ΨΥΧΗ in Heraclitus, IIAuthor(s): Martha C. NussbaumReviewed work(s):Source: Phronesis, Vol. 17, No. 2 (1972), pp. 153-170Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4181882 .Accessed: 06/12/2011 03:00

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Y'YXH in Heraclitus, II

MARTHA C. NUSSBAUM

H aving investigated the role of +uZ' in the living man,*' we turn now to a consideration of 4u - at death. The implications of the spider simile led us to suspect that death may be, for Heraclitus,

something that occurs as the result of damage to 4uZj, primarily, and not to the body or to any or its other faculties; 4u' is that by virtue of which a living creature is alive: therefore death must be explained in terms of 4uy. The Homeric man saw death as the departure of +u ' from the body; breathed out through the mouth or through a wound, it takes up a shadowy existence in Hades, while it is the corpse that continues to be spoken of as the man's owto6,, as preserving whatever was characteristic of him as an individual in the eyes of those who mourn for him.2 I believe Heraclitus criticizes and rejects this aspect, too, of Homeric teaching; and his new view of the death of men leads to a reassessment of how men ought to live.

Fr. 36: AuXiatvY Voroq (Sp yevicaL... Fr. 77: 4UXtL. . .-Tp4P V g&VOXTOV uYpnaL yEVa&OxL.

The first thing we notice about these fragments is the peculiar nature of the expression N*&VOCTO 4uZaytq. First of all, it is clearly a word-play, a juxtaposition of opposites: "It is death to the life-faculty..." Secondly, we notice that this is a very un-Homeric way of talking about death. For the Homeric man, death is something that comes to an individual, or to his body. At the moment of death, the iu '

is released, or departs, but death is never described as coming to the +uXn, or as being a death of or for the 4uyJ. Death is generally describ- ed as a dark cloud which covers the eyes of the man as he becomes a corpse (E 82, etc.). After +u ' departs, the corpse, not Pux , is de- scribed as being in a state of death. Thus, at X 361, the poet describes the death of Hector:

* For modern works referred to in this article, please see Bibliography on pp. 169-70.

N Nus3baum, "TYXH in Heraclitus, I," this volume, pp. 1-16. 2 Iliad A 3, II 453 ff., Theognis 567, etc.

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Jg &pXt twlV ?tTrormX -iXog Nv&uoto xoXuXe

PVT8'kx felhcv mrm[dwn 'AtMah8 Pepy'Xe 8v nr6t,Lov yo6caoc, XLvro5ava0pow7)tz xct i53i-v.

T6v xcd T5vC46m)X TpocqX Koq 'AXLXXzUG-

One might say that to say 'k4*vocx to a corpse is to say "you have lost your uZ`"; it is not to say "your +uZ' is dead," or even "death has come to your 4uXj4" Corpses are frequently described as being in a state of death (H 89, 409, K 343, 387, 0 664, HI 5, 26, 565, P 369, E 540, X 448). But the 4uyaoc in Hades are always described, not as dead shades, but as the shades ol the people or corpses which are in a state of death (x 530, X 37, 84, 141, 205, 541, 564, 567). The single excep- tion - X 147, GV 6 LVO CV Xv xev e Vi XVq x savvyrTi, where vkxuq means "shade" and is apparently equivalent to fuZn - can easily be explained as a later variant of the more common formula involving

fVza ... VeXUcV X oc'T.T?V?eG(b)V. The nearest we find to a deliberate juxtaposition of &voc'aoq and +ux' in Homer is at X 488, where the

4uXt of Achilles asks Odysseus not to try to comfort him about *&vMo-o, since he would rather be a servant on earth than ruler of all the shades. For him, a&varoq means ceasing to exist as a whole man, and taking up existence as a mere 4ux. But the 4?Xj, speaking, does not describe itself as being in a state of death.3

In fact, the first time we find an expression similar to the 54voaC'o0

fuXmZg of Heraclitus is in the Antigone of Sophocles: a [ 'u qX /'),L6/tr'vjxev (559-60). However, this passage itself is so problematic

that it is not useful for purposes of analogy. We may say, then, that Heraclitus' expression is foreign to tra-

ditional ways of talking about death; if IMivavroq 4uXmZL had any meaning for Homeric man, it would have to mean the moment of the separation of iuX' from the body, and certainly not the termination of 4ux4's existence or importance. In fact, as we have seen, iuX' generally seems to become important, and is spoken of, only upon its separation from the corpse.

A further consideration of fragment 36, however, shows us that this cannot be the meaning Heraclitus has in mind. For we see that 4uy' here has replaced fire in the ?o6yo4 of cosmic change, as it is elsewhere discussed. And it is impossible to elicit from the cosmic fragments any

3 Vergil understands and reproduces this Homeric restriction, writing simula- craque luce carentum (Georg. IV. 472), but defunctaque corpora vita (Georg. IV 475==Aen. VI. 306).

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notion that the change to water means the departure of fire for existence in another realm. The fire simply ceases to exist, and is replaced by water, although the underlying stability of the ?6^yoq assures us that we will eventually get back the same proportion of each con- stituent as we had before (fr. 31). So, too, in the case of Qux-, or the fire-element in man, the replacement by water cannot mean separation of suxn for existence in Hades; it must mean the end of the existence of that particular bit of "fire," together with the assurance that finally the same amount will be returned when the cycle of transformation has run its course. It is difficult to understand, in the case of 4ux , what the entire cycle described by fr. 36 can be; and since the replace- ment of 4u ' by water is the only change on which, in the fragments we possess, Heraclitus places further emphasis, we will not attempt to press the analogy of the elements too far. We can say, though, that human life, is, in some way, viewed as a microcosm of cosmic processes (cf. also in fr. 50 the pair X6yov - CIvo.), and that QuXy represents the chief constituent of the XO6yoq, fire4. Such a view leaves no room for a Homeric view of death; 4upJ) cannot be regarded, on this basis, as preserving individual identity. Although the overall Xoyo4 is stable, and new living beings constantly arise, there is no reason to think that any particular individual might ever return. It would require very strong counter-evidence to show that Heraclitus has any notion of an individual after-life; his microcosm picture of human life depends upon the denial of such notions.

But this interpretation of fr. 36 is not without very real problems, and the microcosm view of +ux4, though I think it must be accepted *as the view of Heraclitus, is difficult to reconcile with his ethical views. For the views expounded in fr. 36 seem to make no allowance for individual identity, and to offer no way of distinguishing one portion of fire from another. If, after the extinction of one 4uxn, in the course of the cyclic Xo6yoq, we got back the same amount of fire, could we, in fact, tell whether it was the same or a different +u ? Heraclitus' view of human life is in other respects far from mechanistic, and places great emphasis upon distinctions among men. This makes it hard to accept at face value the +u '-fire analogy and the theory of death it

' Cf. Frame, p. 171: the traditional association he observes between the death of the sun and the death of a person may be one source for Heraclitus' microcosm picture. A man with v6o4 would be a man with a particularly fiery character - here, to Heraclitus, a particularly great or intense +uX.

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implies. If one individual kuX' differs from another qualitatively, first, how can the fire analogy be maintained, and, secondly, what can this mean, in terms of the total Xoyo4, except that we ought to get, in the course of time, a bit of similar quality in return for the lost one? And if the difference is quantitative (the better having more of the fiery element), this will result in an equally unsatisfactory situation; individuals will be only numerically identifiable (e.g. "he is the man with x-quantity of ;u?x4"). Two equally good men would, perhaps, be indistinguishable; and the return of the same quantity in the course of time would seem to mean the return of the same individual. Finally, any extrapolated view of the microcosm theory poses grave difficulties when we come to an interpretation of the ethical PuxZ fragments. Marcovich poses the problem correctly, I think, when he says, "Now it the change soul > water is a necessary one (as is that of fire into sea), why then is a Uyp' +uX' rebuked, and an xu' 'u~X praised?"5

There is really no answer to these questions; and one must not abandon consideration of fr. 36 because to press the analogy too closely leads to absurdity. Clearly there is a real confusion; necessary death and voluntary drunkenness are described in similar terms, and there seems to be an insufficient allowance for individuals, given the emphasis elsewhere on self-development and individual excellence. But I think that we can conclude from fr. 36 that Heraclitus rejects a Homeric Hades of shades, and denies that 4uyJ preserves, after death, the identity of the individual.

As for fr. 98, at 4uxaoc O6api&vroct XcW' 'ALnv, I think this fragment mocks the absurdity of the typical conception of a world of shades, while playing on the standard folk etymology of Hades as the "sightless place." The use of the article with PuxaoL seems to suggest that it is not to the whole class of 4uvxot that Heraclitus refers, but rather to a specific group: the shades of the underworld, as described in popular legend. Heraclitus generally uses +uXy in the singular, without the generic article, and indeed +u is cited by Smyth (Gr. Gramm. 1135) as a word with which the article is generally omitted. And Heraclitus rarely uses the generic article at all (rather &VapcorQL, aJiTOL, &VXMTOL,

etc.). So the presence of the article here should indicate that a definite reference is being made (cf. Smyth 1133). Perhaps it even retains demonstrative force. Thus: "These (the Homeric) 4uxc[, or shades, must sniff to find their way around down in the 'sightless place'."

5 Marcovich, p. 361.

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Since the traditional +u ' is a principle of breath, Heraclitus may also be declaring the popular picture to be self-contradictory. The way Hades is described, the only way that shades could do anything there would be by sniffing; but the shades are breath, and how could breath itself sniff?6 To say "shades sniff" is absurd and illogical. In any case, this fragment by no means outweighs the strong evidence of fragment 36 as to Heraclitus' opposition to traditional ideas of death.

