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Fragments (annotated)

Heraclitus

Language:
English
Status:
Selection or partial work
Authorship:
Recorded or compiled by others
Condition of the text:
Some scanning errors (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
Extent:
~2,950 words · 14 passages
Cite this work
  • APAHeraclitus. (n.d.). Fragments (annotated). Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/heraclitus/fragments-annotated
  • MLAHeraclitus. Fragments (annotated). Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/heraclitus/fragments-annotated.
  • ChicagoHeraclitus. Fragments (annotated). Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/heraclitus/fragments-annotated.

Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.

What it is about

The fragments of Heraclitus, annotated.

Context and history

Nothing survives of Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 535–475 BC) as a whole book: only some one hundred and thirty quotations scattered through later authors, who often quoted him in order to disagree. Here are the river you cannot step into twice, strife as the father of all things, and the logos. The annotations help, because the fragments alone read like oracles.

Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.

How it begins
(67) Mortals are immortals and immortals are mortals, the one living the others' death and dying the others' life. R. P. 46. Fragment 63 (123) . . . that they rise up and become the wakeful guardians of the quick and dead. R. P. 46 d. Fragment 64 (28) It is the thunderbolt that steers the course of all things. R. P. 35 b. Fragment 65 (24) Fire is want and surfeit. R. P. 36 a. Fragment 66 (26) Fire in its advance will judge and convict all things. R. P. 36 a. Fragment 67 (36) God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger; but he takes various shapes, just as fire, when it is mingled with spices, is named according to the savour of each. R. P. 39 b. Fragment 67a ita vitalis calor a sole procedens omnibus quae vivunt vitam subministrat. cui sententiae Heraclitus adquiescens optimam similitudinem dat de aranea ad animam, de tela araneae ad corpus, sic(ut) aranea, ait, stans in medio telae sentit, quam cito musca aliquem filum suum corrumpit itaque illuc celeriter currit quasi de fili persectione dolens, sic hominis anima aliqua parte corporis laesa, illuc festine meat, quasi impatiens laesionis corporis, cui firme et proportionaliter iuncta est. [Hisdosus scholasticus, Commentary on the Timaeus, 17v.] Fragment 68 (129) (Therefore Heraclitus rightly called them "atonements," since they are to make amends for evils and render the souls free from the dangers in generation.) Fragment 69 (128) (Iamblichus, De Mysteriis, v. 15. I distinguish two kinds of sacrifices. First, those of men wholly purified, such as would rarely happen in the case of a single individual, as Heraclitus says, or of a certain very few men...) Fragment 70 (A little better, then, Heraclitus has considered human opinions to be children's toys.) Fragment 71 (Think too of him who forgets where the way leads.) Fragment 72 (93) They are estranged from that with which they have most constant intercourse. R. P. 32 b.…

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