I first met Parmenides – together with Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and the other great Presocratics – in a German translation by Wilhelm Nestle, famous as the editor of the later editions of Zeller's magnum opus. I was 15 or 16 years old, and I was overwhelmed by the meeting. The verses that I liked best were Parmenides' story of Selene's love for radiant Helios . But I did not like it that the translation made the moon male and the sun female (...) , and it occurred to me to give the couplet in German a title like ‘Moongoddess and Sungod’, or perhaps ‘Selene and Helios’, in order to rectify the genders. So I began fiddling about with the translations. The volume, which I still possess, shows many traces of this. (shrink)

The relation between imagery and philosophy in the poem of Parmenides has occasioned much discussion in recent years. One item of particular import has been the direction taken by the journey that was so inspiringly pictured in the opening section. Is the travel upwards? Or is it downwards? Or is it rather cross-country, either aloft, or on the earth’s surface, or in the depths of the nether world? Further, if there is cross travel on any of these three levels, is (...) the direction from east to west, or from west to east? (shrink)