From the book
Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordSeveral fragments explain bodily differences through hardening, density, looseness, and moisture.
- In EmpedoclesB73 provides a compact sequence of craft-like operations.
- In this editionB104 must remain distinct from B103 despite their shared source location and the edition’s note about an earlier heading conflation.
- A place to readMoistened earth is given to fire to harden into forms.
Meaning
Several fragments explain bodily differences through hardening, density, looseness, and moisture. B73 uses a verb of making firm; B75 contrasts dense interiors with loosely compacted exteriors; B104 names an especially loose coming-together. These are relations of organization and texture, not additional roots.
Use in the book
B73 provides a compact sequence of craft-like operations. Cypris first moistens earth in rain and then gives the forms to swift fire to harden. The account requires both the pliability supplied by moisture and the firmness associated with fire. Assigning a single universal function to each constituent would miss the sequence through which a workable material becomes a structured body.
B75 describes beings dense within and loose outside, attributing this state to a particular dampness encountered in Cypris' palms. Interior and exterior can therefore differ within one compound. The fragment does not identify the beings in its surviving words, so a specific tissue or species must not be inserted without additional evidence.
B104 contributes another brief measure of arrangement: things came together most loosely as they fell. Its connection with the neighbouring thought statement B103 in the quoting source makes texture potentially relevant to cognitive organization, but the book does not provide a full continuous argument explaining the relation. It is safer to retain the claim about loose assembly than to declare that it is a proven recipe for superior or inferior intelligence.
Together these passages supplement the numerical account of bone and the near-balanced account of flesh and blood. A body can be described by proportion, by its sequence of formation, by the disposition of dense and loose regions, and by the way material is fitted. Empedocles' physical vocabulary is consequently richer than a list of ingredients alone.
Places to read
- B 73Moistened earth is given to fire to harden into forms.
- B 75Dense interiors and loose exteriors are related to dampness in Cypris’ palms.
- B 104A fragment describes the loosest coming-together as things fall.
- B 96Bone supplies a contrasting, explicitly proportional account.
- B 98Blood and flesh arise from approximately balanced contributions.
Translation in this edition
B104 must remain distinct from B103 despite their shared source location and the edition’s note about an earlier heading conflation. Their adjacency does not remove the missing grammatical and explanatory context.