“For already, sometime, I have been a boy and a girl, a shrub, a bird, and a silent fish in the sea.”

—  Empedocles

fr. 117
Variant translations:
Once on a time a youth was I, and I was a maiden/A bush, a bird, and a fish with scales that gleam in the ocean.
tr. Jane Ellen Harrison
Purifications
Source: Harrison, Jane Ellen. (1903). Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. Princeton University Press. p. 590.

Original

ἤδη γάρ ποτ’ ἐγὼ γενόμην κοῦρός τε κόρη τε/θάμνος τ’ οἰωνός τε καὶ ἔξαλος ἔλλοπος ἰχθύς.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Empedocles photo
Empedocles 18
ancient Greek philosopher -490–-430 BC

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