CONCERNING OPINIONS.
At this point 1 cease trustworthy discourse and
the thought about truth; from here on, learn the
opinions of mortals, hearing of the illusive order of
my verses.
98 the First Philosophers of Greece
µάνθανε, κόσμον ἐμῶν ἐπέων atratnNov ἀκούων. \ , 4 9 ,
μορφὰς yap κατέθεντο δύο γνώµαις ὀνομάζειν
χωρὶς an’ ἀλλήλων, τῇ μὲν Φλογὸφ αἰθέριον trip
ἀντία νύκτ) aban, πυκινὸν δέµαε ἐμβριθές τε. 120 τῶν σοι ἐγὼ διάκοσµον ἐοικότα πάντα φατίζω,
ε 9. f / a“ / /
@s οὐ µή ποτέ Tis σε βροτῶν γνώµη παρελάσῃ.
αὐτὰρ ἐπειδὴ πάντα ddos καὶ νὺξ ὀνόμασται
καὶ τὰ κατὰ σφετέρας δυνάµεις ἐπὶ τοῖσί τε καὶ τοῖς,
n / LY e A ή \ \ 3 /
πᾶν πλέον ἐστὶν ομοῦ φάεος καὶ νυκτὸς ἀφάντου,
125 ἴσων ἀμφοτέρων, ἐπεὶ οὐδετέρῳ µέτα μηδέν.
The Eleatic School: Parmenides 99
Men have determined in their minds to name two
principles [lit. forms]; but one of these they ought
not to name, and in so doing they have erred. They
distinguish them as antithetic in character, and give
them each character and attributes distinct from
those of the other. On the one hand there is the
aethereal flame of fire, fine, rarefied, everywhere —
identical with itself and not identical with its oppo-
site; and on the other hand, opposed to the first, is
the second principle, flameless darkness, dense and
heavy in character. Of these two principles I declare
to thee every arrangement as it appears to men, s0
that no knowledge among mortals may surpass thine.
But since all things are called light and darkness,
and the peculiar properties of these are predicated of
one thing and another, everything is at the same
time full of light and of obscure darkness, of both
equally, since neither has anything in common with
the other.
And the smaller circles are filled with unmixed
fire, and those next them with darkness into which
their portion of light penetrates; in the midst of
these is the divinity who directs the course of all.
100 the First Philosophers of Greece
πάντῃ yap στυγεροῖο τόκου Kal µίξιοε apyei
190 πέμπουσ᾽ ἄρσενι θῆλυ μυγὲν TO 7’ ἐνάντιον αὖθις
ἄρσεν θηλυτέρῳ.
elon δ) αἰθερίαν τε φύσιν τά 7 ἐν αἰθέρι πάντα σήµατα καὶ καθαρᾶς εὐαγέος ἠελίοιο
καὶ φύσιν. εἰδήσειο τε καὶ οὐρανὸν apdis ἔχοντα,
ἔνθεν Edu τε, καὶ ὥς µιν ἄγουσ) ἐπέδησεν ᾽Ανάγκη
weipar’ ἔχειν ἄστρων.
140 πῶς γαῖα καὶ ἥλιος ἠδὲ σελήνη
αἰθήρ τε ξυνὸς γάλα 7 οὐράνιον καὶ Ὄλυμπος
ἔσχατος ἠδ ἄστρων θερμὸν µένος ὠρμήθησαν
γίνεσθαι.
νυκτιφαὲς περὶ γαῖαν ἀλώμενον ἀλλότριον Pas
ὧς γὰρ ἑκάστοτ' ἔχει κρᾶσις µελέων πολυκάµπτων,
Tas νόος ἀνθρώποισι παρέστηκεν' τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ
ἔστιν ὅπερ φρονέει µέλέων φύσις ἀνθρώποισιν
132. Plato, Symp. 178 8; Arist. Met.i. 4, 984 b 26; Plut. Amat. 756 F; Sext. Emp. Math. ix.9; Stob. Ecl. i. 10, p. 274; Simpl. Phys. 9 r 39, 18. 133-139. Clem. Al. Strom. v. 14, 732. Stein assigns to Empedokles. 140-143. Simpl. de Coelo f. 198: Peyr. 55 sqq., Brandis 510a. V. 140: Stein introduces λέγειν before πως from what precedes.
