Empedocles Quotes on Death
Empedocles of Acragas (c.490–c.430 BC) — the Sicilian Pre-Socratic philosopher, poet, and reputed wonder-worker who according to legend ended his life by leaping into the crater of Mount Etna — gave early Greek philosophy its principal account of birth and death within a metaphysics of four roots (earth, air, fire, water) governed by the alternating cosmic powers of Love and Strife. The surviving hexameter fragments of On Nature and the Purifications develop the doctrine that nothing genuinely comes to be or perishes — the apparent generation and destruction of mortal things is rather the mixing and unmixing of the four eternal roots — and the parallel doctrine of the transmigration of souls, with the philosopher reporting his earlier incarnations as a boy, a girl, a bush, a bird, and a fish. The framework shaped Aristotle’s treatment of the four elements and the broader Western reflection on the apparent reality of biological death.
Quotes
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Attributed to Empedocles:
“There is no birth in mortal things, nor any end in ruinous death; there is only mingling and interchange of what is mingled.”
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“I have already once been a boy and a girl, a bush and a bird and a mute fish in the sea.”
ἤδη γάρ ποτ’ ἐγὼ γενόμην κοῦρός τε κόρη τε θάμνος τ’ οἰωνός τε καὶ ἔξαλος ἔλλοπος ἰχθύς. -
“Hear first the four roots of all things: shining Zeus, life-bringing Hera, Aidoneus, [ 2 ] and Nestis, [ 3 ] who wets with tears the mortal wellspring.”
τέσσαρα γὰρ πάντων ῥιζώματα πρῶτον ἄκουε· Ζεὺς ἀργὴς Ἥρη τε φερέσβιος ἠδ’ Ἀιδωνεύς Νῆστίς θ’, ἥ δακρύοις τέγγει κρούνωμα βρότειον. -
“And I will tell you something else: there is no birth of all mortal things, nor any end in wretched death, but only a mixing and dissolution of mixtures ; 'birth' is so called on the part of mankind.”
ἄλλο δέ τοι ἐρέω· φύσις οὐδενός ἐστιν ἁπάντων θνητῶν, οὐδέ τις οὐλομένου θανάτοιο τελευτή, ἀλλὰ μόνον μίξις τε διάλλαξίς τε μιγέντων ἐστί, φύσις δ’ἐπὶ τοῖς ὀνομάζεται ἀνθρώποισιν. -
“But, when the elements have been mingled in the fashion of a man and come to the light of day, or in the fashion of the race of wild beasts or plants or birds, then men say that these come into being; and when they are separated, they call that woeful death . They call it not aright; but I too follow the custom, and call it so myself.”
οἱ δ᾿ ὅτε μὲν κατὰ φῶτα μιγέντ᾿ εἰς αἰθέρ᾿ ἵ⟨κωνται⟩ ἢ κατὰ θηρῶν ἀγροτέρων γένος ἢ κατὰ θάμνων ἠὲ κατ᾿ οἰωνῶν, τότε μὲν τὸ ⟨λέγουσι⟩ γενέσθαι, εὖτε δ᾿ ἀποκρινθῶσι, τὸ δ᾿ αὖ δυσδαίμονα πότμον· ἥ θέμις ⟨οὐ⟩ καλέουσι, νόμωι δ᾿ ἐπίφημι καὶ αὐτός.