Heraclitus, FR.

114
Author(s): Alexander P. D. Mourelatos
Source: The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 86, No. 3 (Jul., 1965), pp. 258-266
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/293533 .
Accessed: 04/02/2014 14:09

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The Johns Hopkins University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The
American Journal of Philology.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Tue, 4 Feb 2014 14:09:55 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 HERACLITUS, FR. 114.
evY vow Xe/yovraS lTuXvptEcraOa (p r $V 7raVTv7Wv,OKW(TErep TroXts
XPv
VO/Ux KaU 7roXV iLcXVpOTepwo TrpEqovTaL yap 7ravres T'aoVpw7rELOL
VOtloL v7ro Eio TOv OEiov' KpaTre yap rTOOOVOV OKov eGEAlI KaL
kEapKc[ 7raaL Kal 7rEpylyverat.

Kirk, who gives us the most detailed recent analysis of the

fragment, translates: "Those who speak with sense must rely
on what is common to all, as a city must rely on its law, and
with much greater reliance: for all the laws of men are nourished
by one law, the divine law; for it has as much power as it
wishes and is sufficient for all and is still left over."1
As the punctuation of the translation shows, Kirk under-
stands " law " to be functioning in this fragment only as a simile.
On this reading HIeraclitus' point is that intelligent men will
order their thinking on the basis of the $vvov (which may be
plausibly identified with the Xoyos of other fragments) very
much as the city orders itself by law, but even more so, inasmuch
as human laws are only relative and secondary compared to the
absolute law of God.2
This is, no doubt, the correct line of interpretation. The 7roXv
Ir(XvporTpo'5must mean 7roXViotavporTepwo X) ToAtrhiocvpCeraLt vodup.3
The yaep'swhich follow do not serve to introduce reasons, as
Heinimann thought,4 for reliance on the evvovor vo',os; they
function, rather, as an explanation for the author's qualifying
the comparison of evvov with vo'tuoby Ka' ,roXv iaXvporepoTs. This
means that the conception of the hierarchy, city-human law-
divine law, does not enter into the fragment as part of the thesis.
The plea is that men should follow the evvov. To this is added
an analogy; and this is followed by a commentary which removes
certain inadequacies of the analogy. We may very well have
here the first statement of that hierarchy; but the conception
itself is not original but orthodox.5 Heraclitus adopts and em-
1 G. S. Kirk, Heraclitus: The Cosmic Fragments (Cambridge, 1954),
p. 48.
Ibid., p. 51.
8 Kirk's " as a city must rely on the law " is a slip; it translates 7r6oXv.
Nomos und Physis (Basel, 1945), p. 66.
Iliad, IX, 98 ff. strongly suggests that kings cannot be absolute

258

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Tue, 4 Feb 2014 14:09:55 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 HERACLITUS, FR. 114. 259

ploys this familiar conception as a model for his own radical

and novel conception of the relation of human intelligence to the
.vvov 7ravTOV.

A consequenceof this analysis, though one not drawn by Kirk,6

is that there is no reason to identify the evvovor Xoyos with
divine law. There is no explicit reference to divine law in the
fragment. In view of the contrast 7rdavTs-vo& it may indeed be
valid to add an understood vo'iov after rov Oc'ov. But it is also
7
possible that evos rov Od0ovmay simply mean "one, the divine."
Heraclitus may very well have registered his preference for such
an expression over Zev' or o6Oos in fr. 32: " One, the only wise,
wants and does not want to be called by the name of Zeus."
At any rate, whether we understand ro Odtovvo,uov or simply
TOVOdov, the syntax of the fragment makes the divine (law)
no more than a model-though a more appropriate one than the
avOpi7retoL voLOLt-for the evvov 7ravTWv. In short, Heraclitus is
explaining or paraphrasing in fr. 114 something which Kirk
and other scholars have established on their own, through an
analysis of Ieraclitus' language: that Aoyos is not the same as
Law, but something in the universe for which human norms
(standards, measures) can serve as a convenient analogue.8
But while the overall syntax of the fragment is now clear, the
meaning of key words remains obscure. The roughest spot is
TpeovTrat. The idea that the divine (law) "nourishes" human
laws is, to say the least, bizarre. What was it that Heraclitus
had in mind? Kirk's paraphrase, that human laws are "the

