The Poem of Parmenides of Velia
(500-450 BCE)
Περσεφόνη
he mares that carry me as far as longing can reach
rode on, once they had come and fatched me onto the legendary
road of the divinity that carries the man who knows
through the vast and dark unknown. and on i was carried
as the mares, aware just where to go, kept carrying me
straining at the chariot; and young women led the way.
and the axle in the hubs let out the sound of a pipe
blazing from the pressure of the two well-rounded wheels
at either side, as they rapidly led on: young women, girls,
daughters of the Sun who had left the Mansions of Night
for the light and pushed back the veils from their faces
with their hands.
there are the gates on the pathways of Night and Day,
held fast in place between the lintel above and a treshold of stone.
they reach right up into the heavens, filled with gigantic doors.
and the keys - that now open, now lock - are held fast by
Justice: she who always demands exact returns. and with
soft seductive words the girls cunningly persuaded her to
push back immediately, just for them, the bar that bolts
the gates. and as the doors flew open, making the bronze
axles with their pegs and nails spin - now one, now the other -
in their pipes, they created a gaping chasm. straight through and
on the girls held fast their course for the chariot and horses,
straight down the road.
and the goddess welcomed me kindly, and took
my right hand in hers and spoke these words as she addressed me:
"welcome young man, partnered by immortal charioteers,
reaching our home with the mares that carry you. for it was
no hard fate that sent you travelling this road - so far away
from the beaten track of humans - but Rightness and Justice.
and what's needed is for you to learn all things: both the unshaken
heart of persuasive Truth and the opinions of mortals
in which there is nothing that can truthfully be trusted at all.
but even so, this too you will learn - how beliefs based on appearance ought to be believable as they travel
all through
all there is.”
“i will do the talking; and it's up to you
to carry away my words once you have heard them.
what i will tell you is which roads of inquiry,
and which roads alone, exist for thinking.
the one route, that is and is not possible not to be,
is the way of Persuasion; for Persuasion is
Truth's attendant. and as for the other,
that is not and is necessary not to be:
this, i can tell you, is a path from which no news
returns. for there is no way you can recognise
what is not - there is no travelling that path -
or tell anything about it.”
“see how it is that things far away are firmly
present to your mind. for however much you want to,
there is no way you will manage to cut being off
from clinging fast to being.”
“what exists for saying and for thinking must be.
for it exists for it to be; but nothing does not exist.
you ponder that!
this is the first road of inquiry that i hold you back from.
but then i hold you back as well from the one that
mortals fabricate, twin-heads, knowing nothing.
for helplessness in their chests is what steers their
wandering minds as they are carried along in a daze,
deaf and blind at the same time: indistinguishable,
undistinguishing crowds who recon that being and
non-being are the same but not the same. and, for
all of them, the route they follow is a path that keeps turning
backwards on itself.”
“from this path of inquiry hold your mind away.
and don’t let much-experienced habit force you to
guide your sightless eye and echoing ear and
tongue along this way, but judge in favour of the
highly contentious demonstration of the truth
contained in these words as spoken by me.”
“there is only one tale of a path
left to tell: that is. and along this way there are many,
many signs that as well as being birthless it’s also deathless
and whole and of a single kind and unmoving - and neither
is it incomplete.”
“it never was
and never will be because it is now, all together,
one, holding to itself. for what possible birth of it
will you look for? in what way could it have grown?
from what? to say or think “from what is not”
is something i won’t allow you, because there
is no saying or thinking that is not. and besides:
if it started out from nothing, what could have
made it come in being later rather than sooner?
so it must either be, completely, or not be.
neither will the strength of persuasive proof ever permit
anything to come into being out of non-being
alongside it. and this is why Justice has not allowed
freedom for creation or destruction by relaxing her
constraining grip. instead, she holds fast.
and the decision in these matters comes down to
this - is or is not. but it has already been decided:
the judgment has already been passed as necessary
that the second of these paths is to be dismissed
as unthinkable and unnameable because it’s no true way
while the other is to be allowed to be, and really
be. and how could it be that being could be at some
later time? how could it come into being?
for if it came to be, it is not; and if at some point it
intends to be, then again it is not. so it is that creation
has been extinguished, and of destruction there is
not a word to be heard.”
“and also: there is no dividing it
because it’s all alike. there is nothing more here
that could stop it from holding together with itself
or less there. but all of it is full of being. so it is that
everything is continuous with everything because
being draws near to being.
and what’s more: motionless
in the bonds of great fetters it has no beginning or end
because creation and destruction have wandered far
far away. and true and persuasive evidence is what has
driven them out. it stays just the same in the same
unaltered state, lies by itself on its own and so remains
constantly where it is. for mighty Necessity holds it
fast in the fetters of a bond that shuts it in from all
around; and this is why it’s not right for it to be
incomplete. for there is nothing that it wants to lacks - but
non-being would lack everything.”
“because there is an ultimate
binding limit, this means it’s perfectly complete -
just like the bulk of a sphere neatly rounded off
from each direction, equally matched from the middle
on every side.”
“and what exists for thinking is the same
as the cause of thought. you won’t find thinking
without the being in which it has been uttered.
for there is nothing else and will be nothing else
apart from being. because Fate has bound it to be
whole; unmoving. its name shall be everything -
every single name that mortals have invented
convinced they all are true: birth and death,
existence, non-existence, change of place, alteration
of bright colour.”
