From the book
Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordThe two feminine names are rendered as swiftness and slowness embodied: Swift-One and Slow-One.
- In EmpedoclesB122/123 places this pair immediately after Fairest and Foulest.
- In this editionThe accented form Θόωσά is copied as printed before the following particle.
- A place to readSwift-One and Slow-One follow Fairest and Foulest.
Meaning
The two feminine names are rendered as swiftness and slowness embodied: Swift-One and Slow-One. The first draws on the language of speed; the second evokes lingering or duration. The translation conveys the contrast without pretending that the names are a technical table of measured velocities.
Use in the book
B122/123 places this pair immediately after Fairest and Foulest. Their naming adds a temporal or kinetic contrast to the catalogue's more visibly evaluative contrasts. The fragment does not show either figure moving, however, and supplies no explanation of whether they govern natural processes or characterize modes of life.
The later pair Movement and Immobility should remain distinct. Speed versus delay is not the same contrast as moving versus being unmoved. Keeping the separate entries prevents an apparently redundant English list from obscuring different Greek names. Conversely, it would be unwarranted to invent a systematic taxonomy of motion from these adjacent words. What survives is a poetic catalogue whose paired arrangement is clear but whose explanatory context is lost.
Places to read
- B 122/123.3Swift-One and Slow-One follow Fairest and Foulest.
Translation in this edition
The accented form Θόωσά is copied as printed before the following particle. The transliteration identifies the name without converting the edition's feminine personification into an impersonal physical quantity.