Fragments from the Didactic Poem of a Missing Presocratic
(Alexander of Colophon)
Translated from the Greek by Sledge Trovatore


1. I was led from off this orb by chariots drawn by three maidens
Who, after long journeying, drew me into close proximity to their central fire.
That night was long but ... {incomplete}.

2. Each one {maiden} took her place to serve the banquet
That was the account {logos} of all that comes to be
And all that passes away. But still, as each spoke,
She carried with her the breath {or soul} of what is undying
And neither comes to be nor passes away.

3. She spoke first whose mortal substance is Earth.
She lay the most heavy of all three and made known that she was base.
Yet that which is base allows all else above it to be lifted up
And therefore is {to be weighed} greater than {above} the noble in its own way.

4. Then spoke alluring Water unto the assembly.
Her part was given by intermittent intrusion on men’s lives.
She is neither base nor uplifted but comes and retires
As her seasons come and retire against the shores of earth.
And though never the same at any time, her seasons are given to account.

5. The third who spoke was even nearer the undying and unlimited
Though still mortal. She {Air} could hardly be heard, and so
All present strained for her account. In that silence there was the roaring
Of the wind. This gentlest of things and most noble of mortals still was mortal.
Though all she could put me in mind of {or, put into my mind}
Was what does not perish but is also not nothing.

6. So that soon grave Silence fell upon the company assembled in this heavenly vault.
And all could but gaze upon the central fire that had shone throughout, amid
These several accounts that were still one....

7. An ox that is bound for life knows not the confines of its tethers.

8. So fire is the greatest and noblest of the four and greatly unlike the three {others}.
But still it inhabits and is a part of only {or only a part of} mortal things.

9. Much had been said and seen and tasted at this banquet.
Still it did not, though its point was so to do, take me beyond its own vault.
Even the most divine of mortal things {Fire} can be settled in the hearth
And be most....

10. I begged then, perhaps intoxicated by each account, the maidens to carry me further.
For them to say and bring to account what does not perish and does not pass away.
But that was never to be part of the feast. Like beans, it was not fit for my organs.

11. How then can men know what creature this is
If even the basest up to the loftiest of creatures we know cannot sing its {that creature’s} song?
Can it be lacking? For it is said that if it is lacking, it must lack everything.
And so it cannot be lacking, or else it would not be at all.
For coming to be cannot come out of what is not.

12. So it is said that there is only the one, and that from it all things that are come.

13. But then all three maidens began to sing together in chorus,
For my delight and to unfold their secrets. Their song said:
We have heard men at talk with one another in their labours
And they say that we three are immortal beings and that Fire is another.
But this is not so, for Nestis becomes as mere vapour when too close to the flame.
Hera, too, is driven off and can do nothing when brought too close to the fire.
And Gaia crumbles to useless ashes when she is burned.
Though vapour, too-thin air {void?} and ashes are not nothing, they soon become so if Zeus drives them completely out.
So only Zeus is truly divine to us and we are his handmaidens.
Like every mortal thing we have our {four seasons of} fruition and decline.
We are here in the vault because it is our time of decline.
Here we must gather together and become practically one being.
For in winter Zeus collects himself together in the vault
And does not venture out, causing everything outside to be cold and dark.
As he begins his travel, he steps beyond the vault, and we with him,
Still close to one another, but beginning {slowly} to separate.
With him in this {second} season we severally part and combine to make the seeds of all things.
Leaving these behind to grow as mixtures of ourselves, nourished by Zeus
Whose chariot now takes to the heavens and can be seen everywhere, we step even further apart
Until we can touch one another no more. But because of our bonds of friendship
We must eventually return, passing {back} on the way the fruits of our seeds becoming mellow.
As these most mortal things rot and Sun returns to his vault, we must accompany him there for yet another long season of song.

14. Sometimes during each returning {autumn?}, one goddess or another
Will choose a mortal man that has grown from the mixed seeds of all three
Under the canopy of Zeus that long season. This man is favoured by her for her pleasures and inquiries.
{Just as Zeus will favour now one goddess, now another.}
He becomes, according to the necessity of this privilege, a true lover of wisdom.
And so men should heed his words and the things he says about all things.