rulers. Holding their " sceptres and rights " from Zeus they are expected
to conform to certain standards of decency and tact. In Hesiod, Theog.,
901 ff. we get the first statement of the association of Zeus with Dike
and Eunomia. But the clearest passage is Erga, 248-64 and 257-80
which states that kings and their subjects are punishable for transgress-
ing the law of Zeus: the law of 81IK7which applies to men as distinct
from other animals. Note also that we have something very much like
Heraclitus' hierarchy of city-human law-divine law in the hierarchy of
Homeric adjectives: Koipavos, &val, 7roL.L*v XaCv (of the king relatively
to his subjects) ; 5torpeo?s, OepaTrwvAt6s (of the king relatively to Zeus);
and KdapTL0Tos awravrTw, T'raTos Kpetl6vTw (of Zeus relatively to all kings).
6 Cf. p. 54.
7 Cf. W. K. C. Guthrie, A History
of Greek Philosophy, I (Cambridge,
1962), p. 425.
8
Kirk, pp. 37 ff.

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Tue, 4 Feb 2014 14:09:55 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
260 ALEXANDER P. D. MOURELATOS.

off-shoots" of divine law,9 militates against his own analysis of

the syntax of the fragment. If human laws are indeed off-shoots
of the divine law (of divine lineage) why qualify so strongly the
comparison of evvov with voluos?The comment Kal 7roXv latXvpoTE-
pwo becomes necessary only if human laws are far inferior to the
divine (law); it is appropriate only if the word rpefovTrat
diminishes rather than exalts the status of human laws.
One may also raise questions over Kirk's translations of
KparTeL, EapKEL, and 7replyveTrat. The effect of combining "are
nourished" in the second sentence with "is sufficient for all"
and "is still left over" in the third is that of a divine law which
is consumed by the many human laws and, like Prometheus'
liver, is always growing back. The total effect is one of a mixture
of ideas and images borrowed from quite distinct semantic con-
texts: social and political action ("to rely on," "law") and
feeding ("are nourished," "is sufficient for," "is still left
over"). Other translations of the fragment contain a similar
mixture of metaphors, with additional intrusions from the con-
texts of athletic and military encounter.10 To press the case for
linguistic unity might be both picayune and unwise generally;
but I believe it is profitable in Heraclitus who, for all his ob-
scurity, likes to focus on single and luminous images (the bow,
the lyre, the river, the sleepers) which serve both to illustrate
his doctrine and to fix the meaning of his words.
In attempting to accommodate the language of the fragment
as a whole to the translation "are nourished " for rpe'ovrat,
critics may have been following a false lead. The language of
Heraclitus is not the colloquial Ionic of fifth and fourth century
writers,11but a language much more charged, much more monu-
9
Ibid., p. 51.
10Burnet: "hold fast to . . . are fed . . . prevails . . . suffices for
..with something to spare." Diels-Kranz: "sich stark machen mit
. . . nhren sich . . . gebietet . . . reicht aus fiir . . . ist noch dariiber."
Frankel: "sich sichern durch . . . niihren sich . . . hat Macht . . .
reicht aus fiir . . . reicht dariiber hinaus." Wheelright: "hold on
strongly to . . . are nourished . . . prevails . . . suffices for . . . is
something more than . . ." Guthrie: "trust in ... are nourished . . .
extends its sway ... is sufficient for. . .."
1 The Hippocratic Ilept rpois, which contains (15) a reminiscence
of fr. 114, cannot be used as evidence on Heraclitus' semantics. It is
both much more recent and wholly superficial in its imitation of Hera-
clitean diction.

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Tue, 4 Feb 2014 14:09:55 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 HERACLITUS, FR. 114. 261

mental, often deliberately archaic and bearing on the epic lan-

guage of Homer and Hesiod.12 The only definitely prosaic words
in the fragment are taXvpteaOat and LaXvporTpoS. But even for
these the familiar fifth and fourth century translations "to
contend," "to maintain" and "more strongly" are clearly in-
appropriate to the context. Kirk rightly translates "to rely on"
and "with greater reliance." 13 I now would like to show that
a translation of the verbs rpe'ovrat, KpareL,ecapKeL,and TepLytveraL
which respects Homeric-Hesiodic usage and patterns is both
appropriate to the context and peculiarly congruent with the
theme of law and reliance. What emerges is a statement unified
under one single image or paradigm, a statement playfully
balanced in characteristically Heraclitean fashion.
The verbs Kparet and 7reptyiveTratboth have parallels in Homer.
Unless we, implausibly, connect the first with raro-, the indicated
translation is "it rules as far as it wills." 14 As for the second,
whether we take it with an understood or restored 7vrarwv15 or
connect it to the dative 7ram, we could very well give it the
Homeric sense "to excel" or "to prevail over." 16
We do not find in Homer, but we find apKeCoand
ieapKIco
EirapKew; also apKtOs in both Homer and Hesiod. The first of
these taken with the dative means "to defend" or "to protect."
In one case it is the breastplate which protects (II., XIII, 371),
in another the river (XXI, 131). Often apKEw takes the object

