From the book
Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordB87 describes Aphrodite as having worked something with rivets of affection.
- In EmpedoclesThe fragment makes joining a structured activity.
- In this editionThe English pronoun “them” supplies an object for readability.
- A place to readThe whole fragment attributes the affectionate riveting to Aphrodite.
Meaning
B87 describes Aphrodite as having worked something with rivets of affection. The plural fastenings receive an adjective of attachment or fondness. A material craft operation and the language of love are deliberately brought into one expression.
Use in the book
The fragment makes joining a structured activity. A rivet does not erase every distinction between the pieces it fastens; it holds them together in a workable arrangement. This is a useful image for an organism whose parts remain different while belonging to one body. The neighbouring eye-making verse B86 makes an anatomical application plausible, but the object of the verb is not expressed within B87 itself.
The epithet is as important as the rivet. Aphrodite’s fastening is affectionate or binding through attachment, so the mechanical and personal meanings reinforce one another. Translating the phrase simply as physical attraction would strip away the artisan and the affective relation that the verse keeps together.
The milk simile B33 uses a cognate fastening verb for fig-juice binding milk. That parallel shows that the craft language can describe cohesion within a substance as well as the assembly of discrete parts. Bone’s gluings and the joint that binds two provide further variations. The images overlap in their concern with stable connection but should not be collapsed into a literal inventory of tools used to build creatures.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
The English pronoun “them” supplies an object for readability. The Greek excerpt itself does not name it, so “rivets of the eyes” should be treated as a contextual association rather than the fragment’s full explicit wording.