Transmigration

Use in the book

B1152 imposes repeated mortal embodiment as a consequence of wrongdoing by a long-lived divine being. B117 presents continuity through the first person: the speaker has already been male and female human, plant, bird, and fish. The catalogue crosses kinds rather than merely distinguishing successive human lives. B137 supplies the ethical consequence of that hidden continuity: the creature carried to sacrifice is the slaughterer's own son after a change of shape. The kinship persists although recognition fails.

B125 gives a related but much less secure image of exchanging living things for dead shapes. The reverse movement from dead to living is supplied editorially in the printed text. It cannot independently establish a complete doctrine of reciprocal reincarnation. B146, by contrast, expressly gives a last human stage in honoured roles and a subsequent growth into gods. These passages make transformation, punishment, and release mutually relevant, but they do not preserve a complete order of embodiments.

The process should not be equated with the mere survival of the roots after bodily dissolution. Empedocles' physical arguments deny absolute generation and destruction; transmigration adds identity, guilt, and recognition across forms. How those claims fit together is a genuine problem, not a problem solved simply by substituting “soul” for daimon. Nor does the source explain how such identity survives the cosmic extremes.

Places to read

1. B 115.5–8Offenders grow through time into various mortal shapes.
2. B 117The speaker enumerates former human and nonhuman forms.
3. B 137.1–6Changed shape hides a son from his sacrificing father.
4. B 125Exchanging living and dead shapes; the reverse clause is supplemented.
5. B 146A final human stage is followed by growth into gods.

Translation in this edition

The English heading is interpretive; metempsychōsis is not a technical noun quoted in this source. B125's reverse movement from dead to living is supplemented, so it cannot carry the same evidential weight as the transmitted account of changed forms. Assignment of these fragments to different poem headings does not settle whether the ethical and physical material belonged to separate works.

Use in the book

A31 embeds an abbreviated B117 citation after the statement that Empedocles assents especially to passage into new bodies. Hippolytus then says all souls change into all living creatures and compares Pythagoras’ claim to have been Euphorbus, with recognition of a shield. The Pythagorean story functions as an explanatory parallel and pedagogical lineage in the witness; it is not an additional Empedoclean autobiographical fragment.

Diogenes’ A1 §77 describes the soul putting on forms of animals and plants and likewise adduces B117. The common quotation provides a connection, but the surrounding ψυχή-language remains the prose authors’ formulation. The edition cautions that the transmigrating self is not called psyche in the Empedoclean wording at issue.

The account belongs beside, but should not be harmonized automatically with, physiological testimonia about thought in blood and the soul’s relation to compounds. The dossier preserves different explanatory contexts. A lexicon can identify their tension without announcing that the physical reports either refute or prove the religious account.

Places to read

1. A 31 (testimony)Hippolytus, Refutatio I 3 (D. 558), §§2–3. Frames the abbreviated B117 citation as passage into new bodies and adds a Pythagorean comparison.
2. A 31 (quotation)Empedocles B117, abbreviated within Hippolytus, Refutatio I 3. Provides the first-person autobiographical citation underlying the reporter’s transmigration claim.
3. A 1 §§ 76–77 (testimony)Diogenes Laertius VIII 77. Uses the soul’s putting on animal and plant forms as a frame for the same abbreviated quotation.

Translation in this edition

Do not print Hippolytus’ ψυχή or μετενσωμάτωσις as if supplied by the verse. The precise relationship between this self and physiological soul-language remains a larger interpretative question.

Use in the book

Burton introduces the Pythagoreans as defenders of transmigration and rebirth within a survey of opinions about the rational soul. An earlier list has affirmed immortality. The move to another body is one proposed account of what an immortal soul does, rather than a synonym for immortality itself. The paragraph's named defenders remain the agents of the doctrine. Burton's exposition does not turn every subsequent story into his own profession of belief.