12 This is recognized
by Kirk in his interpretation of many Hera-
clitean words (e.g. apgovia pp. 207, 224). But to say that Heraclitus
" still lived, as his language shows, in the tradition of poetical thought"
(p. 396) is to overstate the case.
13 This translation treats kvv4 and vo6iL.as complements of iaXvpieaOa&
(and -rat). So do other English translations (above, n. 10). If we
treat the datives as instrumental or comitative we get the German
translations (n. 10), which are nevertheless equivalent in sense to
Kirk's " to rely on." The closest parallel in fifth century literature
appears to be Thuc., V, 26, 3, which even contains a rhetorical effect
similar to Heraclitus': Kal Trol dTro xpl',uicv rT laXvpto'auteyvoLs 6Povo, 8i
TOUrTO eXvps vUjL3cid . . . [elrp'o-et Ts] (for those who maintained some-
thing on the basis of oracles, one will find this alone strictly fulfilled).
14 Cf. Homer's
ue'yyaKpa7ewv, ebpb Kpeiwv; Hesiod's /Le'ya KpaTei 5i8
dvaoaet (Theog., 403).
16 The restoration, proposed by Diels, is supported by a paraphrase
in Plut., De Isid., 369A.
16Cf. Od., VIII, 102; 252; II., XXIII, 318.

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Tue, 4 Feb 2014 14:09:55 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
262 ALEXANDER P. D. MOURELATOS.

oAeOpovand carries the sense " to succeed in defending against." 17

This usage is also found in the post-Hesiodic Shield of Heracles
(358). For the adjective appKtoS the translation "adequate" is
perhaps never warranted in the epic; the contexts in which it
occurs can all be served even better by the more literal " on which
one may rely (depend, count)," more simply "unfailing, cer-
tain, sure." 18 The Homeric &rapKE'w has the same meaning as
apKew. If Heraclitus conforms to this usage it is unlikely that
e$apKew (recorded for the first time in fr. 114) differs from these,
except perhaps in having more of the nuance of success ("to out-
defend").
Assuming that 7raac means 7radutvo/lXt we can now translate
the last sentence of fr. 114: "For it rules as far as it wills and
succeeds in defending all (laws) and prevails over (them)." We
are told, in other words, that the divine (law) does what is
normally expected of a sovereign power: it has unlimited juris-
diction; it protects, but also controls. It both guarantees all
human laws, but can also overrule them on appeal.
Placed in this environment Kirk's translation of tiavptgeCaat
and iaXvporTpws makes excellent sense. The language of the frag-
ment appears, on the whole, to be dominated by the idea of the
relation of subjects to the sovereign. We may even have what
begins to appear as a symmetrical mode of expression: oaXvptge-
aOat rTvLis a precise relational converse of 7repLytyveuaOat
rtos. If
A liXvpteTraL T() B then B 7repLyyvTrac rov A and vice versa. The
force of the words examined so far is mainly legal and political.
Iow is Tpe'(ovTatrelated to this paradigm? If we take seri-
ously the idea that Heraclitus' language emulates the language
of epic poetry we would find very little dictionary support for
the translation "are nourished." The standard translations for
TpeCo/atL in Homer are "to be nurtured, to be brought up, to
grow up " and the like. Similar translations are listed for Hesiod
and also for Herodotus. Even the active rpEowhas no firm con-
nection with feeding. Men are said to rpceEtv and so is Athena
(a virgin) and elderly women.19 The function of the rpooos in
17 Cf. II., VI, 16; XIII, 440; XV, 534; XX, 289; Od., IV, 292.
18 Cf. II., II, 393; XV, 502; Erga, 351. The apKLos zicraosof II., X, 304
and Od., XVII, 358 is " a reward one may count on." So too in Erga,
370; similarly for apKitos pito (sure livelihood) in 501 and 577.
19
Epic Greek has, of course, other words for the processes of feeding

