Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
The Greek and Latin of Hermann Diels · New English translation and notes.
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Facing Pages · Branch 108 of 126
Perception and Thought · A 86 §§ 16–17
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 206On the Senses 16
ἀλλὰ μὴν οὐδὲ τὴν ἡδονὴν καὶ λύπην ὁμολογουμένως ἀποδιδώσιν ἥδεσθαι μὲν ποιῶν τοῖς ὁμοίοις, λυπεῖσθαι δὲ τοῖς ἐναντίοις· ἐχθρὰ γὰρ εἶναι, διότι πλεῖστον … ἐκμακτοῖσιν. αἰσθήσεις γάρ τινας ἢ μετ' αἰσθήσεως ποιοῦσι τὴν ἡδονὴν καὶ τὴν λύπην, ὥστε οὐχ ἅπασι γίνεται τοῖς ὁμοίοις. ἔτι εἰ τὰ συγγενῆ μάλιστα ποιεῖ τὴν ἡδονὴν ἐν τῆι ἁφῆι, καθάπερ φησί, τὰ σύμφυτα μάλιστ' ἂν ἥδοιτο καὶ ὅλως αἰσθάνοιτο· διὰ τῶν αὐτῶν γὰρ ποιεῖ τὴν αἴσθησιν καὶ τὴν ἡδονήν.
On the Senses 17
καίτοι πολλάκις αἰσθανόμενοι λυπούμεθα κατ' αὐτὴν τὴν αἴσθησιν, ὡς ⟨δ'⟩ Ἀναξαγόρας φησίν, ἀεί· πᾶσαν γὰρ αἴσθησιν εἶναι μετὰ λύπης. ἔτι δ' ἐν ταῖς κατὰ μέρος· συμβαίνει γὰρ τῶι ὁμοίωι γίνεσθαι τὴν γνῶσιν· τὴν γὰρ ὄψιν ὅταν ἐκ πυρὸς καὶ τοῦ ἐναντίου συστήσηι, τὸ μὲν λευκὸν καὶ τὸ μέλαν δύναιτ' ἂν τοῖς ὁμοίοις γνωρίζειν, τὸ δὲ φαιὸν καὶ τἆλλα χρώματα τὰ μεικτὰ πῶς; οὔτε γὰρ τοῖς τοῦ πυρὸς οὔτε τοῖς τοῦ ὕδατος πόροις οὔτ' ἄλλοις ποιεῖ κοινοῖς ἐξ ἀμφοῖν· ὁρῶμεν δ' οὐδὲν ἧττον ταῦτα τῶν ἁπλῶν.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: Perception and Thought
p. 207Pleasure and pain; and the colours that are neither white nor black
On the Senses 16
Nor indeed does he give a consistent account of pleasure and pain, making pleasure come from likes and pain from opposites — "for they are hostile, because they are most …" and "in things wrung apart." For pleasure and pain are made to be perceptions of a kind, or things accompanied by perception; so that they do not arise from likes in every case. Further: if it is akin things that most produce pleasure in touch, as he says, then things naturally grown together would take the greatest pleasure, and would perceive most of all; for he produces perception and pleasure by the very same means.
On the Senses 17
And yet we are often pained in the very act of perceiving — indeed always, as Anaxagoras says, since all perception is accompanied by pain. Further, in the particular senses: knowledge is supposed to come about by the like. When he constitutes the sight out of fire and its opposite, it could recognise white and black by their likes — but grey, and the other mixed colours, how? For he assigns them neither to the passages of fire nor to those of water, nor to any others common to both. And we see these no less clearly than we see the simple colours.
The refutation, continued.
The objection about grey is a small masterpiece of criticism. Empedocles gave the eye two kinds of passage and two colours to match them, and Theophrastus simply points at everything in between. A theory built on matching like to like has no way to account for a mixture that matches nothing, and it is exactly what a reader who has the book open in front of him would notice.
Bearing on Volume I. Bears on A 69a and B 94, where white is assigned to fire and black to water.
6 ⟨τ'⟩ Usener. — 12 Kranz takes ἅπασαι with αἰσθήσεις. — 15 ⟨δ'⟩ Wimmer. — The two quoted phrases are from fragment B 22, 6-7.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · Perception and Thought · A 86 §§ 16–17
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Empedocles survives not only through his poems but through the ancient writers who described his life, doctrines, medicine, cosmology, and extraordinary reputation. Volume II gathers the testimonia: ninety-nine numbered reports drawn from fifty-two authors across nine centuries. The English introduction appears full width; each Greek or Latin testimony then faces its new English translation.
Historical Text and Translation
The Greek and Latin reading text follows Hermann Diels’s third edition of Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (1912), retaining the supplied edition’s Diels-Kranz numbering and editorial signs. These witnesses must be read as a chain of transmission: many preserve valuable evidence, while others summarize, dispute, reshape, or repeat earlier accounts.
About Diotimos Editions
Diotimos Editions prepared the new English translation, introduction, notes, and reception appendices for this volume. The translation keeps each witness distinct and preserves its technical vocabulary, argumentative posture, and relationship to the surviving poetry in Volume I.
Rights
The ancient source works and Hermann Diels’s 1912 Greek and Latin edition are in the public domain. The 2026 English translation, introduction, notes, and editorial matter are original to this edition and remain © 2026 Diotimos.