Sunset of life

Use in the book

B 152 is preserved inside Aristotle's explanation of metaphor by analogy. Evening stands to day as old age stands to life; terms can be transferred across the corresponding relations. The result is more than a decorative synonym for old age. A familiar daily decline makes a phase of human life imaginable through another temporal pattern.

The lexicon must distinguish this intelligible analogy from certainty about the Empedoclean wording. The note states that the position of Aristotle's phrase identifying Empedocles is textually disputed. Accordingly, the exact allocation of the two expressions to Empedocles is uncertain. Diels includes the larger Aristotelian passage under the fragment number. The compact pair printed above the translation should not be treated as two securely consecutive lines from a lost poem.

The image can be read fruitfully beside the smoke simile of B 2 and the defences against old age promised in B 1112. These are genuine thematic comparisons, not proof that they came from the same original passage. Sunset's relation to a day concerns a phase in a patterned duration; smoke's dispersal emphasizes fleeting existence. Their differences help keep the poet's images from dissolving into one generalized statement about mortality.

Places to read

1. B 152 (report)The expressions survive within Aristotle’s account of analogical metaphor, with disputed attribution.
2. B 2.3–4Smoke offers a different image for the brevity of human life.
3. B 111.1–2Old age is named among the conditions against which defences are promised.

Translation in this edition

The source note records the disputed placement of the attribution and the dictionary tradition associating “sunset of life” with Empedocles. The reader should retain that uncertainty rather than present both metaphorical phrases as verbatim Empedoclean verses.