From the book
Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordKallistō is a feminine name built on the superlative of beauty; Aischrē expresses ugliness or shamefulness.
- In EmpedoclesThe pair occurs in B122/123 after Quarrel and Harmony and before Swift-One and Slow-One.
- In this edition“Foulest” is the local English choice.
- A place to readFairest and Foulest are juxtaposed in the catalogue’s third line.
Meaning
Kallistō is a feminine name built on the superlative of beauty; Aischrē expresses ugliness or shamefulness. The edition renders the pair “Fairest and Foulest.” English makes both names parallel superlatives, while the Greek forms are not morphologically identical in that respect.
Use in the book
The pair occurs in B122/123 after Quarrel and Harmony and before Swift-One and Slow-One. It extends the catalogue from conflict and concord into evaluative qualities of appearance. “Foul” can also carry moral colouring, but the name alone does not tell whether the contrast is chiefly visual, ethical, or deliberately both.
There is no action, genealogy, or separate doctrine attached to either figure in the surviving line. Kallistō should not be identified with a familiar mythological bearer of that name merely because the spelling coincides. The context treats the names as part of a sequence of personified contrasts. The entry's interpretive limit is consequently important: the catalogue establishes that these opposed qualities have been given personal names, not how they operate in mixture or where they stand in a hierarchy of beings.
Places to read
- B 122/123.3Fairest and Foulest are juxtaposed in the catalogue’s third line.
Translation in this edition
“Foulest” is the local English choice. It should not be silently narrowed to moral depravity, nor used to claim a Greek superlative where the printed form is Aischrē.