[543]. The sense of taste, not speech.
[544]. Zeller in his earlier editions retained the full stop after νοῆσαι, thus getting almost the opposite sense: “Withhold all confidence in thy bodily senses”; but he admits in his fifth edition (p. 804, n. 2) that the context is in favour of Stein, who put only a comma at νοῆσαι and took ἄλλων closely with γυίων. So too Diels. The paraphrase given by Sextus (R. P. ib.) is substantially right.
[545]. There is no difficulty in the MS. διατμηθέντος if we take λόγοιο as “discourse,” “argument” (cf. διαιρεῖν). Diels conjectures διασσηθέντος, rendering “when their words have passed through the sieve of thy mind.” Nor does it seem to me necessary to read χαρτά for κάρτα in the first line.
[546]. The four elements are introduced under mythological names, for which see below, p. 264, [n. 583]. Diels is clearly right in removing the comma after τέγγει, and rendering Nestis quae lacrimis suis laticem fundit mortalibus destinatum.
[547]. Reading μετὰ τοῖσιν. I still think, however, that Knatz’s palaeographically admirable conjuncture μετὰ θεοῖσιν (i.e. among the elements) deserves consideration.
[548]. Keeping ἄλλοτε with Diels.
[549]. Reading ἄμβροτα δ’ ὅσσ’ ἴδει with Diels. For the word ἶδος, cf. frs. 62, 5; 73, 2. The reference is to the moon, etc., which are made of solidified Air, and receive their light from the fiery hemisphere. See below, [§ 113].
[550]. Reading with Blass (Jahrb. f. kl. Phil., 1883, p. 19):
οὕτω μή σ’ ἀπάτη φρένα καινύτω κ.τ.λ.
Cf. Hesychios: καινύτω· νικάτω. This is practically what the MSS. of Simplicius give, and Hesychios has many Empedoklean glosses.