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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Facing Pages · Branch 53 of 54
Fragments of Uncertain Place · Fragments 152–153a
Ancient Greek
p. 103Aristotle, Poetics 21, 1457b 22-25.
γῆρας ἡμέρας — δυσμὰς βίουHesychius, Lexicon s.v. βαυβώ.
βαυβώTheon of Smyrna, Expositio rerum mathematicarum p. 104, 1 Hiller.
τὸ γοῦν βρέφος δοκεῖ τελειοῦσθαι ἐν ἑπτὰ ἑβδομάσιν, ὡς Ἐμπεδοκλῆς αἰνίττεται ἐν τοῖς Καθαρμοῖς.Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I: Fragments of Uncertain Place
p. 104Aristotle, Poetics 21, 1457b 22-25.
the old age of the day — the sunset of life
Aristotle's sentence: ... ὃ γῆρας πρὸς βίον, καὶ ἑσπέρα πρὸς ἡμέραν· ἐρεῖ τοίνυν τὴν ἑσπέραν γῆρας ἡμέρας [ἢ] ὥσπερ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς, καὶ τὸ γῆρας ἑσπέραν βίου ἢ δυσμὰς βίου.
NOTE: the placement of "ὥσπερ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς" in the sentence is textually disputed, so it is unclear which of the two metaphors is Empedocles' own. LSJ (s.v. δυσμή) assigns "δυσμαὶ βίου" to him; Diels prints the whole Aristotelian passage under B 152.
Illustrating metaphor by analogy (old age is to life as evening is to day), Aristotle says one may call evening "the old age of the day" and old age "the evening of life" or — as Empedocles does — "the sunset of life".
Hesychius, Lexicon s.v. βαυβώ.
baubo (belly)
Hesychius' entry: βαυβώ· τιθήνη Δήμητρος. σημαίνει δὲ καὶ κοιλίαν ὡς παρὰ Ἐμπεδοκλεῖ.
Hesychius glosses the word: "Baubo: nurse of Demeter; it also means 'belly/womb', as in Empedocles" — so in Empedocles βαυβώ is a word for the belly or womb.
Theon of Smyrna, Expositio rerum mathematicarum p. 104, 1 Hiller.
The embryo, at any rate, seems to be brought to completion in seven weeks, as Empedocles hints in the Purifications.
NOTE: B 153a exists; the Empedoclean content is only the phrase ἐν ἑπτὰ ἑβδομάσιν ("in seven weeks"), reported, not quoted verbatim. Diels abbreviates the name as "Ἐ."
In a discussion of the power of the number seven, Theon says the embryo appears to be brought to completion in seven weeks, as Empedocles hints in the Katharmoi.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I · Fragments of Uncertain Place · Fragments 152–153a
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.