ABSTRACT 
 
 
 
Title of Dissertation: ?I SHALL TELL A DOUBLE TALE?: 
EMPEDOCLEAN MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM IN 
THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 
  
 Garth Libhart, Doctor of Philosophy, 2022 
  
  
  
Dissertation Directed By: Professor Gerard Passannante 
Department of English 
 
The Pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles (ca. 484?ca. 424 BCE) is remembered both as 
an enraged fool who leapt into a volcano to prove he was a god, and as a philosopher who 
radically suggested everything is made of matter (DK107). In the fragments of his poetry, he 
admits to telling a ?double tale,? potentially nodding to the indistinct ontological vision 
embedded in his work and underscoring the way his poetry shifts between materialist and idealist 
frames of reference (DK17.1). I argue that Empedocles? perspectival relativism is an alternative 
entry point into the problem of materialism for early modern thinkers, freeing them from the 
burden of strict philosophical commitment and enabling them to think in materialist terms with 
less anxiety about succumbing to physical determinism. For scholars of early modern literature, 
the Empedoclean double tale helps root the period?s tendency for perspectival indeterminacy 
within a specific humanistic tradition. This dissertation is organized as three long chapters, each 
offering a unique moment in the reception of Empedocles? blurry ontology. In Chapter One, I 
argue that Philemon Holland?s 1603 translation of Plutarch?s Moralia represents a watershed 
moment for Empedoclean influence in English literary history. My analysis demonstrates that, 
while the discredited story of Empedocles jumping into a volcano to prove he was a god 
 
continues to be an attention-grabbing part of the philosopher?s legacy in the Renaissance, the 
seventeenth century witnesses an increasing interest in his actual philosophy. Specifically, early 
modern writers draw inspiration from Empedocles? theory of effluence?the idea that the four 
elements emanate tiny particles of a similar composition?as they contemplate monist possibility 
(DK89). Illustrating this, in Chapter Two, I read Shakespeare?s Antony and Cleopatra (1607) as 
an exploration of the world in flux, showing how one of Shakespeare?s likely sources for the 
play, Plutarch?s treatise on Isis and Osiris in the Moralia, uses the idea of effluence to negotiate 
between the myth?s dualistic and monistic aspects. This enables me to propose that, in Antony 
and Cleopatra, Shakespeare undergirds moments like Cleopatra?s elementally framed suicide 
with the dynamic ?double tale? of Empedoclean ontology, portraying her immortal aspiration in 
simultaneously materialist and transcendent terms. Finally, in Chapter Three, I turn to John 
Milton?s Paradise Lost (1667), which directly alludes to Empedocles? volcanic suicide when 
Satan encounters the ghost of Empedocles, floating in Limbo, during his journey from hell to 
earth. Showing how Milton draws on key ideas from Empedocles? philosophy in the process of 
critiquing his immortal longing, I argue that the episode is underwritten by the philosopher?s 
perspectival relativism. The chapter then reconsiders the monist materialism of Paradise Lost 
through an Empedoclean lens, suggesting that the Pre-Socratic philosopher?s unusual blend of 
dualistic and monistic ideation can help negotiate between divergent critical responses to 
Milton?s idiosyncratic materialism. Ultimately, the dissertation reveals how early modern writers 
take inspiration from Empedocles? fluid movement between materialism and idealism, freed 
from the limitations of rigid philosophical commitment and binary choice. 
 
 ?I SHALL TELL A DOUBLE TALE?:  
 
EMPEDOCLEAN MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM IN THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 
 
 
 
by 
 
 
Garth Libhart 
 
 
 
 
Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the  
University of Maryland, College Park, in Partial Fulfillment  
of the Requirements for the Degree of  
Doctor of Philosophy 
2022 
 
 
 
 
Advisory Committee: 
 
 Professor Gerard Passannante, Chair 
 Associate Professor Kimberly Coles 
Professor Andrea Frisch 
 Associate Professor David Carroll Simon 
 Associate Professor Scott Trudell 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
? 2022  
Copyright by 
Garth Libhart 
 ii 
 
 
For Elyse 
 iii 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
 
I am grateful for the intellectual fellowship and community at the University of Maryland 
that has supported the development of this dissertation. I especially wish to acknowledge my 
dissertation advisory committee, whose insights and encouragement informed this project in 
countless ways. Thank you to my advisor and committee chair Gerard Passannante, whose 
extraordinary knowledge, warmth, and equanimity were the guiding lights of my graduate school 
experience. I will continue to learn from your inspiring combination of intellectual rigor and 
ataraxia, which has been an immensely positive influence. Thank you to David Carroll Simon 
for the insightful, supportive conversations and helpful feedback on chapter drafts. Scott Trudell 
provided scholarly guidance and moral support throughout my time at the University. Kimberly 
Coles offered crucial insights about the history of religion and philosophy that are reflected in 
these pages. I am also grateful to Andrea Frisch for joining the committee as Dean?s 
Representative, and for her willingness to join the defense remotely from overseas. Other faculty 
have lent me their time and wisdom, adding much to my intellectual life. Kellie Robertson 
expanded my knowledge of book history and medieval literature, and provided feedback on my 
early dissertation drafts. I am also indebted to Laura Rosenthal, Amanda Bailey, Theresa Coletti, 
Donna Hamilton, Tita Chico, Ralph Bauer, Matthew Kirschenbaum, Chanon Adsanatham, 
Jessica Enoch, Martha Nell Smith, Robert Levine, Vincent Carretta, Karen Nelson, and GerShun 
Avilez, who all made contributions to my scholarly and pedagogical development.  
Beyond the University of Maryland, several scholars have enriched my graduate study. I 
am grateful to Reid Barbour for his astonishingly educative seminar on Francis Bacon at the 
Folger Shakespeare Library in 2018??After the Great Instauration??which deeply enriched my 
understanding of early modern science, literature, and philosophy. I am thankful to Owen 
 
iv 
Williams and Kathleen Lynch for designing and leading the Folger Shakespeare Institute?s 
orientation course for early career scholars, which significantly improved my archival research 
and book history skills. The conversations held during the ?Shakespeare and the Elements? 
seminar at the 2021 meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America, for which I shared an 
early version of the dissertation?s Shakespeare chapter, helped broaden my understanding of 
early modern elementalism and its relationship to a range of scholarly conversations. Feedback 
from the seminar?s organizer, Katherine B. Atti?, as well as my seminar paper readers Michael 
Schoenfeldt and Hannah Korell, was especially valuable. I wish also to thank Drew Daniel, who 
shared a portion of his forthcoming monograph with me.    
I have learned so much from the conversation and fellowship of my graduate student 
colleagues at Maryland and beyond, especially Melanie Rio, Hillary Roegelein, Liam Daley, 
Andy Yeh, April Fuller, Danielle Griffin, Justin Thompson, Tamar Leroy, Sara Faradji, 
Elizabeth Catchmark, William Gonch, Jeffrey Griswold, Jonathan Williams, Manon Soulet, Tim 
Bruno, Setsuko Yokoyama, Halla Khalil, Konstantinos Pozoukidis, John MacIntosh, Kristofer 
Reed, Nancy Vera, Cameron Mozafari, Jeffrey Moro, Adam Neff, and the members of the 
English Department?s fall 2021 dissertation workshop. Thank you to my longtime friend, Jordan 
Musser, for the countless inspiring conversations. In a similar key, Bill Smith and I have been 
having perspective-shifting discussions since elementary school, and I am enormously grateful 
for our interdisciplinary friendship in adulthood. And I especially wish to thank Justine 
DeCamillis, who was in the English doctoral cohort ahead of mine at Maryland, and who 
provided incredibly helpful guidance and support as I navigated this process, including offering 
feedback on the Shakespeare chapter. 
 
v 
 I was fortunate to encounter several scholars prior to graduate school who significantly 
shaped my intellectual experience. For meeting with me as a high school student and 
encouraging me to pursue literary studies in college, thank you to Michael Anesko. A whole 
panoply of professors at my undergraduate alma mater, Susquehanna University, provided 
generous guidance and encouragement during the formative years of my studies. For example, 
the late Susan Bowers welcomed me to the academic study of literature with a warmth that made 
me feel immediately supported and inspired. Rachana Sachdev?s courses on Shakespeare and 
early modern literature deepened my interest in Renaissance language and culture and helped lay 
a foundation for my later research. Drew Hubbell, who also received his doctorate from the 
University of Maryland?s Department of English, provided friendly advice and encouragement as 
I began my graduate studies. My intellectual experience was further enriched by the courses I 
took and discussions I had with Lynn Palermo, Laurence Roth, Caroline Wakaba Futamura, 
Warren Funk, Cymone Fourshey, Karen Mura, Betsy Verhoeven, Karol Weaver, and the late 
Amy Winans. And thank you especially to my undergraduate advisor, Randy Robertson, for his 
inspiring teaching and scholarly generosity, and for guiding me toward graduate study with 
wisdom and warmth.  
 Several outstanding people from earlier in my educational journey deserve special 
recognition. Thank you to my high school English teacher, Kristen Wickenheiser, for her 
inspiring Shakespeare lessons, and for encouraging me to pursue a literature Ph.D. For teaching 
me four years of Latin, thank you to Joan Johnson. Zahid Virmani instilled a fascination with 
ancient history and culture that continues to permeate my work. And for substantially shaping 
my identity as a writer, thank you to Melissa Byers and Dorothy Carpenter. 
 
