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parmenides - fragments lyrics

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on nature

i
the steeds that bear me carried me as far as ever my heart
desired, since they brought me and set me on the renowned
way of the goddess, who with her own hands conducts the man
who knows through all things. on what way was i borne

5 along; for on it did the wise steeds carry me, drawing my car
and maidens showed the way. and the axle, glowing in the socket
– for it was urged round by the whirling wheels at each
end – gave forth a sound as of a pipe, when the daughters of the
sun, hasting to convey me into the light, threw back their veils

10 from off their faces and left the abode of night
there are the gates of the ways of night and day, fitted
above with a lintel and below with a threshold of stone. they
themselves, high in the air, are closed by mighty doors, and
avenging justice keeps the keys that open them. her did

15 the maidens entreat with gentle words and skilfully
persuade to unfasten without demur the bolted bars from the
gates. then, when the doors were thrown back
they disclosed a wide opening, when their brazen
hinges swung backwards in the

20 sockets fastened with rivets and nails. straight through them
on the broad way, did the maidens guide the horses and the car
and the goddess greeted me kindly, and took my right hand
in hers, and spake to me these words: –
welcome, n0ble youth, that comest to my abode on the car

25 that bears thee tended by immortal charioteers! it is no ill
chance, but justice and right that has sent thee forth to travel
on this way. far, indeed, does it lie from the beaten track of
men ! meet it is that thou shouldst learn all things, as well
the unshaken heart of persuasive truth, as the opinions of

30 mortals in which is no true belief at all. yet none the less
shalt thou learn of these things also, since thou must judge
approvedly of the things that seem to men as thou goest
through all things in thy journey

ii
come now, i will tell thee – and do thou hearken to my
saying and carry it away – the only two ways of search that
can be thought of. the first, namely, that it is, and that it is
impossible for anything not to be, is the way of conviction

5 for truth is its companion. the other, namely, that it is not
and that something must needs not be, – that, i tell thee, is a
wholly untrustworthy path. for you cannot know what is
not – that is impossible – nor utter it;

iii
for it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be

iv
but gaze upon things which although absent are securely present in thought
for you will not cut off what is from clinging to what is
neither being scattered everywhere in every way throughout the kosmos
nor being brought together

v
it is indifferent to me
where i make a beginning; for there i come back again

vι
it needs must be that what can be thought and spoken of is;
for it is possible for it to be, and it is not possible for, what is
nothing to be. this is what i bid thee ponder. i hold thee
back from this first way of inquiry, and from this other also

5 upon which mortals knowing naught wander in two minds; for
hesitation guides the wandering thought in their br–sts, so that
they are borne along stupefied like men deaf and blind
undiscerning crowds, in whose eyes the same thing and not the
same is and is not, and all things travel in opposite directions!

vιι
for this shall never be proved, that the things that are not
are; and do thou restrain thy thought from this way of inquiry
nor let habit force thee to cast a wandering eye upon this
devious track, or to turn thither thy resounding ear or thy

5 tongue; but do thou judge the subtle refutation of their
discourse uttered by me

vιιι
one path only is left for us to
speak of, namely, that it is. in it are very many tokens that
what is, is uncreated and indestructible, alone, complete
immovable and without end. nor was it ever, nor will it be; for

5 now it is, all at once, a continuous one. for what kind of origin
for it. will you look for ? in what way and from what source
could it have drawn its increase ? i shall not let thee say nor
think that it came from what is not; for it can neither be
thought nor uttered that what is not is. and, if it came from

10 nothing, what need could have made it arise later rather than
sooner ? therefore must it either be altogether or be not at
all. nor will the force of truth suffer aught to arise besides
itself from that which in any way is. wherefore, justice does
not loose her fetters and let anything come into being or p-ss

15 away, but holds it fast
ʺ is it or is it not ? ʺ surely it is adjudged, as it needs must
be, that we are to set aside the one way as unthinkable and
nameless (for it is no true way), and that the other path is real
and true. how, then, can what is be going to be in the future ?

