Bed and Waking · Lexicon

From the book

Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I

Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordEunaiē is rendered “She-of-the-Bed,” while Egersis is awakening or rising.
In EmpedoclesThe pair stands between Growth and Decay and Movement and Immobility in B122/123.
In this editionThe English rendering deliberately leaves Eunaiē as a name associated with the bed.
A place to readShe-of-the-Bed and Waking follow Growth and Decay.

Meaning

Eunaiē is rendered “She-of-the-Bed,” while Egersis is awakening or rising. The first name evokes lying down or the bed rather than explicitly supplying the noun “sleep.” The second names the transition into wakefulness or activity.

Use in the book

The pair stands between Growth and Decay and Movement and Immobility in B122/123. “Sleep and waking” is a useful interpretive lookup phrase, since a bed and rising naturally suggest that contrast. Still, the edition's more literal “She-of-the-Bed” preserves a breadth that “Sleep” would suppress: a bed can also imply repose or a sexual setting.

Nothing in the isolated catalogue decides among all those associations. It supplies neither a physiology of sleep nor an instruction for ritual incubation. Nor does it connect the figure directly with the bodily reproductive “meadows” of Aphrodite elsewhere. The strongest account is lexical and local: two feminine names personify contrasted conditions of lying down and arousal or rising. Their neighbours invite comparisons among natural opposites without explaining a full classification.

Places to read

B 122/123.5She-of-the-Bed and Waking follow Growth and Decay.

Translation in this edition

The English rendering deliberately leaves Eunaiē as a name associated with the bed. Replacing it silently with a fully developed sleep-goddess would be more definite than the supplied text.