In fr. 96, Heraclitus makes a statement which, even more than the denial of 4uZ'-immortality, strikes at the very roots of Homeric reli- gion: vexues yo&cp xonpLov z XXT6OpOL. Corpses are more fit to be cast away than dung. Now, for the Homeric man, the corpse was the aulo6, the man-himself (A 3, etc.); its fate was apparently more important than that of the shade, whose existence was seen, in any case, as mindless and unrewarding. We have seen that it was in con- nection with the corpse that one thought of death; and the fear of being devoured as a corpse seems to have been a more terrible fear than the fear of death itself. Although the prologue of the Iliad tells us we will hear of corpses left for the birds and the dogs, this extreme plight is never directly described. One man is eated by fish (4D 203-4), but this is the only scene of corpse-devouring in the whole poem; presumably it is too terrible to contemplate. The ultimate threat one can make to one's enemy is not that he will die, but that his corpse will be left to the birds and dogs. Thus Odysseus (A 450-5) first declares to the dead Sokos that he has met his death, and then goes on, with heightened feeling, to describe the fate of the corpse (which is addressed irn the second person):

&E &(X's, ov tL aot ye 7rau'p xxi 7r6-rvLm VIp

6aac x 4oLpraouat &mv6v-t irvp, & XX' otwvol

co[LtaGdt 4pUOUML QIt? MMrep& NTUXV 'a POCV XCzT& ?', St xe &vw, XT?pLi3at y- 8aot 'AXyLoL

6 Marcovich's statement (p. 393) that "the souls of the dead throughout Hades need the exhalation from the fresh blood of the sacrificed animals to survive" seems without basis in tradition. The Homeric tuXczL drink blood in order to speak with a mortal, but are in no danger of "perishing" at other times. And I do not understand - apart from the unlikelihood that Heraclitus believes in a Hades of shades - why he should be interested, as Marcovich claims, in cor- recting the Homeric drinking to sniffing. I also fail to understand Kirk's conclu- sion (AJP, p. 389) that "Souls use smell in Hades because they are surrounded by dry matter than which they are but a little less dry." See also Tugwell.

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Odysseus' +uX', if he dies, will presumably meet the same fate as that of Sokos; and yet he regards his lot as something about which to gloat, since the fate of his corpse is likely to be so much better than that of his enemy's corpse.7

Thus Heraclitus' denial of the worth of the corpse - presumably a denial that it preserves any sort of individual identity (since +uxy' the seat of that identity, has been annihilated) is a shocking one. Guthrie8 sees it as evidence for an "Orphic strain" in Heraclitus. Marcovich9 rightly rejects this insubstantial claim, but concurs with Burnet and Gigon10 in believing that the critique is dependent upon a belief in immortality of 4uy'. Burnet's description of the fiery 4uz' as having left the body seems to betray a lack of awareness of the implications of fr. 36. All these interpretations wish to salvage for Heraclitus some measure of traditional religious feeling, and fail to perceive the radical nature of his criticism. For it is most likely that Heraclitus believes that the identity of the individual is preserved, after death, neither by a shade nor by the corpse. There are no shades, and the corpse is worthless. Thus when, in fr. 27, he declares that when men die there awaits them that which they neither hope nor expect, we have no reason to interpret this as a reference to eternal punish- ment. For the outcome which men, as far as we can tell, least expected and least desired was that there would, in fact, be nothing awaiting them. Various myths might lead them to anticipate punishment; most hoped for honor to the corpse and for some sort of 4uxZ-survival. "Nothing" is the most likely solution for Heraclitus' cryptic riddle.

Before we turn to a consideration of how Heraclitus' view of death influenced his teaching concerning human life, there is an important problem remaining in the death fragments, one which itself will throw light on the relationship between Heraclitus' eschatology and his ethical views. This is the association of pleasure with death in fr. 77: "It is pleasure or death for souls to become watery." We notice, first of all, that for the "water" of fr. 36 is substituted "watery." Presum- ably the parallel between pleasure and death can be drawn only if it is not specified that the 4uX' has been completely replaced by water. A man can be in a watery state and still be alive, so long as +u'm

7On these and related points, see Benardete, Agon. 8 Guthrie, p. 477. 9 Marcovich, p. 410. 10 Burnet, p. 151; Gigon, p. 133.

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remains and is not completely overwhelmed. Another fragment in which the same sort of parallel can, I think, be found is fr. 15, in which Heraclitus concludes: W-uroq 'ALayq XxL LtoLvuaoq, 0Ct ,LOLcVovL XOCL

kqvat~ouamv. Hades and Dionysus are here the gods of death and of pleasure respectively, and Heraclitus indicates that to be a follower of Dionysus, devoted to pleasure, is also to be a follower of Hades, devoted to death. Further, in fr. 117, a watery state of +u ' is associated with the self-indulgence of drunkenness, and in 118 goodness and wis- dom with dryness of +u J. In 112, temperance is called the greatest virtue. Fragment 4 implies that the pleasures of the body are bestial; 85 declares that 8-ut6k is difficult to combat, and buys what it wishes at the expense of +uXo Fr. 116 tells us that all men have a capacity for temperate living, which, we assume, is to be encouraged, as is self- knowledge. In general, then, both death and pleasure are described as involving the total or partial replacement of +uZ' by water; in this respect they are one. And indulgence in physical pleasures, is to be condemned as not conducive to the best (dry) state of 4ux.