20 or how could it come into being ? if it came into
being, it is not; nor is it if it is going to be in the future
thus is becoming extinguished and p-ssing away not to be heard
of
nor is it divisible, since it is all alike, and there is no more
of it in one place than in another, to hinder it from holding
together, nor less of it, but everything is full of what is

25 wherefore all holds together; for what is; is in contact with
what is. moreover, it is immovable in the bonds of mighty chains
without beginning and without end; since coming into being
and p-ssing away have been driven afar, and true belief has cast
them away. it is the same, and it rests in the self-same place
abiding in itself

30 and thus it remaineth constant in its place; for hard necessity
keeps it in the bonds of the limit that holds it fast on every side
wherefore it is not permitted to what is to be infinite; for it is in
need of nothing; while, if it were infinite, it would stand in need
of everything. it is the same thing that can be thought and for the
sake of which the thought exists;

35 for you cannot find thought without something that is, to
which it is betrothed. and there is not, and never shall be, any
time other, than that which is present, since fate has chained it
so as to be whole and immovable. wherefore all these things are
but the names which mortals have given, believing them, to be
true –

40 coming into being and p-ssing away, being and not being
change of place and alteration of bright colour

where, then, it has its farthest boundary, it is complete on
every side, equally poised from the centre in every direction
like the m-ss of a rounded sphere; for it cannot be greater or

45 smaller in one place than in another. for there is nothing
which is not that could keep it from reaching out equally, nor
is it possible that there should be more of what is in this place
and less in that, since it is all inviolable. for, since it is equal
in all directions, it is equally confined within limits

50 here shall i close my trustworthy speech and thought
about the truth. henceforward learn the opinions of mortals
giving ear to the deceptive ordering of my words
mortals have settled in their minds to speak of two forms
one of which they should have left out, and that is where they go
astray from the truth

55 they have -ssigned an opposite substance to each, and marks
distinct from one another. to the one they allot the fire of heaven
light, thin, in every direction
the same as itself, but not the same as the other. the other is
opposite to it, dark night, a compact and heavy body

60 of these i tell thee the whole arrangement as it seems to men
in order that no mortal may surp-ss thee in knowledge

ix
now that all things have been named light and night;
and the things which belong to the power of each have been
-ssigned to these things and to those, everything is full at once of
light and dark night
both equal, since neither has aught to do with the other

x
and thou shalt know the origin of all the things on high, and all
the signs in the sky, and the resplendent works of the
glowing sun’s clear torch, and whence they arose. and thou
shalt learn likewise of the wandering deeds of the round-faced

5 moon, and of her origin. thou shalt know, too, the heavens
that surround us, whence they arose, and how necessity took
them and bound them to keep the limits of the stars .

xi
how the earth, and the sun, and the moon, and the sky that is
common to all, and the milky way, and the outermost olympos
and the burning might of the stars
arose

xii
the narrower circles are filled with unmixed fire, and those
surrounding them with night, and in the midst of these rushes
their portion of fire. in the midst of these circles is the divinity
that directs the course of all things; for she rules over all painful
birth and all begetting

5 driving the female to the embrace of the male, and the male to
that of the female

xiii
first of all the gods she contrived eros

xiv
shining by night with borrowed light, wandering round the earth

xv
always straining her eyes to the beams of the sun

xva
[parmenides in his verse called the earth] rooted-in-water

xvi
for as at any time the mixture of the much wandering body is
so does mind come to men. for the same thing
is that the nature of the body thinks
in each and in all men; for the full is thought

xvii
on the right boys; on the left girls

xviii
when woman and man mix the seeds of love
the power which is formed in the veins out of different blood
if it maintains proper proportion, produces well-formed bodies
for if the powers, when the seeds are being mixed, fight
and do not const-tute a unity in the body in which the mixture has taken place, then cruelly
will they torment the nascent s-x with double seed

xix
thus, according to men’s opinions, did things comp into being
and thus they are now. in time (they think) they will grow up and
p-ss away. to each of these things men have -ssigned a fixed
name

- parmenides lyrics

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