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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Ancient Greek Page · Branch 48 of 54
The Purifications · Fragments 128–135
Ancient Greek
p. 93Theophr., Piet., ap. Porph., Abst. II 20; Porph., Abst. II 27
ξανθῶν τε σπονδὰς μελίτων ῥιπτοῦντες ἐς οὖδας·ταύρων δ' ἀκρήτοισι φόνοις οὐ δεύετο βωμός.ἀλλὰ μύσος τοῦτ' ἔσκεν ἐν ἀνθρώποισι μέγιστον,θυμὸν ἀπορραίσαντας ἐνέδμεναι ἠέα γυῖα. 10Schol. ad Nicandros, Ther. 452
ἦσαν δὲ κτίλα πάντα καὶ ἀνθρώποισι προσηνῆ,θῆρές τ' οἰωνοί τε, φιλοφροσύνη τε δεδήει.Porph., Vit. Pyth. 30
ἦν δέ τις ἐν κείνοισιν ἀνὴρ περιώσια εἰδώς,ὃς δὴ μήκιστον πραπίδων ἐκτήσατο πλοῦτονπαντοίων τε μάλιστα σοφῶν ἐπιήρανος ἔργων·ὁππότε γὰρ πάσηισιν ὀρέξαιτο πραπίδεσσιν,ῥεῖ' ὅ γε τῶν ὄντων πάντων λεύσσεσκεν ἕκαστον 5καί τε δέκ' ἀνθρώπων καί τ' εἴκοσιν αἰώνεσσιν.Arist., Rhet. A 13, 1373b 16 sq.
ἀλλὰ τὸ μὲν πάντων νόμιμον διά τ' εὐρυμέδοντοςαἰθέρος ἠνεκέως τέταται διά τ' ἀπλέτου αὐγῆς.Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I: The Purifications
p. 94Theophr., Piet., ap. Porph., Abst. II 20; Porph., Abst. II 27
casting to the ground libations of yellow honey.
And the altar was not drenched with the unmixed blood of bulls,
but this was the greatest defilement among men:
to tear the life out and devour the goodly limbs. 10
Schol. ad Nicandros, Ther. 452
And all were tame and gentle toward men,
both beasts and birds, and kindliness blazed up.
Porph., Vit. Pyth. 30
And there was among them a man of surpassing knowledge,
who had indeed acquired the greatest wealth of understanding,
master above all of every kind of wise work;
for whenever he reached out with all his understanding,
easily he looked upon each one of all the things that are, 5
even in ten and in twenty lifetimes of men.
Arist., Rhet. A 13, 1373b 16 sq.
But that which is lawful for all extends continuously through the wide-ruling
aither and through the boundless light.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I · The Purifications · Fragments 128–135
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.