144. Plut. Οοἷοί. p. 1116. ‘ 145. Plut. Quaest. Rom. 2824; de fac. lun. 929 a. 146-149. Arist. Met. iii. 5, 1009 b 17; Theophr. de sens. 8; Doz. 499. V. 146: Text follows Arist. SB°C, Theophr. PF; Vulg. ἕκαστος : MSS. κρᾶσι», corr. Stephan. V. 147: Arist. παρίσταται; text follows Theophr.
150. Galen, Hipp. Epid. vi. 48; Comm. ii. (ix. p. 430 Char).
The Eleatic School: Parmenides 101
For she controls dreaded birth and coition in every
part of the universe, sending female to join with
male, and again male to female.
First of all the gods she devised love.
Thou shalt know the nature of the heavens and
all signs that are in the sky, the destructive deeds of
the pure bright torch of the sun and whence they ~
arose, and thou shalt learn the wandering deeds of the
round-eyed moon and its nature. Thou shalt know
also the sky surrounding all, whence it arose, and
how necessity took it and chained it so as to serve as
a limit to the courses of the stars. How earth and
sun and moon and common sky and the milky way
of the heavens and highest Olympos and the burning
(might of the) stars began to be.
It (the moon) wanders about the earth, shining
at night with borrowed light. She is always gazing
earnestly toward the rays of the sun. |
For as at any time 18 the blending of very com-
plex members in a man, so is the mind in men con-
stituted ; for that which thinks is the same in all
men and in every man, viz. the essence of the
members of the body; and the element that is in
excess is thought.
On the right hand boys, on the left hand girls.
So, according to men’s opinions, did things
arise, and so they are now, and from this state when
they shall have reached maturity shall they perish.
For each of these men has determined a name as
8 distinguishing mark.
When male and female mingle seed of Venus
in the form [the body] of one, the excellence from
the two different bloods, if it preserves harmony,
fashions a well-formed body ; but if when the seed is
mingled the excellencies fight against each other
102 the First Philosophers οε Greece
of A / w 4 le) κ
οὕτω τοι κατὰ δόξαν ἔφυν τάδε viv τε ἔασι,
καὶ μετέπειτ᾽ amo τοῦδε τελευτήσουσι τραφέντα.
“A 9 Ww bad / 9 / e /
τοῖς & ὄνομα ἄνθρωποι κατέθεντ᾽ ἐπίσημον ἑκάστῳ.
Kars. (150) Femina virque simul Veneris cum germina
miscent
unius in formam diverso ex sanguine virtus
temperiem servans bene condita corpora fingit.
at si virtutes permixto semine pugnent
nec faciant unam permixto in corpore dirae
nascentem gemino vexabunt semine sexum.
Simpl. Phys. 7, v. 91, 4. ἐπὶ r@dé ἐστι τὸ ἁραιὸν καὶ
\ N \ N ‘N \ Ν N \ Ν Ν 2 \
151-153. Simpl. de Coelo f. 1388; Peyr. 55 sq., Gaisf. Poet. Mim. 287.
V. 151: MSS. ἔφυ, corr. Stein. MSS. (καὶ) νῦν ἔασι, Peyr. νῦν τε
ἔασι, Stein viv καὶ ἔασι. V.153: Text follows Oxford MS.: Turin MS. transposes last two words.
150-155. (Karsten) Coelius Aurel. de Morb. Chron. iv. 9, p. 545 Wet. RP.102c. V. (151) Vulg. venis informans, corr. Diels, Dox. 193, η. 1.
and do not unite into one, they will distress the sex
that is coming into existence, as the twofold seed is
mingled in the body of the unfortunate woman.
With this there are fineness and heat and light
and softness and brightness; and with the dense
are classed cold and darkness and hardness and
weight, for these are separated the ones on one
side, the others on the other.
The Eleatic School: Parmenides 103
b) PassaGEsS RELATING TO PARMENIDES IN PLATO AND |
Plato, Theaet. 180 p. I almost forgot, Theodoros,
that there were others who asserted opinions the very
opposite of these: ‘ the all is alone, unmoved ; to this
all names apply,’ and the other emphatic statements
in opposition to those referred to, which the school of
Melissos and Parmenides make, to the effect that all
things are one, and that the all stands itself in itself, not
having space in which it is moved.
Ibid. 183 ©. Feeling ashamed before Melissos and the
rest who assert that the all is one being, for fear we should
examine the matter somewhat crudely, I am even more
ashamed in view of the fact that Parmenides is one of
them. Parmenides seems to me, in the words of Homer,
8 man to be reverenced and at the same time feared.
