On Nature ( ) is an early 5th century BC didactic poem written by ancient Greek philosopher Parmenides. Composed in dactylic hexameter, it originally contained roughly 800 to 3,000 lines. Only about 160 lines remain. It is traditionally regarded as one of the foundational texts of early Western metaphysics. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2019/entries/parmenides/
Since antiquity, it has been believed Parmenides wrote only one work, later titled On Nature, a didactic poem written in dactylic hexameter. This form has several uses: it facilitates the mnemonics and recitation of the poem,Parmènide. Fragments Poème, Èdition, translation and commentary by Magalí Anne (preceded by Parmènide. Énoncer le verbe être ). Paris, Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin (Bibliothèque des textes philosophiques) 2012, pp. 215. . and allows games of poetic form, such as chiastic structure."L'etre, la Pensee et les liens du discours. Structures et argumentation du fr. 8, 1-49 D-K de Parménide", Tanja Ruben, Metis, , no. 5, 2007, pp. 163-184
Approximately 160 verses remain today from an original total that was probably near 800. The poem was originally divided into three parts: an introductory proem that contains an allegorical narrative which explains the purpose of the work, a former section known as "The Way of Truth" (aletheia, ἀλήθεια), and a latter section known as "The Way of Appearance/Opinion" (doxa, δόξα). Despite the poem's fragmentary nature, the general plan of both the proem and the first part, "The Way of Truth", have been ascertained by modern scholars, thanks to large excerpts made by Sextus Empiricus and Simplicius of Cilicia. Unfortunately, the second part, "The Way of Opinion", which is supposed to have been much longer than the first, only survives in small fragments and prose paraphrases.
Proem The introductory proem describes the narrator's journey to receive a revelation from an unnamed goddess on the nature of reality. It is composed from a rich symbology, which draws mainly from the epic tradition (both Homer and Hesiod), but also from Orphic symbology and other legends, and narrates an experience of a mystical-religious nature,Bowra, «The Proem of Parmenides», p. 98.to which scholars have drawn comparison to various mythological figures, including Etalides (Pherecydes, fragment 8 DK), Aristeas, Hermothymus and Epimenides. The latter ran into the goddesses Truth and Justice while his body was sleeping, which is very close to the story of the proem. The narrative of the poet's journey includes a variety of allegorical symbols, such as a speeding chariot with glowing axles, horses, the House of Night, Gates of the paths of Night and Day, and maidens who are "the daughters of the Sun" who escort the poet from the ordinary daytime world to a strange destination, outside our human paths. The allegorical themes in the poem have attracted a variety of different interpretations, including comparisons to Homer and Hesiod, and attempts to relate the journey towards either illumination or darkness, but there is little scholarly consensus about any interpretation, and the surviving evidence from the poem itself, as well as any other literary use of allegory from the same time period, may be too sparse to ever determine any of the intended symbolism with certainty. The remainder of the work is then presented as the spoken revelation of the goddess without any accompanying narrative.
The proem, begins with the description of a trip in a two-wheeled chariot (v. 7), pulled by a pair of mares, described as πολύφραστοι (polýphrastoi, v. 4), "attentive" or "knowledgeable". The image recalls the divine steeds of Achilles, sometimes even endowed with a voice. Pindar also gives us a similar image of draft beasts "leading" along a "pure path" or "luminous"ἐν καθαρᾷ κελεύθῷ, en katharâ keleuthô, Olímpica VI, vv. 22–26 There are so many common elements between the compositions that Bowra considers that either Pindar's mimics Parmenides's—it is later, from 468 BC—, or, what he considers more likely, that they have a common source from which they are both influenced. Everything seems to suggest that the chariot is directed by superior powers, and we must rule out, as Jaeger says, the platonizing interpretation of Sextus Empiricus, inspired by the myth of the "winged chariot" narrated in the Phaedrus (246 d 3 – 248 d), in which the chariot symbolizes the human soul. Surely the composition has a closer relationship with the myth of the death of Phaethon, since both this and the charioteers of this Parmenidean chariot are children of the Sun, and the path that is traveled is that of Night and Day (v. 11). It is the same "solar chariot."
This path leads from the “dwelling of Night” to the light (vv. 9–10). In verse 11 it is said that the way is "of Night and Day." Hesiod had spoken of the «house of Night» in Theogony,vv. 748ss a house in which both Night and Day dwell, but in an alternate way, for never does the mansion accommodate both at the same time. The ancient view of the alternation of Night and Day can be characterized as a transit performed by both along the same path, but in ever different positions. The path of Night and Day is, therefore, a unique path. Hesiod geographically locates the abode of Night at the center of the Earth, in the immediate vicinity of Tartarus. Instead, Parmenides situates his scene, according to the material of the opening of the gates (they are "ethereal," v. 13), in the sky, like the gates of Mount Olympus, which Apollonius of Rhodesdescribes as ethereal and situated, of course, in the sky.Argonautica III, 159–160 Following Sextus Empiricus, some scholars have seen this as the experience of a transition from Night to Light means the transit of the ignorance to knowledge, while others dispute this, because the sage begins his journey in a flash of light, as is typical of one who "knows". It is certain that the author's intention is to give his work the character of a divine revelation, since the content is placed in the mouth of the goddess, analogous to the epic muse. And it is a revelation not available to ordinary men. that represents the abandonment of the world of everyday experience, where night and day alternate, a world replaced by a path of transcendent knowledge. Werner Jaeger understood this path as a way of salvation that Parmenides would have heard about in the mystery religions, a straight path that leads to knowledge.
