From the book
Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordThe phrase dipl’ ereō means “A double tale I shall tell.”
- In EmpedoclesB 172 begins by promising a twofold telling and then returns to the formula within the same quotation.
- In this editionThe Greek text uses a straight apostrophe in δίπλ' ἐρέω; typography should not be mistaken for a distinct form.
- A place to readThe opening formula is repeated within one continuous witness quotation.
Meaning
The phrase dipl’ ereō means “A double tale I shall tell.” Kai dis means “even twice,” in B 25's endorsement of saying what needs saying again. Palinorsos in B 352 marks the speaker's turning back.
Use in the book
B 172 begins by promising a twofold telling and then returns to the formula within the same quotation. The account concerns one growing from many and many separating from one, with the mortal processes of generation and destruction explained through the opposed movements. Its verbal return helps the hearer hold together processes that must be distinguished but understood relationally.
B 25 states the pedagogical principle in a single line: what needs saying can rightly be said twice. That line is preserved by a scholiast, not transmitted as a heading explaining B 172. The connection is interpretative, but unusually well grounded in the actual repetitions of the longer fragment. B 352 also announces a return to a previously told path, channelling one argument from another. The poem itself acknowledges recapitulation as a means of moving its exposition forward.
The presence of repetition must nevertheless be separated from the work of reconstruction. B 26 repeats lines or formulations also known in B 172, and the edition places the quotations in its own sequence. This does not prove that an original reader encountered them in exactly that order, or that every repeated surviving line represents an independently located passage rather than the way different witnesses excerpted the text. The unit called a B fragment is an editorial unit.
Equally, “double tale” should not become automatic proof of two original poems or of every detail of a symmetrical cosmic cycle. It introduces a twofold relation in the surviving account. Questions about how many world-formations or organism-formations the complete poem contained require further argument. A lexicon can illuminate the formal vocabulary without converting it into a shortcut through the central scholarly controversies.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
The Greek text uses a straight apostrophe in δίπλ' ἐρέω; typography should not be mistaken for a distinct form. The repeated presentation is preserved rather than silently compressed. It should not be used to infer the composition order from Diels numbers.