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Empedocles of Acragas

Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I

On Nature · The Purifications · Ancient Greek with a new English translation.

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Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume IFragments of Uncertain Place · Fragments 14–151

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Facing Pages · Branch 52 of 54

Fragments of Uncertain Place · Fragments 14–151

Ancient Greek

p. 101
14

[Aristotle], De Melisso Xenophane Gorgia (MXG) 2, 976b 22-26 — where B 13 and B 14 are quoted together.

τοῦ παντὸς δ' οὐδὲν κενεόν· πόθεν οὖν τί κ' ἐπέλθοι;
18

Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride 48, 370 D.

Φιλίη
19

Plutarch, De primo frigido 16, 952 B.

σχεδύνην Φιλότητα
32

[Aristotle], De lineis insecabilibus 972b 29-31.

δύο δέει ἄρθρον
92

Aristotle, De generatione animalium B 8, 747a 34 - b 3.

Ἐμπεδοκλῆς δ' αἰτιᾶται τὸ μεῖγμα τὸ τῶν σπερμάτων γίνεσθαι πυκνὸν ἐκ μαλακῆς τῆς γονῆς οὔσης ἑκατέρας· συναρμόττειν γὰρ τὰ κοῖλα τοῖς πυκνοῖς ἀλλήλων, ἐκ δὲ τῶν τοιούτων γίνεσθαι ἐκ μαλακῶν σκληρὸν ὥσπερ τῶι καττιτέρωι μειχθέντα τὸν χαλκόν.
99

Theophrastus, De sensibus 9 (on Empedocles' theory of hearing).

κώδων· σάρκινος ὄζος
151

Plutarch, Amatorius 13, 756 E.

ζείδωρος
101

Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I: Fragments of Uncertain Place

p. 102
14

[Aristotle], De Melisso Xenophane Gorgia (MXG) 2, 976b 22-26 — where B 13 and B 14 are quoted together.

Of the All nothing is empty; whence, then, could anything come into it?

In an argument that what-is is a continuous plenum, the writer cites Empedocles to prove that there is no void anywhere in the universe, so nothing could move into anything.

18

Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride 48, 370 D.

Friendship

Plutarch, listing thinkers who posit two opposed cosmic principles, says Empedocles calls the good, benefactive principle "Φιλότης" and "Φιλίη" (Love/Friendship), and often "Ἁρμονίη θεμερῶπις" (cf. B 122, 2), while the destructive one is "Νεῖκος οὐλόμενον".

19

Plutarch, De primo frigido 16, 952 B.

clinging Love

Arguing that fire separates and water binds, Plutarch says Empedocles suggested as much by regularly calling fire "destroying Strife" and calling the moist element "clinging/cohesive Love".

32

[Aristotle], De lineis insecabilibus 972b 29-31.

the joint binds two

In a discussion of how a joint (ἄρθρον) is a kind of "difference" or division-point between two parts, the author quotes Empedocles' line to show that a joint is what fastens two things together.

92

Aristotle, De generatione animalium B 8, 747a 34 - b 3.

Empedocles explains it by saying that the mixture of the two seeds becomes dense, though the seed of each is soft; for the hollow parts of each fit together with the dense parts of the other, and out of such things something hard comes to be from soft ones, as bronze does when mixed with tin.

NOTE: Diels prints the testimonium itself as B 92 and abbreviates the name as "Ἐ."; the sentence is Aristotle's paraphrase of Empedocles, so it is prose, not hexameter.

Aristotle reports (in prose, not verse) Empedocles' explanation of why mules are sterile: the two soft seeds, when mixed, become dense, because their hollows fit into each other's solid parts — as bronze becomes hard when mixed with tin.

99

Theophrastus, De sensibus 9 (on Empedocles' theory of hearing).

a bell — a fleshy sprig

Theophrastus' own words around it: ... ὥσπερ γὰρ εἶναι κώδωνα ... ἣν προσαγορεύει σάρκινον ὄζον.

Theophrastus says Empedocles made hearing arise from sounds inside the ear, the ear being like a "bell" that rings with equal echoes, and that he called it a "fleshy sprig/shoot".

151

Plutarch, Amatorius 13, 756 E.

life-giving

Plutarch's sentence: ζείδωρον γὰρ αὐτὴν [sc. Ἀφροδίτην] Ἐμπεδοκλῆς, εὔκαρπον δὲ Σοφοκλῆς ἐμμελῶς πάνυ καὶ πρεπόντως ὠνόμασαν.

Plutarch remarks that Empedocles very aptly named Aphrodite "life-giving / grain-giving" (ζείδωρος), as Sophocles called her "rich in fruit" (εὔκαρπος) — i.e. the epithet is an epithet of Aphrodite.

102

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.

Discussion Questions

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.