I heard what was said of the universe,
Heard it and heard it of several thousand years:
It is middling well as far as it goes,—But is that all?
FOOTNOTES:
[44] In my translations of the fragments of Xenophanes and Parmenides, I have followed the text of their most recent editor, W. A. Mullach, not without reference, however, to that of Karsten, some of whose emendations seem almost necessary to the sense. The meaning of many Parmenidean sentences may, however, be fairly said to be now irrecoverable, owing to the uncertainty of readings and the lack of context.
[45] This and the two following translations from Plato are Professor Jewett's.
[46] See the treatise De Xenophane, Zenone, et Gorgia.
CHAPTER VII.
EMPEDOCLES.
The Grandeur of his Fame.—His Versatility of Genius.—His Mysticism.—His Supposed Miracles.—Legends about his Death.—His Political Action.—His Poems.—Estimation in which the Ancients held them.—Their Prophetic Fervor.—Belief in Metempsychosis.—Purifying Rites.—Contempt for the Knowledge of the Senses.—Physical Theories.—The Poem on Nature.—The Four Elements.—The Sphærus.—Love and Discord.—The Eclecticism of Empedocles.
The figure of Empedocles of Agrigentum, when seen across the twenty-three centuries which separate us from him, presents perhaps a more romantic appearance than that of any other Greek philosopher. This is owing, in a great measure, to the fables which invest his life and death with mystery, to his reputation for magical power, and to the wild sublimity of some of his poetic utterances. Yet, even in his lifetime, and among contemporary Greeks, he swept the stage of life like a great tragic actor, and left to posterity the fame of genius as a poet, a physician, a patriot, and a philosopher. The well-known verses of Lucretius are enough to prove that the glory of Empedocles increased with age, and bore the test of time. Reading them, we cannot but regret that poems which so stirred the reverent enthusiasm of Rome's greatest singer have been scattered to the winds, and that what we now possess of their remains affords but a poor sample of their unimpaired magnificence.