The first sequence connects human inclinations with wolves, bears, dogs and pigs. Burton then quotes Ovid on entering the dwellings of beasts and being lodged in cattle's bodies. The supplied note records differences between Burton's Latin and the consulted Ovid text, including Burton's word for bodies. The lexicon follows the wording actually supplied rather than silently replacing it with the historical witness's alternative. This quotation provides imaginative illustration of the passage between forms, not a separate demonstration that it occurs.

Lucian's cock follows, introduced as formerly Euphorbus. The next Latin verse, including “nam memini,” for I remember, belongs to Ovid's Pythagoras according to the supplied editorial note. Its placement beside Lucian does not make it a quotation from Lucian. Burton continues with a horse, a man and “a spunge.” The edition preserves sponge while acknowledging that its immediate source remains unresolved. That unresolved item should remain visible; replacing it with a more familiar animal would repair the author's list without evidence. The remembered earlier identity also differs from the preceding image of drinking forgetfulness. Burton is bringing traditions together, not spelling out one uniformly consistent mechanism.

The Platonic account is explicitly qualified by “for ought I can perceive.” Burton describes a soul originally possessing knowledge, forgetting when enclosed in a body, and learning again by “reminiscentia, or recalling.” Recollection concerns recovering knowledge; it is related to this account of the soul's history but is not the lexical equivalent of transmigration. The next phrase, “de sortitione animarum,” concerns the allotment or drawing of lots of souls. Burton combines this with passage into human or animal bodies and a ten-thousand-year return to the former body. The supplied notes distinguish the Platonic narratives and caution that the cited Phaedrus parallel concerns return to the soul's place of origin, not specifically the former body. This article reports that editorial comparison without claiming a new collation of Plato.

A further verse brings the soul back to human life through many forms. Here too the supplied note identifies an adapted quotation and a discrepancy in Burton's marginal attribution to Claudian. The passage then moves through arguments denying immortality and reaches the account attributed to Church Fathers: the human soul is separately created, immortal and infused into the body, while animal souls are propagated and perish. Burton directs doubters to theologians and Scripture. The survey's movement matters: its opening range of opinions does not leave every account equally endorsed at its close.

The same material can serve a different purpose elsewhere. Lucian's cock, “sometimes Pythagoras,” appears in the account of avarice to expose the anxieties of rich men and defend a modest condition. The former identity licenses the literary conversation; the immediate argument concerns wealth and discontent. Later, a hostile catalogue of religious errors says that Manichaeans hold the Pythagorean passage of souls from humans to beasts. That is Burton's attributed, polemically situated claim, not an independently established description of every Manichaean belief.

A related account returns souls to a common origin rather than expressly lodging them in new individual bodies. In the discussion of an animate earth, Burton reports the confident belief of some that the souls of people, beasts, devils, plants and fishes derive from it and return after “some revolutions,” certain cycles. He adds that some recent thinkers have partly revived the opinion. The different authors and traditions should not be made to teach one identical system, or this reported return treated as Burton’s settled cosmology.

In the religious discussion, the Druids of France and Britain are said, on Caesar’s authority, to teach that souls do not perish but pass after death from one person to another. The stated purpose is courage in the face of death; Burton immediately calls it a political purpose. This is another important use of the doctrine, not merely another spelling of its name. The supplied note corrects the margin’s book 16 to Gallic War 6.14.5 and warns that Caesar does not establish Burton’s claim that these Druids first taught it.

Passing souls also furnish an erotic image without implying successive lives. Petronius’s lovers pour their wandering souls through their lips: “transfudimus” means we poured or transferred. The next account, attributed to Castiglione, describes exchanging hearts and spirits through kisses; its Latin margin has “infundentes,” pouring into. These are images of living lovers’ reciprocal union, explicitly called a connection of mind or soul more than body. They should remain distinct from the posthumous passage in the doctrinal survey.