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Tue, 4 Feb 2014 14:09:55 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 HERACLITUS, FR. 114. 263

Homer is not that of a wet nurse, but that of a protector or

guardian.20 In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter which, because
of its central incident (Demeter in the form of an old woman
becomes the Tpodo's to the newborn son of Metaneira at Eleusis),
can be consulted as a case study of rpEc- words, the "nurse"
describes her role in these words: 21
Gladly will I receive this boy, as you ask, and I shall take
care of him (Ope,tw);and neither witchcraft nor the under-
cutter (v{roratvo'v) will, I vouch, through heedlessness of
the nurse (LtO'vng) hurt him. For I know an anti-cutter
(avTr&o,ov) much stronger than the woodcutter (bXoro-
uLOto);and I know a check against much-tormenting witch-
craft.
Without entering into questions of etymology 22 it seems to me
probable that the core idea in rpeow is "to shelter, to protect,
to keep safe, to preserve intact," 23 especially where such protec-
and nourishment: dXSaivw, 86OKw, p/p3w,also cTrgrotat, ea&loiaL, alvvuLat.,
etc. Of board at public expense Xenophanes uses the words Kal KeP air'
eiL (B 2, 14).
20 Cf. T. D.
Seymour, Life in the Homeric Age, p. 139.
21 Horn.
H., II, 226-30. We do not know what the "undercutter" or
the "woodcutter" are. What matters for us is that the rpoo6s is ex-
pected to ward off their evil effects, work, or influence.
" Kirk
(p. 53) accepts Boisacq's derivation of rpeqw from a root
shared with Op6olpos. This etymology has recently been challenged by
Benveniste (Word, X [1954], p. 233). It has also been questioned by
students of the Mycenaean script who read to-ro-qa, the Mycenaean
counterpart of Tpo0i, in a number of Knossos tablets and in a context
which suggests "provisions for consumption, or yield ": cf. A. Heubeck
in Indogermanische Forschungen, LXIII (1958), p. 121, who argues that
to-ro-qa may justify a return to the etymology *dhregwh (holding
firmly) for Trpow, which had been suggested in 1896 by Meillet but was
rejected by Boisacq.
28 Not " to nurture," as the dictionaries would suggest, or "to
promote natural growth," as Benveniste thought (loc. cit.), for that
would make nonsense out of a sentence like rbv /uepveyd 0iXe6v re Kal
&rpefov (Calypso with respect to Odysseus: Od., V, 135). The puzzling
ijluav Ope'las ydXaaKros(Od., XI, 246) and rerpofev a'X,r) (XXIII, 237)
probably mean "having prepared half of the milk for storage" and
"the brine settled (stored)." By the same token: rpe'qev tr,rrovs is
"to keep horses"; Tpe'fetv Xalrrqv "to keep one's hair (uncut)";
rpgoeFvdXotio'v "to store fat"; oaa Tpe'et xO~v "as many as the earth
upholds or maintains." As for other Tpeq-words, Kovporp6OoS is "a
warder of young men "; davejLorpeqds applied to waves and spears, ought

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Tue, 4 Feb 2014 14:09:55 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
264 ALEXANDER P. D. MOURELATOS.

