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Parmenides, B 8. 4

Author(s): John R. WilsonSource: The Classical Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 20, No. 1 (May, 1970), pp. 32-34Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

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7/29/2019 Wilson, John R._parmenides, B 8. 4_1970_CQ, 20, 1, Pp. 32-34

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PARMENIDES, B 8. 4

~kdvoS' 7Lc'V000.SooAEL7TETaLL

OrTLcr-c ?-a

7'Fcrr-tlarU'acL

TroAAaLLa Wc-ayEvr?7rovOVKalaLLVWAEUOVUTLV

4? oiAov ,LovvotyEvE47 Em KaLTpELE~S?)- 1EAEcTI-QV.

1-52 Simpl. nPh. 145. I-I46. 25 1-i4 Simpl. n Ph.78.8-23 3-5 Simpl. nPh.

30. 1-3 3-4 Clem.Strom. . 14, 112. 2, Euseb.PExiii. 13, 39 4 Simpl. n Ph. 120o.23, in Cael.557. I8, Plut.adv.Colot. I14c, Procl.Comm.n Platonis arm.1152. 25 Cousin,Ps.-Plut.Strom. = Diels Dox.580. 24, Theod.gr.aff. cur.ii. io8, iv. 7, Philop. nPh.65. 7

4 o0"AovPovvoyevisSimpl.,Clem.,Theod. iv. 7, Philop.:

?poiovovvvoyEv'sEuseb.,

Theod.i. io8, Ps.-Plut.: [fIaVy&p]oVAodEAe•slut.:o0,AoEA,'s

Procl. s6rEAEcardovovotti: a8'draTcarovSimpl. in Ph. 30, 78, 145: '8' dyAr'qovSimpl. in Ph. 120, in Cael., Clem., Euseb.,

Theod., Plut., Procl.,Ps.-Plut.,Philop.

THEtext ofParmenides. 4 isunusuallyorrupt.Mostrecent ritics,however,agreethatPlutarch's 'ruyap

o0,Ao0LEAE's,rinted in the later editions of Diels-

Kranz,Die FragmenteerVorsokratiker,houldbe excluded n favourof ovAov

iovvoyEvEs.As G. E. L. Owen remarks'EleaticQuestions',CQ 1960], 102),

'[Plutarch's]ydpis inappropriatesinced8LalpErovsto beprovedromdyEv-I-rovdvdAEOpovndnotvice versa'.Without heargumentativedp, ines3-4 func-tionas a listof the ~atiarao be discussedater n thefragment.Thus idyEvrirov

advdAEpovs treatedat 8. 5-21, ojAovLovvoyEVEdt 8. 22-5, aTPE/Sat 8. 26-33,and, adoptingCovotti'srEAEordv,he culminating haracteristicf finalityor

completions treatedat 8. 42-9.IBut evenifwe rejectPlutarch'sext,theoriginaldifficultywhich edKranz

and othersto preferPlutarch's rcL dp otAotLEAE'so Simplicius'v'iovtuovvo-

y7EvE emains.FortLovvoyvE's,onlybegotten',appearso contradictdyv•'vrov,

'notbegotten', n the previousine. In an effortto skirtthe difficulty,nter-

preters (includingLSJ) have suggesteda meaning'of one ydvos',.e. 'suigeneris',unique'.They rely mostlyon two passages rom Plato's Timaeus,thoughTarin (op.cit. 92) quotesas a pre-PlatonicxampleAesch.Ag.898.Butthere)tovoyEvdsE'KVOVeans onlybegotten hild'andit seemsanunjusti-fiedquibbleon Tarin's partto suggest hat 'thefathermighthavebegottenotherchildrenwhodiedyoungand so thepreservationfhis namerestson the

onlysurvivingon'.Even nPlato here s noreal ustificationorever nterpret-ing

/,ovoyevqgas 'suigeneris'.n the passagesisted n Ast'sLexicon,UovoyevIjs

is usedconventionallyt Criti. 13d and Laws691d. Onlyat Tim.31band

92 c isthereany possible mbiguity.nterestinglynough,Tim.31b formspartof a passageheavily nfluenced y Parmenidesn itsuncompromisingistinc-tion betweenthe worldof Becomingand the world of Being.The questionposedaboutrd rTayvt 27 c is i y'yovEv Kat yEVE9cr-v. This distinction

I Owen, loc. cit., sees the need for somesuch emendation. Covotti's solution isdefended by Leonardo Tardn in his com-

mentary ad loc. (Parmenides,a text with

translation, commentaryand critical essays,

Princeton, 1965). Simplicius reads 'dyEvr'qovin line 4 only when he quotes the line in

isolation. In context it is altogether ruledout by the dyE'v-Irovof the previous line.

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PARMENIDES, B 8. 4 33

betweenbirthand non-birth s lateramplified s an opposition etweenro OV

dEl,yCVETLVM OJK XOvndroyL~y vov?EV dCEL,Ov8EoV8E7ore27 d). Thoughthe latter s notaccessibleo reason,andis onlyanobjectofbelief, t isworth

givingan accountof it that

'yieldso nonein likelihood'

exactlyheattitude

of Parmenidesn hisWayof Seeming).In thewhole section Tim.28-30 theidea ofbirth s repeated imeandagain,as if to emphasizeheunreliabilityfthe worldof appearance.At 31a Timaeusbringsup the newquestion f how

manyworldsthereare, and immediately oncludes hat the visibleCosmosmustbe single ike tsidealmodel. 'va tvr7sEKr7l L•7V LdovJLVcvOLOV7-