The most difficult problem here is to understand why death, imposed by external necessity, ought to be compared with pleasure, or voluntary self-indulgence. All men die, and surely death is in no way disgraceful; the disgrace inherent in abandonment to pleasure lies precisely in the fact that it is subhuman, and that all men have the capacity to live more prudently. Kirk's attempt to circumvent this difficulty by postulating a fiery death for certain types of men'2 has grave difficulties, and is not helpful here. I think the parallel can be understood in terms of the nature of 4u j and the effect of both pleasure and death upon it. Fr. 117 describes the drunken man, with wet iu ', as being led, stumbling, by a small child, not knowing where he is going. The shamefulness of the wet state of 4u;v consists, ap- parently, in a loss of self-direction, self-awareneess, self-control. This is perfectly consistent with our picture of 4u x as the faculty respon-

11 If &u[?6q means anger here, as most commentators believe, this can be yet another example of how indulgence in one of the passions harms +uXt. &U,uk could, in fact, mean passion in a more general sense, but Ramnoux is right to observe (pp. 89-90) that the context in Plutarch, describing a hero dead in battle, suggests another interpretation: &utL6q is battle-ardor, 4uyx, is life: spiritedness involves the risk of life. Ramnoux herself suggests that the frag- ment refers to the expenditure of vital energy in procreation - a notion for which I see little evidence. 12 Kirk, AJP.

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sible for all sorts of connections among other faculties, the central source of intelligent energy, and the seat of linguistic understanding. In death, clearly, this central monitor has ceased to function, and a man is once again simply a collection of limbs. The obliteration of +uxn by water is complete. But, next to death, the state of extreme abandonment to rcp4Lq - either to drunkenness or to sexual pleasure -

might reasonably be considered as the state in which self-control and central awareness of self are most completely overwhelmed.'3 That this is Heraclitus' analysis of drunkenness we have already seen. And the same would be true, presumably, of abandonment to the orgiastic phallic rites described in fr. 15. But fragment 116, and the moral indignation involved in Heraclitus' critique of the intemperate, indi- cate that he views passion not as an external force as inexorable as death, but rather as controllable by moderation and the maintenance of a "dry" +uy. He seems to say that the obliteration of +uy' by water in death is necessary and therefore not shameful, but that to choose to lose one's self and the exercise of one's central faculty in life is bestial, and a disgrace to one's humanity.

Abandonment to bodily pleasure means temporary death, and death is the end of iuX 's existence.'4 Returning now to the question of individual immortality, we see that Heraclitus, having denied the continued existence of suy' and the sacredness of the corpse, does not for this reason conclude that the individual life is without significance. If each man is mortal, and nothing concrete survives his death, he ought to struggle, in life, to win a fame and glory among his fellow mortals that will accord him the only sort of immortality there is. Thus in fr. 29, Heracitus says:

octpeV'rol y&p &v &vrl &UrcVk&v o0t dpLm-rot, Xxog &kvaov 5VbT)Vv

ot 8A 7o?Xol xex6p7jvraL 6xcoa7TEp x'v9cX.

13 Pleasure-death parallels are of course not uncommon in Greek literature, and Frame discusses at length an underlying opposition in the Indo-European tradition between v6oq - light and gpo4 - darkness. (Cf. also my part I, n. 4). It is interesting to note that R. D. Laing, in his studies of schizoid and other mentally disturbed patients, points to a fear of being swollowed up in water as a common way in which patients express insecurity about their sense of identity. By contrast, in moments of self-possession a patient may often describe himself as "dry" (The Divided Self, 1965, p. 45). 14 Cf. also fr. 26, where sleep is said to touch on death. The sleeper, out of touch with the tuv6v, may also be described as lacking direction and self-awareness.

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Marcovich, in an extremely labored analysis,'5 insists that we must understand &v-qr6v as "mortal things," and supply &v'L, since the subjective genitive favored by Snell, Burnet, and others'6 is too harsh, and since we would have to supply 7cpo6 anyway to understand it as subjective. Now, first of all, the use of twv&x to mean "mortal things" is comparatively late; the basic use of Iv'rko is clearly with reference to men. The neuter is used only in cases where it could not be confused with the masculine, and usually in contexts where it plays against a masculine &vwqoL already mentioned. (Thus, for example, Eurip. Bacch. 1069: *voct& r oavr.oZt nTpet=L). The genitive here would be ambiguous, and the supplying of &v'TL seems to strain both syntax and sense. Secondly, the subjective genitive with the word xe'oq 1) does not require the supplying of 7rpo6 and 2) is not harsh, but instead, according to the distinguished Indo-Europeanist Gregory Nagy, in his discussion of the semantic development of x?ro4,'7 it is one of two possible constructions with the word x?'o4, and, indeed, the con- struction which it is most important to consider in order to determine the meaning of the word. A good example of the subjective genitive without preposition is at A 227: Vvrc xM:o4 'Lxe-c' 'AXxciiv, which Nagy translates: "He came (to Troy) so that the Achaeans would talk about him." Marcovich's second argument against this most natural interpretation of the fragment - that it leads to inconsistencies with fr. 24 - is also inappropriate, as we shall see later. Thus we may translate: "The best men choose one thing above all: ever-flowing x?sos among mortals; but the many are in a state of satiety, like cattle."