vi 
 The process of completing a Ph.D. would have been far less joyful had I not been 
surrounded by the laughter and companionship of amazing friends, far too many to name in full 
here. But thank you especially to Andy Prestwich, Toby Schwartzman, Sarah Bentley, Christian 
Pranitis, Sabah Bhatnagar, Dustin Hilton, Ian Carr, Philip Hacker, Kelly Becker, Dan Prestwich, 
Joan Prince, and Jennifer Stroh.  
 And finally, I am grateful to my family. Thank you to my parents, Cynthia Libhart and 
William Libhart, for steadfastly supporting my education and encouraging my passion for 
literature. To my parents-in-law, Lisa and Norman Martin, thank you for all the support, meals, 
and encouragement. The late Henry Libhart and the late Byron Libhart were a profound source 
of inspiration early in my life, helping me realize my love of language and ideas. I would also 
like to acknowledge the support and encouragement of Rebecca Cargas, Chip Cargas, Karl 
Libhart, Aaron Cargas, and my older brothers, Gabe Libhart and Ian Libhart. Most of all, I am 
grateful for the love and support of my spouse, Elyse Martin, who shares my fascination with 
literature and delight in the craft of writing. I am so thankful to have you by my side as I realize 
this lifelong dream.  
 vii 
 
 
Table of Contents                          
 
 
    Page 
 
                   
Dedication??????????????????????????????????ii 
 
 
Acknowledgements??????????????????????????????iii 
 
 
Table of Contents??????????????????????????????...vii 
 
 
Introduction: Empedocles? Double Tale?????????????????.?????.1 
 
 
Chapter One: Echoes of Empedocles in the Age of Shakespeare???????...????...26 
 
 
Chapter Two: Empedoclean Effluence and Analogy in Shakespeare?s Antony and Cleopatra?61 
 
 
Chapter Three: Milton?s Empedoclean Materialism in Paradise Lost??????????123 
 
 
Appendix: A Map of Milton?s Empedocles????????????????????.233 
 
 
Bibliography????????????????????????????????246
1 
Introduction:  
Empedocles? Double Tale 
 
 
The Pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles (ca. 484?ca. 424 BCE) takes on many guises 
in early modern England. In one moment, he?ll appear a bombastic fool who threw himself 
headlong into a volcano to prove he was a god immortal; in the next, a quasi-materialist sage 
who insists that ?all things,? even thoughts, are made only from earth, water, fire, and air. At one 
turn, he?ll emerge as a mystical healer with the power to control the elements; at the next as a 
transmigrating d?mon, exiled from the elements he elsewhere commandeers. He?s a divinely 
inspired epic poet praised by the Epicurean Lucretius, a stereotypically mad poet lambasted by 
Horace, and according to another ancient commentator, not a poet at all. He?s remembered as 
both divinely obsessed and committed to political revolution?a materialist prophet who 
dissolves tyrannies, like his philosophy dissolves elemental hierarchies as it transits between the 
many and the one. In short, the legacy and reception of Empedocles occasions a jumble of 
perspectives, often apparently contradictory ones. In fact, one could describe the textual 
afterlives of Empedocles in the Renaissance the same way John Milton describes the four 
elements in Paradise Lost, as ?multiform and mix[ed].?1   
 
