Page:Philosophical & Other Essays.pdf/39

 HERAKLEITOS 3 tion and construction "-this is how the supreme principle acts (Gomperz: Greek Thinkers I. 64). Even though, therefore, we have some justification for calling Herakleitos a weeping philosopher, we have still more justification for calling him a philosopher who made other people weep. We know how he inveighed against all his predecessors, Homer and Hesiod, and Pythagoras and Xenophanes, and the rest. About Homer, he said that he deserved to be turned out of the lists and whipped with lashes: τὸν ῞Ομηρον ἄξιον ἐκ τῶν αγώνων ³xßúλdeodzı kai p×nifer. Pythagoras, he said, made a ἐκβάλλεσθαι καὶ ῥαπίζεσθαι. wisdom of his own--much learning and bad art = ΙΙυϑαγόρης ἐποίησε ἑωυτοῦ σοφίην, πολυμαθίην, κακοτεχνίην. About. Hesiod, and Pythagoras, and Xenophanes, as a whole, he says that their much learning had not yet taught them understanding : "much learning teacheth not under- standing, else it would have taught Hesiod and Pytha- goras, and again Xenophanes" : Tovudin voor exelv oir πολυμαθίη νόον ἔχειν διδάσκει. Ἡσίοδον γὰρ ἄν ἐδίδαξε καὶ Πυθαλόρην αὖτίς τε Ξενοφάνεια. It is worth while remembering that Herakleitos inveighs. against Pythagoras in this strain, even though he was indebted to him for the idea of the lyre of which he made an important use in his system, as we shall see later on, and that he criticised Xenophanes in spite of Xenophanes similar attitude towards Homer and Hesiod, who, in his opinion, "ascribed to the Gods all things that are a shame and a disgrace even among mortals-stealings and adulteries, and deceivings of one another." In the light of such severe criticisms it would be better to call Herakleitos a philosopher who did not himself weep.. but made other people weep; an oxhohoidopos who railed. at the people, a veritable fire-breathing philosopher like his later compeer--Nietzsche. . 6