The Poem of Empedocles: A Text and Translation

350 Pages·2001·13.628 MB·English

by  Brad Inwood

The Poem of Empedocles
A TEXT AND TRANSLATION WITH AN INTRODUCTION
REVISED EDITION
By Brad Inwood
This revised edition of The Poem of Empedocles (1992) integrates substantial
new material from a recently discovered papyrus published by A. Martin and
O. Primavesi. The papyrus contains evidence of over seventy lines or part lines
of poetry, of which more than fifty are both new and usable. The integration
of this material into the previously known fragments has significant impact
on our understanding of Empedocles, one of the most influential philosophers
and poets of antiquity.
This volume provides the reader with the fullest and most accessible set of
evidence for the doctrines and poetic achievement of this Presocratic philoso-
pher. The Greek text of the fragments (with English facing-page translation)
has been revised to include the new material; textual notes have also been
enhanced. The revised introduction orients the reader to the study of Empe-
docles and assesses the significance of the new material. The new papyrus
fragments shed some light on the controversial question of the number of
poems from which the fragments derive and most important, they yield further
confirmation that eschatological and cosmological themes were inextricably
interconnected in Empedocles philosophical poetry.
BRAD INWOOD is Professor of Classics at the University of Toronto.
PHOENIX
Journal of the Classical Association of Canada
Revue de la Societe canadienne des etudes classiques
Supplementary Volume xxxIx / Phoenix Presocratics Volume III
Tome supplementaire xxxIx / Les Presocratiques Phoenix tome III
Phoenix Presocratics / Les Presocratiques Phoenix
General Editors / Redacteurs en chef
David Gallop Trent University
T.M. Robinson University of Toronto
THE POEM OF
Empedocles
A TEXT AND TRANSLATION
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
BRAD INWOOD
Revised Edition
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
www.utppublishing.com
(c) University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2001
Toronto Buffalo London
Printed in Canada
ISBN 0-8020-4820-X (cloth)
ISBN 0-8020-8353-6 (paper)
Printed on acid-free paper
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Empedocles
The poem of Empedocles : a text and translation with an introduction
(Phoenix. Supplementary volume ; 39 = Phoenix.
Tome supplementaire, ISSN 0079-1784 ; 39)
(Phoenix Presocratics ; 3 = Les Presocratiques Phoenix ; 3)
Greek text with English translation and introduction.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8020-4820-X (bound) ISBN 0-8020-8353-6 (pbk.)
1. Philosophy of nature - Early works to 1800.
2. Cosmology - Ancient.
I. Inwood, Brad, 1953- . II. Title.
III. Series: Phoenix pre-Socratics (Toronto, Ont.) ; v. 3.
IV. Series: Phoenix. Supplementary volume (Toronto, Ont.) ; 39.
B218.A4E5 2001 113 COO-932068-7
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance
to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the
Ontario Arts Council.
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities
and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its
publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book
Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).
To the memory of
Leonard Woodbury
This page intentionally left blank
CONTENTS
Preface to the Revised Edition ix
Acknowledgments xi
Abbreviations xii
PART 1: INTRODUCTION 3
1.1 Text and Translation 3
1.2 Empedocles' Life and Works 6
1.3 Empedocles' Thought 21
PART 2: FRAGMENTS IN CONTEXT 81
PART 3: TESTIMONIA 153
3.1 Biography 153
3.2 Apophthegms 167
3.3 Poetry 168
3.4 Doctrine 171
PART 4: FRAGMENTS 209
Textual Notes 276
Concordances 293
Sources and Authorities 301
Bibliography 309
General Index 319
Index of Passages Translated 329
This page intentionally left blank
PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION 1
The purpose of the second edition of this book is the same as that
of the first: to make available to students, whether or not they read
Greek, the texts necessary for the study of Empedocles' thought. By a
dramatic stroke of good fortune, there are now more such texts avail-
able than in 1991, when the first edition was sent to press. Not only
was the content of a long-neglected papyrus (P.Strasb.gr. Inv. 1665-66)
identified by Alain Martin in the early 1990s, but the formidable task
of preparing it for publication was carried out with exemplary care
and speed by Martin and his collaborator, Oliver Primavesi. The result
is an excellent book, L'Empedocle de Strasbourg (Berlin and New York:
de Gruyter 1999), which presents the new material to the scholarly
world and analyses it with admirable clarity.
Hence, there are more than seventy new lines or part lines of text
now available that were not known when the first edition of this book
was prepared. I am grateful to the series editors and to the University
of Toronto Press for the opportunity to integrate this new material with
the previously known evidence. I have not undertaken a fundamental
revision, for the contents of the papyrus do not seem to me to call for
it. Nor have I done any independent work on the papyrus text; I am
wholly reliant on the work of Martin and Primavesi as published in
their book (henceforth M-P). It remains true that 'the text I provide is
based on the primary research of other scholars' (below, section 1.1). I
have, however, exercised my own judgment on all problematic points.
On the difficult question of how much conjectural supplement to print,
1 I would like to thank David Sedley for reviewing an early draft of this edition and
offering valuable advice.