Parmenides
Proem (B1)
Written work
Proem (B1)
Προοίμιον (DK 28 B1)
Thirty-two lines narrating the youth's journey in a chariot drawn by mares and guided by the Heliades, daughters of the Sun, from the house of Night to the gates of the paths of Night and Day, guarded by Justice. A nameless goddess receives him and announces the poem's programme: to know the unshaken heart of truth and the opinions of mortals. It has been read as an allegory of knowledge, as a descent to the underworld and as an initiation narrative.
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Authorship note
An authentic part of the poem. Lines 1–30 are preserved by Sextus Empiricus (Against the Mathematicians VII 111); lines 28–32 by Simplicius (Commentary on On the Heavens, 557). The division into parts is modern.
Editions and translations
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Other works by Parmenides
Sources
- Sexto Empírico. Contra los matemáticos VII 111–114 (cita y alegoría del proemio, B1.1–30). Trad. inglesa de R. G. Bury, Loeb Classical Library, 1935.
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