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 45 of 54
The Purifications · Fragments 112–114
Ancient Greek
p. 87Diog. Laert. VIII 54/62; Diod. Sicil. VIII 62
ὦ φίλοι, οἳ μέγα ἄστυ κατὰ ξανθοῦ Ἀκράγαντοςναίετ' ἀν' ἄκρα πόλεος, ἀγαθῶν μελεδήμονες ἔργων,ξείνων αἰδοῖοι λιμένες κακότητος ἄπειροι,χαίρετ'· ἐγὼ δ' ὑμῖν θεὸς ἄμβροτος, οὐκέτι θνητόςπωλεῦμαι μετὰ πᾶσι τετιμένος, ὥσπερ ἔοικα, 5ταινίαις τε περίστεπτος στέφεσίν τε θαλείοις·τοῖσιν δ' εὖτ' ἂν ἵκωμαι ἐς ἄστεα τηλεθάοντα,ἀνδράσιν ἠδὲ γυναιξί, σεβίζομαι· οἱ δ' ἅμ' ἕπονταιμυρίοι ἐξερέοντες, ὅπηι πρὸς κέρδος ἀταρπός,οἱ μὲν μαντοσυνέων κεχρημένοι, οἱ δ' ἐπὶ νούσωι 10παντοίων ἐπύθοντο κλύειν εὐηκέα βάξινδηρὸν δὴ χαλεποῖσι πεπαρμένοι ‹ἀμφ' ὀδύνηισιν›.Sext. Emp., Adv. math. I 302
ἀλλὰ τί τοῖσδ' ἐπίκειμ' ὡσεὶ μέγα χρῆμά τι ποάσσων,εἰ θνητῶν περίειμι πολυφθερέων ἀνθρώπων;Clem. Alex., Strom. V 9,1
ὦ φίλοι, οἶδα μὲν οὕνεκ' ἀληθείη πάρα μύθοις,οὓς ἐγὼ ἐξερέω· μάλα δ' ἀργαλέη ‹ἥ› γε τέτυκταιἀνδράσι καὶ δύσζηλος ἐπὶ φρένα πίστιος ὁρμή.Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I: The Purifications
p. 88Diog. Laert. VIII 54/62; Diod. Sicil. VIII 62
O friends, who dwell in the great city by the yellow Acragas,
up on the heights of the citadel, caring for good works,
reverend havens for strangers, untried in wickedness:
hail! I go among you an immortal god, mortal no longer,
honoured among all, as is fitting, 5
crowned about with fillets and with blooming garlands.
And whenever I come to them, to flourishing cities,
to men and women, I am revered; and they follow after me,
countless, asking where the path to profit lies,
some in need of oracles, while others, against disease 10
of every kind, have sought to hear a healing word,
long since transfixed by grievous ‹pains.›
Sext. Emp., Adv. math. I 302
But why do I press these matters, as though achieving something great,
if I am superior to mortal, much-perishing men?
Clem. Alex., Strom. V 9,1
O friends, I know that truth is in the words
which I shall utter; but very grievous indeed it proves
to men, and ill-received, is this onrush of conviction into the mind.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I · The Purifications · Fragments 112–114
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.