tion and shelter is absolutely vital for survival. It is therefore

used most appropriately of the old and experienced in relation
to the young and immature; of the herdsman in relation to his
cattle; of a rescuer in relation to a shipwrecked sailor (Calypso
and Odysseus).
It is precisely this idea which lies behind the rpEcovTrat of
Heraclitus. The word portrays human laws as young, immature,
unfledged, green, tender, and weak: utterly dependent on the
divine (law) -which explains the qualification Kat7roXv lcrXvpo-
rTpoS.24 We should translate not "are nourished by" but "are
under wardship to." 25 The divine (law) is the rpodos of human
institutions: it guards their integrity; preserves them inviolate.
It is in this sense that we should understand the Homeric Sto-
TpE4?)' (the fosterling of Zeus, the ward of Zeus), which is the
obvious archetype of Heraclitus' formulation.26
Note that we again have a logical echo in the third sentence:
if A TpekETai 6vroB then B eapKeL Tri A and vice versa. In each
of the pairs, TpE?ovTa-tlorxvplteCEOa and eaapKel-7repLylveTra we have
a convergence of two ideas: the rpoos' and the sovereign ruler.
For Heraclitus the two aspects are complementary. To his con-
temporaries the two ideas and the relationships which they
signal, submission to the king and wardship to a rpodko, are
peculiarly congruent and familiar: we only need to remind our-
selves of the Homeric king who is both KOtpavo3 and TroiLtv or
ava..27 We are now in position to translate the whole fragment:
to mean "the ward, or charge of the wind " (cf. " at the mercy of the
wind," an idea very clearly implied in passages referring to the deflec-
tion of a missile, correctly aimed, because of wind: e. g. II., XX, 438-40).
Most significantly atorpeois now takes the meaning "the ward of Zeus,"
as if "under the aegis of Zeus." The American motto "in God we
trust" and the line from the spiritual " He's got the whole world in his
hands" are not far from this concept.
24 Cf.
Hes., Erga, 131: erpefer' dcrdTXXW,
ufeya pTtrLos.
25
The Oxford English Dictionary illustrates this metaphorical use
of "wardship" with examples interestingly analogous to fr. 114: "To
deliver his Crown once for all, from wardship (as he counts it) to
Parliamentary power" and " We have written the origin of our
country [U. S. A.]; we are now to pursue the history of its wardship."
26 Cf. n. 5 and n. 23, above.
2 The
king or prince, who alone carries heavy armor, protects his
people from the foe as a shepherd protects his flock from beasts of
prey: a theme elaborated in a number of Homeric similes: cf. H.

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Tue, 4 Feb 2014 14:09:55 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 BERACLITUS, PR. 114. 265

Those who gauge things with intelligence must rely on what

to all is common, as the city relies on law, and even more
firmly: for all human laws are under wardship to one, the
divine (law); for it rules as far as it wills and protects all
(laws) and prevails over (them).
I prefer " gauging things" over "speaking" in this fragment
since A'yovras is here clearly emphatic. The word must be carry-
ing special weight in a statement which, though obviously con-
cerning the purview of the Aoyos,contains no explicit reference
to it. Note, in this connection, that of the two overt puns, vv
vow-tvvw,vow-vo'e, the former mediates a covert or conceptual
pun:'vvw Aoywo(to gauge things in common) must be very
close to Heraclitus' ojXoAoyew(to come together in the measure-
ment of) as in frs. 50, 51; it is also the opposite of 4vyeTos3
ylyveafOat roi Aoyov (to fail to be in communion with the logos)
in fr. 1. To these formal features we can now add the logical
symmetries suggested by our_translation. The relation iLavplge-
rOat is the converse of the relation 7repLytyvea-at;the relation
TpEOea6at is the converse of the relation 'fapKeZv. Moreover, the
conjunction of the relations iaXvplt'geOa and rpererOaL is the con-
verse of the conjunction of the relations 4eapKeiv and 7reptytyvacoOat.
In the sequence in which the words occur in the text we get
the following schema:
(is the converse of)

(complementary) (complementary)
1 1' ! i
l(oXvp'ceaOat rpeeoOGat E apKEtV 7replylyveuaOa

(is the converse of)

(is the converse of)

Logical balancing of this sort is wholly Heraclitean in spirit and

is found in the structure of many of his fragments.28

Frinkel, Dichtung und Philosophie des friihen Griechentums (Munich,

1962), pp. 45f.
28The more obvious cases: frs. 8, 10, 25, 26, 30, 62, 72, 79, 88.
For an analysis of the logical structure of fr. 1 cf. O. Gigon, Unter-
suchungen zu Heraklit, p. 9 and B. Snell in Hermes, LXI (1926), p. 366.

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Tue, 4 Feb 2014 14:09:55 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
266 ALEXANDER P. D. MOURELATOS.

This analysis confirms and strengthens the view that in fr. 114
law is introduced simply as a model. It is precisely the sub-
ordinate and junior status of human law vis-a-vis the divine
(law) which makes the relation of city to law inadequate as a
model of the desired relation of AXyovras to the evvov. The quali-
fication KaM 7roX' TaXvpoTEPWois, accordingly, not otiose but em-
phatic and crucial. The result of combining the comparison with
the qualification is the emergence of a legal-political hierarchy,
city-human law-divine law. To this there probably corre-
sponds in Heraclitus' mind the epistemic-methodological hier-
archy: other men-Heraclitus-the logos. It is interesting that
this latter hierarchy also is introduced by a famous qualification:
OVK /0ov aXXa royv Aoyov aKovravTra . . . (fr. 50).

ALEXANDER P. D. MOURELATOS.
YALE UNIVERSITY.

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Tue, 4 Feb 2014 14:09:55 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions