Sweet, bitter, sour, hot · Lexicon

From the book

Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I

Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordB90 pairs each quality with its like: sweet with sweet, bitter with bitter, sour with sour, and hot with hot.
In EmpedoclesThe passage is relevant both to physical association and to perception.
In this edition“Sour” and “hot” follow this translation’s choices for ὀξὺ and δαερὸν.
A place to readThe whole couplet personifies the meeting of four paired sensible qualities.

Meaning

B90 pairs each quality with its like: sweet with sweet, bitter with bitter, sour with sour, and hot with hot. The repeated terms are made active by verbs of seizing, rushing, going, and riding. The fragment gives qualities a dynamic relation rather than merely listing them.

Use in the book

The passage is relevant both to physical association and to perception. Similar qualities encounter or join one another, a pattern comparable to B109’s apprehension of like by like. Yet B90 does not explicitly name a tongue, a taste organ, or a perceiver. Calling it a complete theory of taste would add an apparatus that the lines do not supply.

The changes of verb prevent the list from becoming a static classification. Sweetness catches its counterpart, bitterness rushes toward its own, and heat rides upon heat. These actions resemble the poem’s broader animation of constituents and powers. They make directed association vivid without positing four little persons corresponding to the qualities.

The final pairing also warns against narrowing the whole passage to modern taste categories. Hot, in the edition’s rendering, is not simply another taste beside sweet and bitter. The sequence joins different sensible characters through a common structure of affinity. Its most secure contribution is therefore the like-to-like relation, while the exact lost physical situation in which these meetings occur remains open.

Places to read

B 90The whole couplet personifies the meeting of four paired sensible qualities.
B 109Apprehension by corresponding constituents supplies a closely related but distinct formulation.
B 22Compatibility in blending offers a broader physical context.

Translation in this edition

“Sour” and “hot” follow this translation’s choices for ὀξὺ and δαερὸν. Those local renderings should be retained rather than silently aligned with a later fixed catalogue of tastes.