A consideration of Nagy's analysis of the history of the common epic formula xXeo p& abov'8 will help us to see how Heraclitus operates here within the context of tradition: how he reveals his awareness of the basic meaning of an ancient expression,19 and yet subtly alters its meaning. For &94yltOV, the word commonly used with KX;ok in Greek epic (as its cognate aksitam in Vedic is used with the Vedic cognate of

16 Marcovich, pp. 505-8. Also DK ad loc., Ramnoux, p. 113. 16 Burnet, p. 140; Snell, Heraklit, ad loc.; Kirk and Raven, p. 213; Guthrie, p. 477. 17 Nagy, pp. 79-80. Cf. also Benveniste, Vocabulaire II, pp. 58-9. 18 Ibid., esp. pp. 56-66, 79-80. 19 Frame, in his chapter on v6oq in Parmenides, argues that Parmenides, too, has understood the history of a group of words independently of, and more accurately than, Homer.

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xX6o;) means, historically and implicitly, what Heraclitus' &?avcov means explicitly: ever-flowing. It is used of streams of liquids of various sorts beneficial to human life; and the original usage of the expression x?1o; 4cp,'rov was, according to Nagy, to designate the professional craft possessed by the singer for the purpose of invoking streams of such liquids from the gods. At a later date the epithet came to be used to describe the song itself; but the importance of the gods, hearing the song is still implicit. Heraclitus, in using the word &6vcsov

with xXAo&, shows his awareness of the association of the ancient notion with flowing liquids. And if we consider his expression, as I think we must, in the light of his other famous statement about flowing liquids, we see how he corrects and enriches the old formula, and at the same time we can appreciate his emphasis upon fame among mortals.

Despite the difficulty of determining which version of the river fragment is original (and lack of space prevents a full inquiry into this subject here) I think it is possible to understand 49a, in combination with 91, to be saying, generally, that although there is no stable material constituent in a river - though the waters are always different - yet there is a sense in which the river is the same. Its identity does not depend on the preservation of the same waters. This conception may be what Heraclitus has in mind, again, in his discussion of ever- flowing fame: as a man's fame is handed down from generation to generation among mortals, it is constantly reinterpreted and re- expressed; it is never, in fact, the same. And yet, as the fame of one man, it is the same, and the changing continuity of human tradition does not destroy its identity. For example, no two people, throughout the centuries, have given the same account of the x&;os of Heraclitus. In one sense we might say that there is no such thing as the fame of Heracitus, since each expression of it has rather more to do with the living than with the dead. And yet there is a sense in which the fame of Heracitus, insofar as it engages the minds of the living, continues to live itself. If one denies all other sorts of preservation of individual identity after death, one sees that the only form of immortality

20 Frame (134 ff.) observes that Achilles' choice of x01oq (and hence his for- feiting of his v6GTo;) shows a lack of v6oo: "Homer has closely equated a "loss of mind" with "death."" So that, although we must recognize that Heraclitus' emphasis on xOEoq is not un-Homeric, we see that he accords it a new dignity: it is the single choice of the best. If one has insight, one chooses death rather than v6aroq, recognizing that xXkoq is the only real escape from death, the only immortality.

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available to men is the kinetic immortality of x?eog (and xX*oq, as Nagy notes, is traditionally used only of the fame won for good deeds). Each generation reinterprets tradition and builds upon it (cf. fr. 74), and a man's fame is immortal only insofar as it is ever-flowing, growing and changing in the minds and words of living men. To hunger after this kinetic xX6o4 is to continue, oneself, to strive and to grow, to escape the bestial existence of the satiated many.

We are now in a position to understand the emphasis on Aeos DvqTCv. For the gods, being staticaly immortal, always the same, have no share in this sort of kinetic immortality. The one sort of immortality precludes the other. I would like to see this as the sense of the cryptic fragment 62: &a&ivwtocL 4vIroE, tvrwrol &o4avaroL, ~c&vtg '69v ?x?Lvv b&Vmtov, TOv 8e iLVctv f3Cov t-ve&-eq. It seems likely, considering that 'xeNo4 generally refers to the further subject, and that neither Smyth nor Schwyzer gives an example of two successive exeLvog 's with different references (after all, he might easily have used okoq), that x[v&cov refers to mortals in both cases, and both Cv'oe and te-vN'req refer to immortals. Thus we may translate: "Mortals are immortal, immortals mortal, since they (immortals) are living with respect to the death of mortals, but are dead to their (mortals') life." This is probably the most straightforward way to understand the fragment; but the same interpretation can be reinforced by reading it in just the opposite way, and probably it is deliberately ambiguous so as to support both readings: "Immortals are mortal, mortals im- mortal, since they (mortals) are living with respect to the death of the immortals (i.e. the fact that immortals are dead to xA?oq &'vo'ov, which constitutes mortal immortality), but are dead with respect to their (immortals') (statically eternal) life.'"2' Each single reading of the sentence must, I think, refer rxe'Lvcv to a single subject; but two complementary readings are possible, and probably what Heraclitus intended.23