“and from this point on
learn the opinions of mortals by listening to the
deceptive ordering of my words”
“Hôs Ou Mē Poté Tis Brotôn Gnômēi Paralassēi” -
“so that nobody among mortals will ever manage,
in practical judgment, to ride on past you.”
rode on, once they had come and fatched me onto the legendary
road of the divinity that carries the man who knows
through the vast and dark unknown. and on i was carried
as the mares, aware just where to go, kept carrying me
straining at the chariot; and young women led the way.
and the axle in the hubs let out the sound of a pipe
blazing from the pressure of the two well-rounded wheels
at either side, as they rapidly led on: young women, girls,
daughters of the Sun who had left the Mansions of Night
for the light and pushed back the veils from their faces
with their hands.
there are the gates on the pathways of Night and Day,
held fast in place between the lintel above and a treshold of stone.
they reach right up into the heavens, filled with gigantic doors.
and the keys - that now open, now lock - are held fast by
Justice: she who always demands exact returns. and with
soft seductive words the girls cunningly persuaded her to
push back immediately, just for them, the bar that bolts
the gates. and as the doors flew open, making the bronze
axles with their pegs and nails spin - now one, now the other -
in their pipes, they created a gaping chasm. straight through and
on the girls held fast their course for the chariot and horses,
straight down the road.
and the goddess welcomed me kindly, and took
my right hand in hers and spoke these words as she addressed me:
"welcome young man, partnered by immortal charioteers,
reaching our home with the mares that carry you. for it was
no hard fate that sent you travelling this road - so far away
from the beaten track of humans - but Rightness and Justice.
and what's needed is for you to learn all things: both the unshaken
heart of persuasive Truth and the opinions of mortals
in which there is nothing that can truthfully be trusted at all.
but even so, this too you will learn - how beliefs based on appearance ought to be believable as they travel
all through
all there is.”
“i will do the talking; and it's up to you
to carry away my words once you have heard them.
what i will tell you is which roads of inquiry,
and which roads alone, exist for thinking.
the one route, that is and is not possible not to be,
is the way of Persuasion; for Persuasion is
Truth's attendant. and as for the other,
that is not and is necessary not to be:
this, i can tell you, is a path from which no news
returns. for there is no way you can recognise
what is not - there is no travelling that path -
or tell anything about it.”
“see how it is that things far away are firmly
present to your mind. for however much you want to,
there is no way you will manage to cut being off
from clinging fast to being.”
“what exists for saying and for thinking must be.
for it exists for it to be; but nothing does not exist.
you ponder that!
this is the first road of inquiry that i hold you back from.
but then i hold you back as well from the one that
mortals fabricate, twin-heads, knowing nothing.
for helplessness in their chests is what steers their
wandering minds as they are carried along in a daze,
deaf and blind at the same time: indistinguishable,
undistinguishing crowds who recon that being and
non-being are the same but not the same. and, for
all of them, the route they follow is a path that keeps turning
backwards on itself.”
“from this path of inquiry hold your mind away.
and don’t let much-experienced habit force you to
guide your sightless eye and echoing ear and
tongue along this way, but judge in favour of the
highly contentious demonstration of the truth
contained in these words as spoken by me.”
“there is only one tale of a path
left to tell: that is. and along this way there are many,
many signs that as well as being birthless it’s also deathless
and whole and of a single kind and unmoving - and neither
is it incomplete.”
“it never was
and never will be because it is now, all together,
one, holding to itself. for what possible birth of it
will you look for? in what way could it have grown?
from what? to say or think “from what is not”
is something i won’t allow you, because there
is no saying or thinking that is not. and besides:
if it started out from nothing, what could have
made it come in being later rather than sooner?
so it must either be, completely, or not be.
neither will the strength of persuasive proof ever permit
anything to come into being out of non-being
alongside it. and this is why Justice has not allowed
freedom for creation or destruction by relaxing her
constraining grip. instead, she holds fast.
and the decision in these matters comes down to
this - is or is not. but it has already been decided:
the judgment has already been passed as necessary
that the second of these paths is to be dismissed
as unthinkable and unnameable because it’s no true way
while the other is to be allowed to be, and really
be. and how could it be that being could be at some
later time? how could it come into being?
for if it came to be, it is not; and if at some point it
intends to be, then again it is not. so it is that creation
has been extinguished, and of destruction there is
not a word to be heard.”
“and also: there is no dividing it
because it’s all alike. there is nothing more here
that could stop it from holding together with itself
or less there. but all of it is full of being. so it is that
everything is continuous with everything because
being draws near to being.
and what’s more: motionless
in the bonds of great fetters it has no beginning or end
because creation and destruction have wandered far
far away. and true and persuasive evidence is what has
driven them out. it stays just the same in the same
unaltered state, lies by itself on its own and so remains
constantly where it is. for mighty Necessity holds it
fast in the fetters of a bond that shuts it in from all
around; and this is why it’s not right for it to be
incomplete. for there is nothing that it wants to lacks - but
non-being would lack everything.”
“because there is an ultimate
binding limit, this means it’s perfectly complete -
just like the bulk of a sphere neatly rounded off
from each direction, equally matched from the middle
on every side.”
“and what exists for thinking is the same
as the cause of thought. you won’t find thinking
without the being in which it has been uttered.
for there is nothing else and will be nothing else
apart from being. because Fate has bound it to be
whole; unmoving. its name shall be everything -
every single name that mortals have invented
convinced they all are true: birth and death,
existence, non-existence, change of place, alteration
of bright colour.”
“and from this point on
learn the opinions of mortals by listening to the
deceptive ordering of my words”
“Hôs Ou Mē Poté Tis Brotôn Gnômēi Paralassēi” -
“so that nobody among mortals will ever manage,
in practical judgment, to ride on past you.”