From the book
Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordB83 gives hedgehogs sharp-pointed bristles standing on their backs.
- In EmpedoclesThe short fragment concentrates on texture, position, and posture.
- In this editionThe English “bristles bristle” makes the raised covering emphatic.
- A place to readThe hedgehog’s pointed bristles stand upon its back.
Meaning
B83 gives hedgehogs sharp-pointed bristles standing on their backs. The epithet ὀξυβελεῖς suggests pointed projectiles or darts; the same printed adjective appears with the sun in B40. Χαῖται is rendered as bristles here, giving the covering the force of a specialized kind of hair.
Use in the book
The short fragment concentrates on texture, position, and posture. The bristles are pointed, dorsal, and raised. Its opening “but” shows that it once contrasted with something before it, although that contrasting description has not survived. The line can therefore be identified as a distinctive bodily image without reconstructing a complete catalogue of animal defenses.
B82’s equation of hair, leaves, feathers, and scales supplies an appropriate comparison. A hedgehog’s conspicuous surface makes the diversity of such growths visible. Nevertheless, B83 does not state the proportions that produce the bristles or explicitly explain their usefulness. The fact that Plutarch preserves it in On Fortune should not be made to fill those omissions with an inferred original argument.
The shared dart-like epithet with the sun also shows how bodily and cosmic descriptions can draw on the same physical vocabulary. Pointedness belongs to a bristle as a shape and to the sun as the force of rays. This is a lexical parallel, not proof that bristles contain a special excess of solar fire.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
The English “bristles bristle” makes the raised covering emphatic. It is a feature of this rendering, not evidence for a duplicated Greek noun. The animal identification follows the supplied translation.