15. Flame has two powers: to bring together out of darkness and cold
When he is all assembled in one place for a while, and also
To drive apart into his warmth and light as he spreads himself everywhere.
Goddesses, men and all things come to be because of him and they can perish if they stray too far at the one time.
{Or get too close to his burning at the other.}
So the shining one {Helios}, whether close-bound in his vault or circling the heavens, is source and end of all mortal things.

16. In the long journey of many seasons, even the goddesses come to be and to perish.
It is only for a while, even if for thirty thousand seasons on our reckoning,
That they trip the fields together, weaving in and out of one another to scatter their seed.
{Whence men and all they encounter arise and come to presence.}
Who can know what new beings Zeus will make after their last season?
And which ones he made for his enjoyment before Hera, Gaia and Nestis were his favourites?

17. If even the goddesses know not with certainty whether Flame itself is eternal,
So men should hesitate before they say that there never was nor will be nothing {void}.
Even men privileged to hear their song can be no more certain than they.

18. So it is reasonable to say that what all men encounter cannot be enough for them to truly declare
That there never was nor will be nothing. So they cannot say
That nothing comes to be out of nothing, nor that nothing perishes away into nothing.
For all that men say {all that men can talk about} is confined by Chronos to a very small duration.

19. .... as though an ant should be wise in the second {instant?} before it is crushed.
So we think about the {idea of} the instant?

20. {The song of Zeus?}
I am wherever there is flame, fire and light of all kinds whatsoever.
Where I am not, there is no light and nothing can be seen at all.
Everything that is is kindled with this fiery element and nothing is without it.
Even these maidens {the goddesses} have come to be because of it.
It is what makes grow the seeds of Hera, Nestis and Gaia as they combine in their scattering to make all mortal things.
As I am not in the night, nor am I in the cold and dark of winter.
There nothing comes to be for lack of fire and light.
And as I am not in the dark of winter, so I shall not be in the longer span of the seasons.
And then, as there has been before, there shall be nothing at all that comes to presence.
If even I can be nothing, then it is surely true that there can be nothing
And that whatever is comes to be and passes away through the admixture of my being and my not being.
Only in the extreme am I completely full or completely rare.
As men and goddesses know me, I am always between these {two}.
And they know me in this way, for this is what has made them.
They could not know otherwise, for they cannot know anything outside the field of their own making.
Even I do not know if I shall ever die completely....

21. Abundant grapes and olives, so well made they carry the seeds of the seeds of the three {goddesses},
As does the corn, so that they feed all roaming things, the beasts and the men
That re-make themselves also {from within themselves} with the seed of the seed of the women {or females}.
Do these things not come to destruction as the season demands?
Then in their being destroyed other things are made {from their parts} that also die.
So it should not be said that there is nothing {ouden}, for nothing is what is not {to me on}.
Instead we should say that not-being {kenon} is possible; not-being is to be counted among everything that is {to on}.

22. Love comes and goes and is not permanent, ever.
It is a mortal thing and so cannot be an immortal force.
Also strife which, some say, permeates the cosmos with love in a changing vortex.
I say {text corrupt} to any casting about with {these dice}.
Neither love nor strife can be fixed {processes} but are accidents shown in the short time of any day’s light,
Though the wisest who has not been chosen as I have will take these things as immortal beings from what he sees.

23. The ancients named Fire as the beginning and end of all that is.
They named rightly but not knowing the whole story.
Because they lacked the account in full, wise men of our times took all they said as wrong.
And so they cast away from their minds the starting fire, as though it were a tale of simple folk.
With no start to their own inquiry {historie} they spoke as if there were no start and no end at all.
But who would listen to such a tale; what feast is there with the same dish at all times?
That which is merely one {the one?} has no variety and no one will listen to {consume?} such a thing.
So we must go back to the old men who spoke of Fire as the dawn of us all and of every thing.

24. Each day comes to presence in the shining of the light and also each season of growth.
Where it is not, there is no presence and no growth at all. We know night and winter this well.
So too in the longer course of things, the turning of day and night and the turning of the seasons
Are as a single coming to presence in shining and so are as a season which no one man or god can know.
When this shining is finished, then everything ordinary and extraordinary ceases to be and there is only oblivion {lethe}.
We who live briefly in the time of un-oblivion {a-letheia} do not know or care to know that it too comes from and passes away into oblivion.
But these goddesses have shown me at their feast how it is that this must be.
And so it is that it is correct to say that what is comes from oblivion and must pass away into it.