This volume contains a text and a new translation of the extant fragments of Parmenides’ philosophical poem. It also offers the first complete translation into English of the contexts in which the fragments have come down to us, and of the ancient testimonia concerning Parmenides’ life and thought. All of these secondary materials are collected in the comprehensive work of Diels-Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (6th edition, Berlin 1951), hereafter referred to as D-K, and all have been included here.
The purpose of the translation is to provide an English version that will be of service to modern readers who wish to explore the poem in detail. All the fragments have been translated in full, and appear in the order that has become canonical since the fifth edition of Diels-Kranz. References to the fragments are given in the conventional style derived from this order. Thus, 8.50 refers to line 50 of fragment 8.
As far as differences of word-order allow, the translation of the poem has been arranged in lines corresponding to those of the Greek text. This style has been adopted purely for ease of reference, and not with the aim of producing a poetic version. No attempt has been made to capture the literary qualities of Parmenides’ verse or the archaism of his language.
Richard Robinson, in the introduction to his translation of Aristotle’s Politics III-IV (Oxford 1962, p xxx), has characterized a translation as ‘a shameful form of book.’ For by offering a translation of each sentence in his original, the translator ‘implies that he knows that this is what the original sentence means. But sometimes he does not know what it means, and is only guessing as well as he can.’ In publishing a fresh version of Parmenides’ poem the present translator makes no claim to know what every sentence in the original means. To signal the worst uncertainties, alternative renderings have been appended for passages whose meaning is disputed, or where major questions of interpretation hinge upon the text or translation adopted. In these places the reader will find it instructive to compare alternatives. He will then quickly discover how completely he puts himself at the translator’s mercy, if he relies entirely upon any single version. He may also find it useful, especially if he is wholly dependent upon translation, to consult the short glossary of terms that present special problems of translation or interpretation.
The introduction advocates one plausible, modern interpretation of Parmenides. It also tries to bring out the more important points still in dispute, and some major philosophical questions raised by the poem. It has seemed better to write an extended essay, cross-referenced to the translation, than to provide a separate series of exegetic and critical notes. This arrangement, regrettably, has made it necessary to skate all too lightly over much significant detail. But it also avoids dispersing editorial comment too widely for convenient use; and by allowing a more continuous exposition of the poem than is possible in separate notes, it may better help the explorer to find his bearings in the Eleatic jungle.
The notes to the introduction occasionally qualify or enlarge upon points made in the text. Their main purpose, however, is to provide guidance to the secondary literature, supportive either of views adopted in the text without argument or of defensible alternatives. Almost every line of Parmenides is controversial, and it is not possible, in the space available, to discuss every problem, let alone to argue for definitive solutions. Although the present exposition is thus unavoidably ‘partisan,’ it attempts to air disagreements sufficiently to provide some awareness of what is at issue. Given this limited aim, the use of secondary sources is necessarily selective. Fuller treatment of the literature would have incurred the risk of producing a work impenetrable to all but specialists. And of such works Parmenides has perhaps received his due share already.
Discussion has therefore been confined mainly to a small number of leading studies in English. All sources used, together with others readily accessible, have been listed in the Bibliography. The reader who needs fuller bibliographical guidance is referred to the exhaustive survey of literature down to 1963 in L. Tarán’s edition (Princeton 1965); to the bibliographies in A.P.D. Mourelatos’ The Route of Parmenides (New Haven and London 1970) and The Pre-Socratics (New York 1974), and in J. Barnes’s The Presocratic Philosophers (London, Henley, and Boston 1979); and for more recent years to the annual volumes of The Philosophers Index and of L’Année philologique.