 
1 I am quoting from Milton, ?Paradise Lost,? in The Riverside Milton, ed. Roy Flannagan 
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998), book five, line 182, hereafter cited parenthetically by book 
and line number. As I discuss throughout the chapters below, the myth of Empedocles? volcanic 
suicide was created by the ancient Greek biographer Diogenes Laertius, who is also a source 
(along with Plutarch) for the philosopher?s reputation as a political revolutionary. For 
Empedocles? claim that everything, including thought, is made of the four elements, see 
Empedocles, The Poem of Empedocles, trans. Brad Inwood (Toronto: University of Toronto 
Press, 2001), DK107. Except when otherwise noted, I quote Inwood?s translation of the 
fragments. However, I always refer to the fragments by the older Diels-Kranz (DK) numbering 
2 
 While these eclectic images of Empedocles are partially due to his unstable biographic 
tradition, they also reflect a defining feature of his poetic vision: a perspectival motion between 
materialist and idealist frames of reference, one that invites readers to hold together notions that 
are often presented as incompatible.2 As a result, the fragments create an ontological blur 
between idealism and materialism, offering Renaissance readers a classical framework for 
contemplating materialism and divine possibility together. This frees them from the burden of 
strict philosophical commitment, enabling them to think in materialist terms with less anxiety 
about succumbing to physical determinism. As I hinted above, in one fragment, Empedocles 
attributes everything to material substance, claiming even the mental activities of thought and 
perception are elemental phenomena; yet in another fragment, he appears to espouse 
Pythagorean metempsychosis, declaring himself a reincarnated being who has ?already become a 
boy and a girl / and a bush and a bird and fish??3 The two images appear to conflict, one 
 
 
system, rather than Inwood?s revised numeration, because the Diels-Kranz model is still the most 
widely cited. Any quotations of the fragments I make in ancient Greek are taken from the text in 
the Loeb edition. See Andr? Laks and Glenn W. Most, eds., ?Empedocles,? in Early Greek 
Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016), vol. V. For Empedocles? self-
identification as a d?monic exile from the elements, see DK115. For Lucretius? praise of 
Empedocles as a sacred poet, see my discussion below. And for the charge that Empedocles was 
not a poet, see Scholiast on Dionysius of Thrace, in Greek Elegiac Poetry: From the Seventh to 
the Fifth Centuries BC (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 35?6. I discuss these 
motley valences of Empedocles? legacy at greater length in the chapters that follow. 
 
2 By ?materialist,? I mean views ?which hold that all entities and processes are composed of?or 
are reducible to?matter, material forces or physical processes.? In the conventional view, 
materialism is thus usually ?allied with atheism or agnosticism.? In contrast, ?idealist? 
philosophies hold that ?mind is the most basic reality and that the physical world exists only as 
an appearance to or expression of mind, or as somehow mental in its inner essence.? See T. L. S. 
Sprigge, ?idealism,? and George J. Stacke, ?materialism,? both in The Concise Routledge 
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 2000). 
 
3 See Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK107 & DK117. I examine these fragments in greater detail 
in the chapters that follow. 
3 
suggesting that thought has no basis outside the four elements, the other implying that 
Empedocles? own mind is capable of transcending matter, his subjective identity transmigrating 
across a whole host of life forms. While it?s possible to interpret the ?reincarnation? fragment 
along the lines of a radical materialism?reading Empedocles? claim to past lives as a statement 
only about the endless swirl of elemental combination, dissolution, and recombination?it 
nonetheless evokes the possibility of material transcendence, an idea reinforced elsewhere in 
Empedocles? poetry when he claims to be an incorporeal d?mon in exile from matter.4 When he 
claims in one fragment that mind derives from matter, and then claims in another that his own 
mind has crossed material forms, Empedocles exemplifies the unwieldy union of materialist and 
idealist perspectives embedded throughout his poetry.  
I refer to this unwieldy twofold vision as Empedocles? ?double tale,? a phrase that 
Empedocles himself uses to describe the movement of elements in his system which are under 
the sway of the opposing forces Love and Strife: 
????? ????? ???? ??? ??? ?? ?????? ????? ????? 
?? ???????, ???? ?? ?? ????? ?????? ?? ???? ?????. 
???? ?? ?????? ???????, ???? ?? ?????????? 
??? ??? ??? ?????? ??????? ?????? ?? ?????? ??, 
? ?? ????? ??????????? ????????? ??????. 
??? ????? ?????????? ????????? ?????? ?????, 
?????? ??? ???????? ??????????? ??? ?? ??????, 
?????? ?? ?? ???? ?????? ????????? ??????? ?????. 
 