21 A similar point - that mortal life is, from another point of view, death - may possible be made in fr. 20. 2' Contrast Marcovich, pp. 240-241. Kirk (Archiv, p. 75) believes we have to decide whether to understand atav or ytyvov-rax in this fragment. But Benveniste has shown convincingly in his article "La phrase nominale" that no verb need be supplied in such cases: "Si la phrase nominale peut d6finir une ov6rit6 g6n6- rale. c'est parce qu'elle exclut toute forme verbale qui particulariserait l'expres- sion." (p. 167).

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To say that gods and men have separate types of immortality is not to deny all connection between mortal deeds and the gods. The gods do not give X?0oq to men, but they do give honor, as we see in fr. 24, to certain men: "Both gods and men honor those who die in battle." Marcovich23 believes that eol Ttptca alludes to some sort of concrete posthumous reward; but this sense can be extracted only if one has already concluded, as has Marcovich, that Heraclitus believes in some sort of immortality of +u Guthrie's comment is appropriate here: "Fr. 24... has also been adduced as evidence for posthumous survival and reward, but need mean no more than that death in battle is thought glorious, and the memory of the slain respected by gods as it undoubtedly is by their fellow-mortals.24 Liddell and Scott list the meaning "award, or give as an honor" as a rare one for tr.uo&; far more usual is the simple meaning to honor.25 And when gods are depicted, in Homer, as giving n[L' to mortals, this consists in respect, not in any gift of immortality; in fact the giving of honor is often directly related to the god's recognition that the man is not immortal, and never can be. For example, at 0 610:

aUT6q yap OL &7r' OaUOq t EV M[LUV6Ca)p

Z6u4, o5 ULv nXe6vaaL [LCT' &v6pckatv jxo5vov U6vrm

t[L xl XuO 8OLVC .L LVUV? 8lO yap I texxcv

(Here, the x68ouve, presumably, represents the granting of distinction motivated by the granting of respect -

Why should Heracitus single out death in battle as likely to win men honor from the gods, and why should the gods pay particular heed to the virtue of warlike courage? Perhaps at least a partial explanation lies in the fact that this sort of courage (frequently represented in Homer and elsewhere as the willingness to risk one's

uy') is one virtue which the gods are most clearly incapable of possessing. If there is no risk of life, there is, essentially, no bravery. When Ares describes the risk he took in battle, and the dangers con- fronting him, there is, inevitably, a note of parody. A mortal man in

23 Marcovich, p. 510. 24 Guthrie, p. 477. 25 Cf. Benveniste, Vocab. II, p. 50: "La traduction de timd par 'recompense' est impropre." Benveniste concludes that the central notion of 't%L is the rec- ognition of heroic dignity, especially by the gods. It is distinguished from y&pos, a material reward given by mortals.

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his situation would say, "I might either have lost my life or have been alive but badly wounded." Ares can only say:

1 T xe 8qp6v oCU-05 iovzr' 9cmzaxov kV octvjtav vweaaLBev

xC X (? 4X6LeVV6 got XOCXXOZO 'TunfaLV. (E 885-7)226

A being for whom the ultimate risk is that of suffering pain among the corpses might well honor the courage of a man who risks becoming a corpse, and loses his life because of his acceptance of this risk.

Courage is the virtue which is most obviously connected with aware- ness of mortality, and in terms of which the difference between an eter- nally living being and a living being doomed to die can most readily be seen. But Heraclitus seems to have felt that the question of mortality was central to all ethical questions, and that the gods, being outside the polar opposition between life and death, are also outside the other oppositions that are central to human life. In fr. 102 he declares: "To the god all things are beautiful and good and just; but men have taken some things to be unjust, and some things to be just." Kirk's inter- pretation of this fragment27 is that Heraclitus declares the view of the god - the comprehension of the essential unity of opposites - to be the more profound; the analytic view taken by men is essentially in- correct. I think this betrays a misunderstanding both of this fragment and of what Heraclitus says about opposites. Heraclitus never says that, because pairs of opposites form a continuum and must be under- stood together, there is not a perfectly good use for both terms in the pair; nor does he suggest that our language would be more correct if we used only one of each pair of opposites. We must understand the relativity of relative terms, but this does not mean we ought not to use them. The fact that injustice and justice are incomprehensible in isolation from each other is no justification for calling every action a just one. Ethical judgments are relative, but they must be made; and the recognition of the relative nature of our ethical terms should not trick us into believing they are meaningless.