For when I was.a mere youth and he a very old man,
I conversed with him, and he seemed to me to have an
exceedingly wonderful depth of mind. I fear lest we
may not understand what he said, and that we may
fail still more to understand his thoughts in saying it;
and, what is most important, I fear lest the question
before us should fail to receive due consideration. ...!
Soph. 238 c (concluding a discussion of Parmenides). You understand then that it is really impossible to speak of not-being or to say anything about it or to conceive it by itself, but it is inconceivable, not to be spoken of or mentioned, and irrational.
Parm. 1508. Accordingly the unity itself in relation to itself is as follows: Having in itself neither greatness nor littleness, it could not be exceeded by itself nor gould it exceed itself, but being equal it would be equal to itself.
' Οἱ, Soph. 217 ο.
104 the First Philosophers οε Greece
lbid. 168 ο. This statement : It does not exist, means
absolutely that it does not exist anywhere in any way,
nor does not-being have any share at all in being.
Accordingly not-being could not exist, nor in any other
way could it have a share in being.
(Symp. 178 8, 195 ο: Reference to the stories which
Hesiod and Parmenides told about the gods. Line 182
is quoted.)
Arist. Phys. 1. 2; 184b16. The first principle must. be one, unmoved, as Parmenides and Melissos say, . . -
Ibid. i. 8; 18684. To those proceeding after this
impossible manner things seem to be one, and it is not
difficult to refute them from their own statements. For
both of them reason in a fallacious manner, both
Parmenides and Melissos; for they make false assump-
tions, and at the same time their course of reasoning is
not logical. . . . And the same sort of arguments are
used by Parmenides, although he has some others of his
own, and the refutation consists in showing both that he
makes mistakes of fact and that he does not draw his
conclusions correctly. He makes a mistake in assuming
that being is to be spoken of absolutely, speaking of it
thus many times ; and he draws the false conclusion that,
in case only whites are considered, white meaning
one thing, none the less there are many whites and
not one; since neither in the succession of things nor
in the argument will whiteness be one. For what is.
predicated of white will not be the same as what is pre-
dicated of the object which is white, and nothing except
white will be separated from the object; since there is
no other ground of separation except the fact that the
white is different from the object in which the white
exists. But Parmenides had not yet arrived at .the
knowledge of this.
Ibid. 1. 5; 188 α 20. Parmenides also makes heat
The Eleatic School: Parmenides 105
and cold first principles; and he calls them fire and earth.
Ibid. iii. 6; 207215. Wherefore we must regard
Parmenides as a more acute thinker than Melissos, for
the latter says that the infinite is the all, but the former
asserts that the allis limited, equally distant from the
centre [on every side].
Gen. Corr. i. 8; 918 Ὦ 6. Parmenides says that the
two exist, both being and not being—i.e. earth and
water.
Metaph. i. 3; 984b1. None of those who have
affirmed that the all is one have, it happens, seen
the nature of such a cause clearly, except, perhaps,
Parmenides, and he in so far as he sometimes asserts
that there is not one cause alone, but two causes.
Metaph.i.5 ; 986 Ὦ 18. For Parmenides seemed to lay hold of a unity-according to reason, and Melissos accord- ing to matter; wherefore the former says it is limited, the latter that it is unlimited. Xenophanes first taught the unity of things (Parmenides is said to have been his pupil), but he did not make anything clear, nor did he seem to get at the nature of either finiteness or infinity, but, looking up into the broad heavens, he said, the unity is god. These, as we said, are to be dismissed from the present investigation, two of them entirely as being somewhat more crude, Xenophanes and Melissos ; but Parmenides seems to speak in some places with greater care. For believing that not-being does not exist in addition to being, of necessity he thinks that being is one and that there is nothing else, . . . and being compelled to account for phenomena, and assuming that things are one from the standpoint of reason, plural from the standpoint of sense, he again asserts that there are two causes and two first principles, heat and
! VY. Parmenides, Frag. v. 104.
106 the First Philosophers of Greece
cold, or, as he calls them, fire and earth; of these he regards heat as being, its opposite as not-being.
Metaph. 1. 4; 1001 a 82. There is nothing different
from being, so that it is necessary to agree with the
reasoning of Parmenides that all things are one, and that
this is being.
(ο) PassaGES RELATING TO PARMENIDES IN THE DoxoGRAPHISTS.