7ravr-#EL- ', M%rav-a

ov'•E0o o~UT'

a•TE'pO•SE'7Tro•1Ev

0o"oLv

KoorlOvs, 'AAEL 0E

•covoyEVqS. odpavo yEyovos ECJTLV

Ka•ET E'racL. In this latterpassage

the two ideas of uniqueness and generation which have been developed justbefore are expressed independently by

EL•and

yEyov•sand in combination by

/LOvoyEV4'4. Preciselythe same duplication occursin the concluding sentence ofthe work (92 c), where the visible God of Becomingis describedas an ELKCVTOO

voTpo CE•SacLaOTO77TO,

•LYKTo0SalL•p•oU

OSKCLATOSEKal•EA-EaWroS

EyOVEVElg

ovpavo•ge /LOVoyEV-S Cv.Of course n bothpassages0ovoyEVSspleonas-

tic, and it is to avoid such a pleonasmhatinterpreters osita meaning sui

generis'.utt0ovoyEvYjsere snomorepleonastichanat Criti. 13d (KAELTr~)uovoy~Ev Ovya-r'pca yEvvocrcdcrO-Iv) nd, unlikeits use there,in Timaeust

effectivelyunderlines he leading deasof theargument.Andevenif, without

anysupportingvidence,we insistontranslatingLovoyEv7sn Platoas 'unique',we must admit that this does not ironout the difficultyn Parmenides.n

Timaeus,latois talkingof the worldof y&cEc•S,sothat,howeverweinterpretLovoyEv?7s,hesuffix YEVYSoesnot contradict heunderlying hought.But at8. 4 Parmenides is talking about a realitywhich is specifically

iyv-w-rov8. 3),

so that,howeverwe interpretLovoyEvs, the suffix-yev7s-must clash with hisbasicargument.

Proponents f the meaning suigeneris'ointto thederivation f the -yev-r~suffix romyEvosg.uta glanceatBuck'sReversendexpp. 723-4)shows hat nthe vastmajority f cases he suffix

-yEv-w= 'begotten'.BeforePlato,only in

avyyEvrqs,d•LOyEVjs,

and dyEv"Js(in the sense of 'ignoble') can the-yEv•q

suffix

have the meaning 'kin' = yos.2In view of the awkwardness of fiovvoyEvEg, it is worth looking again at

Plutarch'so0,AotLEAE•-,

particularly as the preceding words Edar1dp, which mili-

tate against Plutarch'stext, are probablynot even part of Plutarch'squotation(nor indeed are they printed as such in R. Westman's revision of Pohlenz'sTeubner text [Leipzig, 1959]). As Tugwell remarks (CQ lviii [1964], 38, n. i),

'ydp makes good sense in Plutarch, but nonsense in Parmenides'. External

support for beginning Plutarch's quotation witho0,AoLEAE'•d

is provided byProclus, who is the only other writer besides Plutarch to attest otVAoEAE/s nd

who, like Plutarch,beginshis quotationwith it: AE'E yoev VKELVOST0 TEV

"oAot1,3OEAE7E Kal a7pE•tLs y~wv8 ov" (Comment.n

PlatonisParm.

1152. 24-5Cousin).Buteventhough

oiAoEAE•CswithoutdEryapisanimprovementn

gtovvoy•ves,See Pierre Chantraine, La Formationdes

noms en Grec ancien (Paris, 1933), 424-2 But cf. the meanings 'inborn' for avy-

yEv'jg and 'unborn' for &dyEVjS, hich shows

that even in these words the sense 'begotten'

is operative in the suffix. To this isolated trioof -yEv-g= 'kin' words, Plato adds LL/uyfEV7jand the pair

1'Loyev-Iq/KOLVOyCv•9,while

Aristotle contributes Cimpoyevq'.

4599.1 D

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34 J. R. WILSON

it is not completely satisfactory.For one thing, it is not attested elsewhere.'More important, it would normally imply divisibility into parts (see Tarin's

commentary), as when Hippocrates (De Nutrimento. io6 L.) contrastsKa-r

t v odAhoqEAl'rwith KacT t'pos g'. Furthermore, if we discard ar-r yadpandreplace it with ojAov from Simplicius' text, we have the unmetrical and

repetitious sequence oiAov od'Ao-.

A solution is to eliminate the awkward prefix in Plutarch and the illogicalsuffix in Simplicius, and so arrive at the compound bLovvoLLEAE's,single-limbed'which is an effective and logical amplification of ojAov. Unlike oV'AoLEAE'S,

jLovvoLtEAEsassertively denies any possibility of subdivision, an idea which is dulyworked out at 8. 22 ff. (ot

aLPE••prdvyT7t). And far from being unattested, the

word is used by Empedocles,presumably n imitation of Parmenides,to convey

exactly that sense of indivisibilitywhich we requirehere. At Empedocles B 58

the yvta that under the force of NEFKoSave reached the point where they canno longer undergo division are described as JLovvoJLEAql.e should accordinglyread Parmenides 8. 4 as o0Aov JLovvoLEA TE Ka a7pEqS ETEA

EU••ro'V.The corruptions in the first half of the line are fairly easily explained.Plutarch's o"AoLEAE'Sould be the result of a conflationof the preceding ov'Aov

with ?uovvo-.his parallelsthe corruptionof oZAovtself into ?Uoivovn Eusebius,

Theodoretus,and Ps.-Plut. Strom.The corruptionJLovvoyevEsn Simpliciusand

other testimonia,he earliest of which is Clement, can best be explained as the

substitution f the familiarChristian pithet'onlybegotten' orthat strangeandperhapspuzzling single-limbed'.2

Indiana University JOHN R. WILSON

I Littrd introduces it by emendation at

Hippocr. Anat. 8. 540 L.2 Cf. Karl Meister, Die homerischeKunst-

sprache (Leipzig, 1921; repr. Darmstadt,

1966), 207.

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