The path on which he is led is interrupted by an immense stone gate, whose guardian is Dike. The daughters of the Sunpersuade her, and she opens the door for the chariot to pass through (vv. 11–21). As in Homer, the gates of Olympus are guarded by the Horae, daughters of Zeus and Themis,Iliad V, 749 the gate of the Parmenidean poem is curated by Dike, one of them. The Heliades persuade, with soft words, to the goddess to run the bolt, and she finally opens the door. Access to the truth is not, however, the merit of the "man who knows", since he is dragged by superior forces, the mares and the Heliades, his passage through the formidable barrier described in the poem is allowed by Dike and his journey he has from the first been in favor with Themis. Transit is in accordance with law. In Parmenides' poem, Dike is adjectiveized as πολύποινος (polýpoinos, "rich in punishments" or "avenger," v. 14). The expression Δίκη πολύποινος (Dike polýpoinos) is present in an Orphic poem (fr. 158 Kern). This, plus the fact that Dike possesses the keys "of alternate uses" or "of double use" (ἀμοιβἤ, amoibê, v. 14), another possible ritual element, made one think of a close relationship between Parmenides and the Orphic cults, so abundant in southern Italy.Jaeger, The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers, p. 99. The turn εἰδότα φῶτα (eidóta phōta, "man who knows"), opposed to mortals and their ignorance, does no more than reinforce this link (see Orpheus, fr. 233 Kern).Bowra, “The Proem of Parmenides”, pp. 100–100. 109-110.
Once the chariot passes the threshold, the “knowing man” is received by a goddess—whose identity is not revealed—with a typical gesture of welcome. Her speech, beginning at line 24, is the content of the rest of the poem. Most scholars agree in showing the very close relationship between this nameless goddess (θεά, theá) and the Muses of the epic: Homer invokes her with the same word in the first verse from the Iliad: «Sing, goddess...»; the divinity is the one she sings about, by virtue of the fact that she knows "all things" (Il. II, 485). The Muses of Hesiod even specify something similar to what the Parmenidean goddess said about true and apparent speech: «We know how to tell many lies with appearances of truth; and we know, when we want, to proclaim the truth» (Thegony, vv. 27ff). She tells him, in the first place, that he has not been sent by an evil destiny, but by law and justice (vv. 26–28). It is not, says the goddess, this fate that has led the protagonist along the route of Night and Day: the author seems to oppose here the fate of the "man who knows" and that of Phaethon, whose disastrous journey in the chariot of the Sol only ended with his death. "Moira" belongs to the set of divinities related to divine justice, such as Themis and Dike, who are the ones that have allowed the transit of a mortal through the route of the Sun. Themis personifies customary law;Jaeger, Paideia, p. 106.Deichgräber, Parmenides' Auffahrt zur Göttin des Recht, Wiesbadenm Akademie der Wissenschaften un der Literatur in Mainz. in the epic, it is the set of norms of social behavior, not formulated, but that no mortal can ignore. The good disposition shown by the goddesses associated with law means that the trip has been permitted or approved by the divinity.Lamb, Being, one is, p. 44. By virtue of this, he continues, it is necessary that he know all things, both "the unshakable heart of persuasive truth" and "the opinions of mortals", because, although in these "there is no true conviction", without yet they have enjoyed prestige (vv. 28–32). It is necessary for the narrator to also know the opinions of mortals (vv. 31–32) because what is a matter of opinion (τὰ δοκοῦντα, tà dokoûnta) is all-encompassing, which means that opinions are all that mortals could know without considering the revelation of the Parmenidean goddess. They have necessarily enjoyed prestige and that is why they must be known. The passage is closely related to the end of Fragment 8, v. 60ss, where the goddess says that she expounds the probable discourse on the cosmic order so that no mortal opinion outweighs the receiver of the revelation.Cordero, Siendo se es, pp. 45-51.
The Way of Truth In the Way of Truth, an estimated 90% of which has survived, Parmenides distinguishes between the unity of nature and its variety, insisting upon the reality of its unity, which is therefore the object of knowledge, and upon the unreality of its variety, which is therefore the object, not of knowledge, but of opinion.Cornford, "Parmenides' two ways", p. 100
B2 Proclus preserves, in his commentary on Timaeus I 345, 18–20, two lines of Parmenides's poem, which together with six lines transmitted by Simplicius, in his commentary on Aristotle's Physics, 116, 28–32–117, 1, form fragment 2 (28 B 2). There the goddess speaks of two "paths of inquiry that there are for thinking (nous)". The first is named as follows: "which is, and also cannot be that it is not" (v. 3); the second: "which is not, and also, must not be" (v. 5). The first way is "of persuasion", which "accompanies the truth" (v. 4), while the second is "completely inscrutable" or "impracticable", since "what is not" cannot be known, nor expressed (vv. 6–8).
B3