The fragment's intent is not to advocate the god's course of action as one which men would take if they were wise, but rather to reveal in yet another way the consequences of the god's immortality in ethical terms. I think Heraclitus' meaning is that men's awareness of their

21 Cf. Benardete, p. 32. 27 Kirk, HCF, p. 166.

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mortality determines their views both of ethics and of language. The feeling of the opposition between life and death is basic to all ethical polarities, and the concept of injustice is one that a being who is immortal and omnipotent cannot form.28 What can seem unjust to a god, who understands that nothing can ever take away his life, or surrender him to the power of time and fate? Injustice, then, is seen to ultimately connected with the taking of life. And men, who can kill and be killed, have a need for ethical oppositions which the gods do not. There is something essentially playful in the deeds of the gods; and their synthetic view is appropriate to them only, and not to mortals. Mortals have, one might say, created ethical oppositions in language in the image of the inexorable life-death opposition which is funda- mental to their existence.

We recall that 4uxn, the faculty by virtue of which men have understanding of linguistic oppositions, is also that by virtue of which they are mortal. The gods, traditionally - and, as far as we can see, in Heraclitus too - do not have 4Uvx.29 If all fire necessarily becomes water, and if for the fire-substitute, +u ', to become water is to be annil ilated, we cannot understand how an immortal, unchanging being can have iux. The gods have language of some sort, and some sort of central faculty; but these cannot be the same as their mortal counterparts. Thus we see yet a new dimension to the opposition be- tween mortals and immortals set up in fragment 62: by virtue of their being alive with respect to the death of men, the gods are dead, not only to the mortal immortality of suZ', but also to the essential features of human language and human life.

We see, then, that the notion of mortality is basic in several ways to Heraclitus' understanding of human life, and that, rejecting notions of psychic immortality, he emphasizes the winning of fame by deeds of virtue. We have attempted to elucidate the nature of this fame, and the view of ethical polarities which is related to it. There is, however, one more fragment which has often been cited as evidence that Heraclitus does, after all, believe that good men are rewarded with

28 Ramnoux, too, connects Heraclitus' understanding of opposites with the awareness of mortality (p. 17 ff.), but she suggests, I think wrongly, that his purpose is to take the fearfulness out ol night, death, etc. Cf. also fr. 20, which emphasizes the way in which the life of each man from birth is a progress towards death: the awareness of mortality is a central factor even in pro- creation. "I Cf. part I, n. 4.

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some sort of psychic immortality. The fragment is obscure, and can never be conclusively interpreted; but there are several points, at least, which may be worth discussion.

Fr. 63, from Hippolytus, Refutatio, IX. 10. va 8'6Vrt inxotamaONL xact caxxocxcq yEyveacAam lycp') ~c,vrcjv xxi vexpC&v.

Hippolytus here is attempting to refute the Noetian heresy by demon- strating that it is based on Heracitean doctrine. He introduces this fragment by saying that it speaks of the resurrection of the flesh, and calls god responsible for this resurrection. It seems, then, to be in Hippolytus' interest to make the fragment sound, insofar as possible, as if it is talking about some such thing; and it does not seem that Hippolytus was too scrupulous to doctor or alter a fragment to suit his own purposes, particularly if the change would involve merely an addition of several words to the fragment's end. Now the phrase

Wvrwv xGC vexp&v has an oddly Christian ring. Marcovich even trans- lates it using the familiar liturgical phrase "the quick and the dead." vexpoE is the usual, and in fact, I believe, the only word for "the dead" in the New Testament, and in passages such as 2 Tim. 4.1 and Peter 4.5 it is coupled with CwVT?e in contexts discussing the resurrection of the flesh. vexpoL at the time of Heraclitus, however, meant only "corpses,"30 while vexue? could mean either corpses or shades in Hades. v'xuq seems to have been the more common word for "corpse" in Ionic, and Heraclitus nowhere else uses vexp6. If he had used vexpoL here, it must have meant "corpses," and, considering the attitude he expresses towards corpses in fr. 96, it would be surprising that he should speak of guardians for them. I would, therefore, like to suggest that xocL vexpxv is an addition made by Hippolytus, in order to give the fragment a ring of similarity to the contemporary writings which he wishes to refute.31

30 In four out of the sixty-six occurrences in Homer (three being the same for- mula) vexp6q seems to mean "shade." But all these are plurals in line-final position, where metrical pressure would explain the anomaly. vkxuq is used freely in both meanings. 31 It is difficult, however, to understand precisely Hippolytus' motives for including this fragment at all, since he himself believed emphatically in the resurrection of the flesh (see Commentary on Daniel, II. xxvii), and would not want to brand his own doctrine as dependent on pagan speculation. His argu- ment, though he may not have realized it, does him as much harm as it does his opponents.

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If we consider the fragment as ending with ~CovT&v, we must, I think, also understand Cysp'r differently. Usually it has been taken as a reference to the waking state of the guardians; and since EyrLp& and its derivatives are commonly used of resurrection in the New Testament, Hippolytus probably understood it in the same way - another reason why he felt no compunctions about adding vexpFv. But I think it is much more natural, especially if the fragment ends with 4v'wov, to understand it with co v.32 Thus we have: "There, before the one who is, (or before the one who is there) (that) they arise and become guardians of those who live wakefully."

