But the hair of hedgehogs is sharp-pointed and bristles on their backs.
And even as when a man thinking to sally forth through ἃ stormy night, gets him ready a lantern, a flame of blazing fire, fastening to it horn plates to keep out all manner of winds, and they scatter the blast of the winds that blow, but the light leaping out through them, shines across the threshold with unfailing beams, as much of it as is finer; even so did she (Love) then entrap the elemental fire, the round pupil, confined within membranes and delicate tissues, which are pierced through and through with wondrous passages. They keep out the deep water that surrounds the pupil, but they let through the fire, as much of it as is finer. R. P. 177 Ὁ.
(85)
But the gentle flame (of the eye) has but a scanty portion
of earth.
(86) Out of these divine Aphrodite fashioned unwearying eyes.
1 See Beare, p. 16, ἢ. 1, where Plato, Zi. 45 Ὁ 4 (rod πυρὸς ὅσον τὸ μὲν κάειν οὐκ ἔσχεν, τὸ δὲ παρέχειν φῶς ἥμερον), is aptly quoted. Alexander ad Joc. understands κατὰ βηλόν to mean κατ᾽ οὐρανόν, which seems improbable.
252 Early Greek Philosophy
Aphrodite fitting these together with rivets of love. (88)
One vision is produced by both the eyes. (89)
Know that effluences flow from all things that have come into being. R. P. 166 ἢ.
(90)
So sweet lays hold of sweet, and bitter rushes to bitter ;
acid comes to acid, and warm couples with warm.
(91)
Water fits better into wine, but it will not (mingle) with oil.
R. P. 166 ἢ.
; (92)
Brass mixed with tin.
(93)
The berry of the blue elder is mingled with scarlet.
(94)
And the black colour at the bottom of a river arises from the shadow. The same is seen in hollow caves.
Since they (the eyes) first grew together in the hands of Kypris.
The kindly earth received in its broad funnels two parts of gleaming Nestis out of the eight, and four of Hephaistos. So arose white bones divinely fitted together by the cement of proportion. R. P. 175.
(98)
And the earth, anchoring in the perfect harbours of
Aphrodite, meets with these in nearly equal proportions,
The spine (was broken).
Empedokles of Akragas 283
with Hephaistos and Water and gleaming Air—either a little more of it, or less of them and more of it. From these did blood arise and the manifold forms of flesh. - R. P. 175 ¢.
(99) The bell . . . the fleshy sprout (of the ear).!
Thus? do all things draw breath and breathe it out again. All have bloodless tubes of flesh extended over the surface of their bodies; and at the mouths of these the outermost surface of the skin is perforated all over with pores .closely packed together, so as to keep in the blood while a free passage is cut for the air to pass through. Then, when the
thin blood recedes from these, the bubbling air rushes in with.
an impetuous surge; and when the blood runs back it is breathed out again. Just as when a girl, playing with a water-clock of shining brass, puts the orifice of the pipe upon her comely hand, and dips the water-clock into the yielding mass of silvery water,—the stream does not then flow into the vessel, but the bulk of the air inside, pressing upon the close- packed perforations, keeps it out till she uncovers the com- pressed stream; but then air escapes and an equal volume of water runs in,—just in the same way, when water occupies the depths of the brazen vessel and the opening and passage is stopped up by the human hand, the air outside, striving to get in, holds the water back at the gates of the ill-sounding
