(65) The wise is one only. It is unwilling and willing to be called by the name of Zeus. R. P. 40.
(66) The bow (βιός) is called life (βίος) but its work is death. R. P. 49 a.
(67) Mortals are immortals and immortals are mortals, the one living the others' death and dying the others' life. R. P. 46.
(68) For it is death to souls to become water, and death to water to become earth. But water comes from earth; and from water, soul. R. P. 38.
(69) The way up and the way down is one and the same. R. P. 36 d.
(70) In the circumference of a circle the beginning and end are common.
(71) You will not find the boundaries of soul by travelling in any direction, so deep is the measure of it.[1] R. P. 41 d.
(72) It is pleasure to souls to become moist. R. P. 46 c.
(73) A man, when he gets drunk, is led by a beardless lad, tripping, knowing not where he steps, having his soul moist. R. P. 42.
(74-76) The dry soul is the wisest and best.[2] R. P. 42.
(77) Man kindles a light for himself in the night-time, when he has died but is alive. The sleeper, whose vision has been put out, lights up from the dead; he that is awake lights up from the sleeping.[3]
- ↑ The words οὕτω βαθὺν λόγον ἔχει present no difficulty if we remember that λόγος means "measurement," as in fr. 23.
- ↑ This fragment is interesting because of the antiquity of the corruptions it has suffered. According to Stephanus, who is followed by Bywater, we should read: Αὔη ψυχὴ σοφωτάτη καὶ ἀρίστη, ξηρή being a mere gloss upon αὔη. When once ξηρή got into the text; αὔη became αὐγή, and we get the sentence, "the dry light is the wisest soul," whence the siccum lumen of Bacon. Now this reading is as old as Plutarch, who, in his Life of Romulus (c. 28), takes αὐγή to mean lightning, as it sometimes does, and supposes the idea to be that the wise soul bursts through the prison of the body like dry lightning (whatever that may be) through a cloud. (It should be added that Diels now holds that a αὐγή ξηρὴ ψυχὴ σοφωτάτη καὶ αρίστη is the genuine reading.) Lastly, though Plutarch must have written αὐγή, the MSS. vary between αὕτη and αὐτή (cf. De def. or. 432 f. αὕτη γὰρ ξηρὰ ψυχὴ in the MSS.). The next stage is the corruption of the αὐγή into οὗ γῆ. This yields the sentiment that "where the earth is dry, the soul is wisest," and is as old as Philo (see Bywater's notes).
- ↑ I adopt the fuller text of Diels here. It is clear that Death, Sleep, Waking correspond to Earth, Water, Air in Herakleitos (cf. fr. 68). I think, however, that we must take ἅπτεται in the same sense all through the fragment, so I do not translate "is in contact with," as Diels does.
