Good Works Translation from Ancient Greek

This page translates Kern fragment 226 from the Orphic Sacred Discourses in Twenty-Four Rhapsodies. The witness is Clement of Alexandria, who quotes an Orphic sequence on soul, water, earth, and aether, then compares Heraclitus' related saying about soul becoming water, water becoming earth, and water again becoming soul.

Translation

Kern Fr. 226 — The Exchanges of Soul and Water

Clement says that Orpheus made these verses:

Water is death for soul; death is an exchange into waters.
From water comes earth, and from earth again water.
From this, soul changes the whole aether.

Clement then says that Heraclitus, composing his words from these, writes something like this:

For souls, death is to become water;
for water, death is to become earth.
From earth water comes to be,
and from water, soul.

Colophon

This Good Works translation was made from Otto Kern's Orphicorum fragmenta (Berlin: Weidmann, 1922), fr. 226, in the section headed "Hieroi logoi en rhapsodiais ka'." Kern's numbering is retained.

The source witness translated here is Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, as printed by Kern.

Source Text

Kern Fr. 226 — Clement of Alexandria

Clement of Alexandria, Stromata:

Ὀρφέως δὲ ποιήσαντος·

ἔστιν ὕδωρ ψυχῆι θάνατος, θάνατος δ' ὑδάτεσσιν ἀμοιβή,
ἐκ δὲ ὕδατος γαῖα, τὸ δ' ἐκ γαίης πάλιν ὕδωρ·
ἐκ τοῦ δὴ ἡ ψυχὴ ὅλον αἰθέρα ἀλλάσσουσα.

Ἡράκλειτος ἐκ τούτων συνιστάμενος τοὺς λόγους ὧδέ πως γράφει·

ψυχῆισιν θάνατος ὕδωρ γενέσθαι,
ὕδατι δὲ θάνατος γῆν γενέσθαι,
ἐκ γῆς δὲ ὕδωρ γίνεται,
ἐξ ὕδατος δὲ ψυχή.