: On Nature · Book II
p. 74Arist., Resp. 13, 473b 9 sqq.
and when it leaps up, an equal amount breathes out again. 25
Plut., Quaest. nat. 916 D
knowing that there are effluences of all things that have come to be . . .
Arist., Poet. 21, 1458a 5
One vision comes to be from both . . .
Plut., Quaest. nat. 39
and the black colour stands at the bottom of a river, from shadow,
and it is likewise seen in hollow caves.
Plut., De def. or. 433 B
And the grain of gray elder is mingled with fine linen.
Theophr., Sens. 22
In this way, then, all things have their portion of breathing and of smells.
Plut., Quaest. nat. 917 E; Ps.-Alex., Probl., p. 22,7
tracking with its nostrils the fragments of the limbs of beasts,
‹all that, living,› they left behind from their feet in the soft grass . . .
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I · On Nature · Book II · Fragments 100–101
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.