“transmigration” also has a different subject elsewhere: a “transmigration of Nations” is the movement of peoples. Burton says “I think” God’s providence orders such movement, usually once in six hundred years, to improve or purify peoples’ blood as farmers change seed. This is his speculative account of population and inherited constitution, not an established historical or biological cycle. It does not describe disembodied souls. The final Table makes the relevant subject explicit in “Transmigration of souls” and also preserves the shorter spelling “Metempsycosis.” Both point to. Palingenius, an author's name occurring elsewhere, is likewise not an occurrence of palingenesia.

Related entries

Soul; Ex traduce; Natural, sensitive and rational soul; Imagination; Avarice; Divine

Places to read

1. · paragraph 1–11disputed origins and immortality of the soul, Pythagorean rebirth, animal forms, Lucian and Ovid, recollection and the combined Platonic account
2. · paragraph 12–25the subsequent debate, human creation and animal propagation, and the opening definition of understanding
3. · paragraph 47–49the contrasting migration of nations
4. · paragraph 17–19Lucian's cock reused in the argument about wealth and anxiety
5. · paragraph 4–8souls derived from and returning to an animate earth after cycles
6. · paragraph 32–39erotic transfer of souls through kisses, with the marginal pouring-and-mingling formulation
7. · paragraph 5–10the Druids’ posthumous passage of souls, courage and Burton’s political explanation
8. the polemical attribution of transmigration to Manichaeans
9. Unnumbered Table · paragraph 16–18the shorter spelling “Metempsycosis” and its destination
10. Unnumbered Tablethe source's reading route for transmigration of souls

In this edition

“Metempsychosis, and Palingenesia” becomes “transmigration and rebirth.” The two coordinated nouns are preserved as a pair; the subsequent clause explains movement from body to body. “epotâ prius Lethes undâ” becomes “after first drinking the water of Lethe,” preserving the prior action. “participated in conditions” becomes “the traits they shared with those animals,” supplying the comparison's referent from context.

“sometimes Pythagoras” becomes “who was once Pythagoras”: sometimes here points to a former identity, not an intermittent present condition. The later English “transmigration of souls from men to beasts” remains explicit about both subject and direction. The modern renderings and the editorial identifications clarify Burton's text; they are not independent original attestations of his terms.

after death to go from one to another

Printed “after death to go from one to another” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: after death to go from one to another

Citation convention

Meaning: To pass after death from one person to another.

Here: The Druids’ teaching, reported through Caesar, is used to explain courage in the face of death.

Context: Caesar is the stated authority; Burton’s first taught priority exceeds what the supplied editorial note establishes. The next paragraph explicitly calls the purpose political.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: after death pass from one person to another

Word and construction: After death is retained; to go becomes pass. Person is supplied to make the human referents explicit. The subject souls, the Druids’ teaching and Caesar’s report lie outside the indexed phrase.

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied source; editorial rendering is not independent primary evidence; no fresh historical-witness collation

after some revolutions

Printed “after some revolutions” (English; phrase).

Citation convention

Meaning: After certain cycles or recurrent periods.

Here: Souls derived from an animate earth are said to return to it after cycles.

Context: Some confidently believe this; Burton names ancient authorities and says some recent thinkers partly revived it. The account returns souls to earth, rather than expressly transferring an individual into another animal or person.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: into which again, after some revolutions, as Plato in his Timæus, Plotinus in his Enneades more largely discusse, they return

Modern rendering: into it they return after certain cycles, as Plato in his Timaeus and Plotinus in his Enneads discuss at greater length

Word and construction: After some revolutions gives after certain cycles; into which again refers to the earth in the preceding clause, rendered into it. They refers to the enumerated souls. Named discussions and the return verb belong to the wider alignment, not to revolutions alone.

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied source; editorial rendering is not independent primary evidence; no fresh historical-witness collation

de sortitione animarum

Printed “de sortitione animarum” (Latin; phrase).

Citation convention

About souls drawing lots or the allotment of souls.

Context: The source combines Platonic narratives; the supplied note distinguishes their details.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: his pleasant fiction de sortitione animarum

Modern rendering: his delightful fiction about souls drawing lots

Word and construction: De gives about, sortitione allotment or drawing of lots, and animarum of souls. The modern about souls drawing lots makes souls the agents of drawing. His pleasant fiction is the separate English evaluation, rendered his delightful fiction.

Alignment scope: Mixed English/Latin phrase and supplied modern rendering; indexed construction itself Latin

epota prius Lethes unda

Printed “epotâ prius Lethes undâ” (Latin; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: epotâ prius Lethes undâ

Citation convention

After first drinking the water of Lethe.

Context: Prior drinking is part of Burton’s assembled description, not the definition of soul-transmigration.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: after first drinking the water of Lethe

Word and construction: Epotâ is a passive participle, with the water having been drunk; the modern active drinking takes the souls as drinkers from context. Prius gives first, Lethes of Lethe and undâ water. After unfolds the completed prior action of the Latin ablative construction; it is not a separately printed preposition.

Alignment convention

in corpora condi

Printed “in corpora condi” (Latin; phrase).

Citation convention

Be lodged within bodies, here cattle’s bodies.

Context: Quoted Ovid in Burton’s supplied wording; variant corpora retained.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: pecudumque in corpora condi

Modern rendering: And be lodged within the bodies of cattle

Word and construction: In corpora condi gives be lodged within bodies; pecudum gives of cattle and enclitic -que gives and. The preceding possibility verb lies outside this indexed phrase.

Alignment convention

infundo

Printed “infundentes” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Meaning: Pouring in or into.

Here: Reciprocal pouring and mingling in the marginal account of lovers’ kisses.

Context: Original Latin margin supports the erotic connection of souls or spirits; the following English translation is editorial, and the body attributes the account to Castiglione. It is not a doctrine of successive posthumous lives.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording, Original wording: alternatim se in utriusq; corpus infundentes commiscent

Modern rendering: pouring themselves by turns into each other’s body, they mingle

Word and construction: Infundentes gives pouring into; se supplies themselves, alternatim by turns, in utriusq; corpus into each other’s body, and commiscent they mingle. The participle alone does not contain the reciprocal pronoun or the mingling verb.

Alignment scope: Original marginal Latin and the supplied editorial translation; wrapper excluded

Edition note: checked in supplied source; editorial rendering is not independent primary evidence; no fresh historical-witness collation

metempsychosis

Printed “Metempsycosis” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Meaning: Passage of a soul into another body.

Here: Shorter printed spelling in the source Table, pointing to the main account.

Context: The Table gives a reading route, not an additional proof of rebirth.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: Metempsycosis 26

Modern rendering: The transmigration of souls. 26

Word and construction: Metempsycosis gives transmigration of souls; The and punctuation are supplied. The printed 26 is the destination page, not the Table’s own page label. The normalized lemma preserves retrieval without altering the spelling.

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied source; editorial rendering is not independent primary evidence; no fresh historical-witness collation

metempsychosis; palingenesia

Printed “Metempsychosis, and Palingenesia” (Greek-derived learned nouns in an English construction; phrase).

Citation: The key gives two coordinated learned lemmas; it is not a single dictionary lemma. Their printed coordination is retained as the indexed phrase.

Transmigration of souls and rebirth, paired Pythagorean doctrines.

Context: Pythagoreans are the attributed defenders; the coordination is preserved.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: The Pythagorians defend Metempsychosis, and Palingenesia

Modern rendering: The Pythagoreans defend transmigration and rebirth

Word and construction: Metempsychosis gives transmigration and Palingenesia gives rebirth; English and coordinates the two learned nouns. The Pythagorians defend is the separate attribution, not part of either noun’s definition.

Alignment convention

nam memini

Printed “nam memini” (Latin; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: nam memini

Citation convention

For I remember, spoken by Ovid’s Pythagoras about a former life.

Context: Quoted voice; surrounding Lucian reference does not transfer Latin verse authorship.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: for I remember

Word and construction: Nam gives for; memini gives I remember, with the first-person subject encoded in the verb rather than a separately printed pronoun.

Alignment convention

participate in conditions

Printed “participated in conditions” (English; phrase).

Citation convention

Shared traits with the animals into which they were said to pass.

Context: Modern supplies the animal referent already provided by the sequence.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: or participated in conditions

Modern rendering: or the traits they shared with those animals

Word and construction: Participated gives shared, conditions gives traits, and with those animals supplies the comparison’s referent from the preceding list. Or preserves an alternative formulation alongside inclinations, rather than asserting a new cause.

Alignment convention

reminiscentia

Printed “reminiscentia, or recalling” (Latin and English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.

Citation convention

Recollection or remembering, the recovery of knowledge in Burton’s Platonic account.

Context: Burton’s comparison with Plato is qualified by for ought I can perceive.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: which he calls reminiscentia, or recalling

Modern rendering: which he calls recollection or remembering

Word and construction: Latin reminiscentia gives recollection; English recalling gives remembering. Which he calls is the distinct English attribution to Plato, and the earlier for ought I can perceive qualifies Burton’s comparison.

Alignment convention

sometimes

Printed “sometimes Pythagoras” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.

Citation convention

Formerly Pythagoras, a previous identity of Lucian’s speaking cock.

Context: Literary narrative deployed against avarice; not independent authorial assent to rebirth.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: his Cocke, sometimes Pythagoras

Modern rendering: his cock, who was once Pythagoras

Word and construction: Sometimes gives once or formerly; who was is supplied to unfold the former identity. Cocke gives cock and Pythagoras is retained. The complete cock description is not the meaning of sometimes alone.

Alignment convention

transfundo

Printed “transfudimus” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Meaning: We poured or transferred.

Here: Petronian lovers picture their wandering souls pouring through kisses.

Context: A quoted first-person poetic image, not a claim about reincarnation after death.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: Et transfudimus hinc & hinc labellis Errantes animas

Modern rendering: And poured through our lips, to and fro, Our wandering souls

Word and construction: Transfudimus is first-person plural completed action, we poured; the modern carries We from the preceding sentence. Et gives And, hinc & hinc to and fro, labellis through lips, and Errantes animas wandering souls. Our is contextually supplied from the lovers’ first-person voice.

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied source; editorial rendering is not independent primary evidence; no fresh historical-witness collation

transmigration

Printed “transmigration of Nations” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.

Citation convention

Migration of peoples, distinguished from passage of souls between bodies.

Context: Burton’s own I think introduces a providential conjecture: migration is said usually to occur once in six hundred years to improve or purify peoples’ blood. This is his historical-constitutional speculation, not an established cycle or a doctrine of souls.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: a transmigration of Nations

Modern rendering: a migration of nations

Word and construction: Transmigration gives migration; of Nations gives of nations and identifies the moving peoples. No soul or new embodiment is supplied by this construction.

Alignment convention

transmigration of souls · transmigration of souls from men to beasts

Printed “transmigration of souls from men to beasts” (English; phrase).

Citation convention

Passage of souls from human into animal bodies.

Context: Burton attributes the view within a hostile catalogue of religious errors.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: Manichees hold that Pythagorian transmigration of souls from men to beasts

Modern rendering: Manichaeans maintain the Pythagorean transmigration of souls from human beings into animals

Word and construction: Transmigration of souls is retained; from men to beasts becomes from human beings into animals. Manichees hold supplies the attributed speakers and their assertion, while Pythagorian is the doctrinal label outside the indexed passage phrase.

Alignment convention

transmigration of souls · Transmigration of souls

Printed “Transmigration of souls” (English; phrase).

Citation convention

Meaning: Passage of souls from one body to another.

Here: Index route to the rational-soul discussion.

Context: Source Table preserves subject and printed page route.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: Transmigration of souls 26

Modern rendering: The transmigration of souls. 26

Word and construction: Transmigration of souls is retained; the modern supplies The and sentence punctuation. The number 26 is the destination page of the entry, not the physical page label of the unnumbered Table.

Alignment convention