Io
neck, pressing upon its surface, till she lets go with her hand. 20
Then, on the contrary, just in the opposite way to what
1 On fr. 99, see Beare, Ὁ. 96, n. 1.
* This passage is quoted by Aristotle (de Respir, 473 Ὁ 9), who makes the curious mistake of taking ῥινῶν for the genitive of fis instead of ῥινός. The Jocus classicus on the subject of the klepsydra is Prod/. 914 Ὁ 9 sqq. (where read αὐλοῦ for ἄλλου, Ὁ 12). The klepsydra was a metal vessel with a narrow neck (αὐλός) at the top and with a sort of strainer (ἠθμός) pierced with holes (τρήματα, τρυπήματα) at the bottom. The passage in the Problems just referred to attributes this theory of the phenomenon to Anaxagoras, and we shall see later that he also made use of a similar experiment (§ 131):
254 Early Greek Philosophy
happened before, the wind rushes in and an equal volume of water runs out to make room.! Even so, when the thin blood that surges through the limbs rushes backwards to the interior, straightway the stream of air comes in with a rushing swell; but when the blood returns the air breathes out again in equal quantity. (101)
(The dog) with its nostrils tracking out the fragments of the beast’s limbs, and the breath from their feet that they leave in the soft grass.?
Thus all things have their share of breath and smell.
(103, 104) Thus have all things thought by fortune’s will. . . . And inasmuch as the rarest things came together in their fall.
(The heart), dwelling in the sea of blood that runs in opposite directions, where chiefly is what men call thought ; for the blood round the heart is the thought of men. ΚΕ. P. 178 ἃ.
For the wisdom of men grows according to what is before
weme) RO Py 277.
For out of these are all things formed and fitted together,
1 This seems to be the experiment described in Prod/. 914 Ὁ 26, ἐὰν γάρ τις αὐτῆς (τῆς κλεψύδρας) αὐτὴν τὴν κωδίαν ἐμπλήσας ὕδατος, ἐπιλαβὼν τὸν αὐλόν, καταστρέψῃ ἐπὶ τὸν αὐλόν, οὐ φέρεται τὸ ὕδωρ διὰ τοῦ αὐλοῦ ἐπὶ στόμα. ἀνοιχθέντος δὲ τοῦ στόματος, οὐκ εὐθὺς ἐκρεῖ κατὰ τὸν αὐλόν, ἀλλὰ μικροτέρῳ ὕστερον, ὡς οὐκ ὃν ἐπὶ τῷ στόματι τοῦ αὐλοῦ, ἀλλ᾽ ὕστερον διὰ τούτου φερόμενον ἀνοιχθέντος. The epithet δυσηχέος applied to ἐσθμοῖο is best explained as a reference to the ἐρυγμός or ““ belching ” referred to at 915 a 7 as accompanying the discharge of water through the αὐλός. Any one can produce this effect with a water-bottle. If it were not for this epithet, it would be tempting to read ἠθμοῖο for ἰσθμοῖο. Sturz conjectured this, and it is actually the reading of a few MSS.
2 On fr. 101, see Beare, p. 135, ἢ. 2.
Empedokles of Akragas 255
and by these do men think and feel pleasure and pain. R. P. 178.
(108) And just so far as they grow to be different, so far do
different thoughts ever present themselves to their minds (in dreams). R.P. 177 ἃ.
(199) For it is with earth that we see Earth, and Water with water ; by air we see bright Air, by fire destroying Fire. By love do we see Love, and Hate by grievous hate. R.P. 176.
For if, supported on thy steadfast mind, thou wilt
contemplate these things with good intent and faultless care, _
then shalt thou have all these things in abundance throughout thy life, and thou shalt gain many others from them. For these things grow of themselves into thy heart, where is each man’s true nature. But if thou strivest after things of another kind, as is the way with men, ten thousand woes await thee to blunt thy careful thoughts. Soon will these things desert thee when the time comes round; for they long to return once more to their own kind; for know that all things have wisdom and a share of thought.
And thou shalt learn all the drugs that are a defence against ills and old age; since for thee alone will I accomplish allthis. Thou shalt arrest the violence of the weariless winds that arise and sweep the earth; and again, when thou so desirest, thou shalt bring back their blasts with a rush. Thou shalt cause for men a seasonable drought after the dark rains, and again thou shalt change the summer drought for streams that feed the trees as they pour down from the sky. Thou shalt bring back from Hades the life of a dead man.
1 That the reference is to dreams, we learn from Simpl. de Ax. p. 202, 30.
Io
256 Early Greek Philosophy
PURIFICATIONS (112)
Friends, that inhabit the great town looking down on the yellow rock of Akragas, up by the citadel, busy in goodly works, harbours of honour for the stranger, men unskilled in meanness, all hail. I go about among you an immortal god, no mortal now, honoured among all as is meet, crowned with fillets and flowery garlands. Straightway, whenever I enter with these in my train, both men and women, into the flourishing towns, is reverence done me; they go after me in countless throngs, asking of me what is the way to gain; some desiring oracles, while some, who for many a weary day have been pierced by the grievous pangs of all manner of sickness, beg to hear from me the word of healing. R. P. 162 f.
But why do I harp on these things, as if it were any great matter that I should surpass mortal, perishable men?
Friends, I know indeed that truth is in the words I shall utter, but it is hard for men, and jealous are they of the assault of belief on their souls.
There is an oracle of Necessity,! an ancient ordinance of the gods, eternal and sealed fast by broad oaths, that when- ever one of the demons, whose portion is length of days, has sinfully polluted his hands with blood,? or followed strife and forsworn himself, he must wander thrice ten thousand years from the abodes of the blessed, being born throughout the time in all manners of mortal forms, changing one toilsome
1 Bernays conjectured ῥῆμα, ‘‘ decree,” for χρῆμα, but this is not necessary. Necessity is an Orphic personage, and Gorgias, the disciple of Empedokles, says θεῶν βουλεύμασιν καὶ ἀνάγκης ψηφίσμασιν (Hel. 6).
2 I retain φόνῳ in v. 3 (so too Diels). The first word of v. 4 has been lost. Diels suggests Νείκεϊ, which may well be right, and takes ἁμαρτήσας as equivalent to ὁμαρτήσας. I have translated accordingly.
Empedokles of Akragas 257
path of life for another. For the mighty Air drives him into the Sea, and the Sea spews him forth on the dry Earth; Earth tosses him into the beams of the blazing Sun, and he flings him back to the eddies of Air. One takes him from the other, and all reject him. One of these I now am, an exile and a wanderer from the gods, for that I put my trust in insensate strife. R. P. 181.
Charis loathes intolerable Necessity.
(117)
For I have been ere now a boy and a girl, a bush and a
bird and a dumb fish in the sea. R. P. 182.
(118)
I wept and I wailed when I saw the unfamiliar land.
R. P. 182.
(119)
From what honour, from what a height of bliss have I
fallen to go about among mortals here on earth.
We have come under this roofed-in cave.
(121) . the joyless land, where are Death and Wrath and troops of Dooms besides ; and parching Plagues and Rotten- nesses and Floods roam in darkness over the meadow of Ate.
There were? Chthonie and far-sighted Heliope, bloody Discord and gentle-visaged Harmony, Kallisto and Aischre, Speed and Tarrying, lovely Truth and dark-haired Uncertainty,
1 According to Porphyry, who quotes this line (de Antro Nymph. 8), these words were spoken by the ‘‘ powers” who conduct the soul into the world (ψυχοπομποὶ δυνάμεις). The ‘‘cave” is not originally Platonic but Orphic.
2 This passage is closely modelled on the Catalogue of Nymphs in Jad xviii. 39 sqq. Chthonie is found already in Pherekydes (Diog. i. 119).
258 Early Greek Philosophy
Birth and Decay, Sleep and Waking, Movement and Im- mobility, crowned Majesty and Meanness, Silence and Voice. RK. BP. 283.4. (124) Alas, O wretched race of mortals, twice unblessed: such are the strifes and groanings from which ye have been born!
(125)
From living creatures he made them dead, changing their
forms.
(126)
(The goddess) clothing them with a strange garment of
flesh.!
(127)
Among beasts they” become lions that make their lair on
the hills and their couch on the ground; and laurels among
trees with goodly foliage. R. P. 181 b.