The fact that the fragment is in indirect discourse causes great difficulties. We cannot tell whether Heracitus is expressing his own view or that of another; neither do we know whether he agrees or dis- agrees with the view expressed. I would like merely to show that, even if we understand it as his view, or a view he supports, it need not be seen as evidence of any sort of resurrection. The similarity to the Hesiodic discussion of aa[009?, pointed out by Marcovich and others,33 is probably deliberate. But there are also dissimilarities. If one takes the mysterious r6v't literally, and not as a mystical formula of some sort, it seems to imply that the being appeared to has real being in a way that the being doing the appearing does not; otherwise to say "the one who is" would not be to offer a useful sort of identification. I think it is possible to regard the passage as descriptive, metaphori- cally, of the effect of the x04oq and the example of the dead upon the man who is actually living, and living wakefully enough to be cognizant of their fame. The images of the dead men (which do not exist, except in the minds of the living) rise up before the man who actually is (or is there), and become guardians for such men as live wakefully. The intent is not to reproduce the Hesiodic picture, but to correct it in the light of Heraclitus' views of Puyx

This is, admittedly, speculation, and serves merely to show that this fragment can be interpreted in various ways, and cannot be taken as basic or strong evidence for theories of resurrection of sux. Without this fragment, there is no evidence at all that Heraclitus envisioned such a resurrection, and copious evidence that he did not.

In conclusion, we may say that the Heraclitean doctrine of 4uXn

32 Ramnoux (p. 60), though she keeps vexp&v, also understands &yep-ri with 46vmwv: "devenir gardiens - juges pour les vivants-en-6veil et pour les cadavres." as Marcovich, pp. 395-8. See Hes. Op. 107, 122, 252.

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amounts to a radical and profoundly creative critique of traditional ideas about man's faculties, his language, and his death. For the first time, apparently, in the history of Greek thought, man is seen, explicitly, as having a central "self": a single, vital faculty in terms of which sense-perception, language, ethical behavior, and, ultimately, death, must be understood. As the cosmos, articulated into a plurality of species, is, nonetheless, one through the all connecting ?O6yoq of fire, so a man, though he has many faculties, is one by virtue of the central, connecting faculty of 4ux4 This cosmic analogy, though it raises difficult questions, does not cause Heraclitus to arrive at a mechanistic or deterministic understanding of human behavior. Instead, he emphasizes the capacity of each man for self-seeking and self-knowl- edge, and teaches the importance of self-restraint, of the dry 4u . Man's potential for self-development in terms of 4uyX is unlimited; and understanding leads to new understanding. Heraclitus' iux' theory recognizes death as necessary and denies posthumous survival. And yet it accords to man the possibility of the kinetic immortality of xX'o4, which even the immortal gods cannot attain. And because

4uy' embraces the notions of mortality, of language, of the essential nature of human life, Heraclitus is led to reappraise the nature of the language and life of immortal beings, and to conclude that these must be very different in quality from the life and language of men, governed by the mortal 4ux4

Harvard University

BIBLIOGRAPHY: PART II

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Benveaiste, ]Emile. "La Phrase nominale." Problemes de Linguistique g6ntrale. Paris, 1966. Pp. 151-167. Le Vocabulaire des Institutions Indo-europlennes. Vol. 2: Pouvoir, Droit, Religion. Paris, 1969.

Bumet, J. Early Greek Philosophy. 3rd edition, London, 1920. Pp. 130-168. Diels, Hermann, and Kranz, Walther. Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. Dublin-

Zurich, 14th edition, 1969. Vol. I pp. 139-190. Frame, Douglas Gordon. The Origins of Greek NOOE. Dissertation, Harvard,

1971. Gigon, Olof. Untersuchungen zu Heraklit. Leipzig, 1935. Guthrie, W. K. C. A History of Greek Philosophy. Cambridge, 1962. Vol. I pp.

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Kirk, G. S. "Heracitus' Contribution to the development of a language for Philosophy." Archiv fur Begriffsgeschichte 9 (1964). Pp. 73-77.

- Heraclitus: the Cosmic Fragments. Cambridge, 1954. (Cited as Kirk, HCF). - "Heracitus and Death in Battle." AJP 70 (1949). Kirk, G. S. and Raven, J. E. The Pre-Socratic Philosophers. Cambridge, 1957.

Pp. 182-215. Marcovich, M. Heraclitus. Merida, Venezuela, 1967. Nagy, Gregory. Indo-European Poetics. Volume 1. Metre. Chaptei III, "The

Semantic Context of Rig-Vedic ?raaa(s) sksitam and Greek xOloq #4,troV."

Forthcoming. Ramnoux, Cl6mence. Heraclite, ou l'homme entre les Choses et les Mots. Paris, 1959. Snell, Bruno. Heraklit: Fragmente. Munich, 1926. Tugwell, Simon. "Heraclitus: Fragment 98 (DK). " Classical Quarterly 21 (1971).

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