 
4 See DK115, which I discuss at length in Chapter One. 
4 
 
[I shall tell a double tale. For at one time [they] grew to be one alone 
from many, and at another, again, [they] grew apart to be many from one. 
And there is a double coming to be of mortals and a double waning; 
for the coming together of [them] all gives birth to and destroys the one,  
while the other, as [they] again grow apart, was nurtured and flew away. 
And these things never cease from constantly alternating,  
at one time all coming together by love into one, 
and at another time again all being borne apart separately by the hostility of strife.]5 
When Empedocles refers to his ?double tale,? he?s specifically describing how the four elements 
move between a state of being many and a state of being one, dependent on whether Strife or 
Love, respectively, is dominant. However, I also interpret Empedocles? claim about the 
elements? ?double tale? as an analogy for the movement between idealism and materialism in his 
verse. In other words, Empedocles? proclamation of a ?double tale? may gesture toward the 
ontological indeterminacy inscribed in his work, which entertains materialism and divinity 
together without insisting that one cancels out the other. It can be tempting to reduce 
Empedocles? ontology to either idealism or materialism, and his analogies can be interpreted in 
such a way to emphasize one or the other side of the problem. Yet to regard Empedocles as 
either a materialist or an idealist threatens to drown out the dynamic motion created by his 
analogic mode of expression, which ultimately remains suspended between the domains of 
matter and mind. For instance, one might insist that, when Empedocles analogizes the gods to 
 
 
5 See Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK17.1?8, and Laks and Most, V.410. Laks and Most 
translate the first line of this fragment, ?Twofold is what I shall say.? 
5 
elements in DK6, he is allegorizing the deities out of existence; but this would be to superimpose 
a directional movement to the analogy not necessarily implied by the text itself.6 To put it 
another way, Empedocles? analogies don?t move unidirectionally from one possibility to the 
other in an affirmation of secular modernity?s clear boundary line between sacred and materialist 
contemplation.  
 The central thesis of this study is that early modern writers including Shakespeare and 
Milton take poetic inspiration from this indeterminacy in the Empedoclean tradition, offering 
them an avenue for exploring materialism without wholly discarding the possibility of material 
transcendence. Specifically, I argue that the unusual, self-professed ?double tale? of 
Empedocles? poetry creates a generative ontological ambiguity that appeals to the dualistic 
tendencies of the period?s sacred framework?through its profession of ideas like d?monic 
transcendence?even as it gestures toward an emergent interest in materialism in which 
everything, even the mind, reduces to an elemental foundation.7 By extension, I suggest that 
attending to literary reworkings of Empedocles? double vision in early modern England can help 
mediate between contrasting scholarly accounts of the period?s ontological mindset, helping to 
complicate the relationship between the humoral, psychological materialism that is the focus of 
Gail Kern Paster?s work, and the Renaissance belief in incorporeal substance, which has been the 
 
 
6 I discuss DK6 in greater detail in Chapters One and Three. 
 
7 Empedocles mentions his ?double tale? in fragment DK17, as I noted above. In that fragment, 
the ?double tale? specifically refers to the double formations of material forms within 
Empedocles? cycle of Love and Strife, a process I discuss further in Chapter One. But I suggest 
throughout this dissertation that this double tale broadens out into other aspects of the fragments, 
beyond its specific connotation referring to the elemental cycle, that is reflected in Empedocles? 
simultaneous interest in dualistic and monistic frames of reference. One might also conceptualize 
the double tale in terms of Empedocles? reliance on analogy, which pairs different objects and 
substances in order illuminate an underlying similarity in structure or function.  
6 
focus of countless studies, for instance the work of Jennifer Rust, Earl Miner, James Knapp, and 
Kathleen R. Sands, to name only a few examples.8 In other words, I propose that Empedoclean 
thought enables scholars of early modern culture to better understand the relationship between 
materialism and religion in the period, which is a not mutually exclusive one.  
I aim to show that Empedocles? influence in the Renaissance is not so much centered 
around any one given idea of his work than it is in the dialectical or perspectival technique of his 
philosophy. Drew Daniel has argued that the thoroughgoing influence of Empedocles? four 
elements on later philosophers, as well as the highly fractured, incomplete nature of the extant 
fragments, represent substantial obstacles to the prospect of an ?Empedoclean Renaissance? in 
early modern studies. As Daniel writes, ?Empedoclean combinatorial ontology saturates the 
intellectual history of medieval and early modern Europe with such quotidian omnipresence that 
it becomes curiously difficult to localize and think about clearly.?9 This is an important point, as 
the four elements are undoubtedly widespread in early modern philosophy and literature. Bearing 
this in mind, I shift my analysis away from a direct focus on Empedocles? four elements, 
centering instead the unique perspectival blur he creates by moving across and beyond them. I 
suggest that we might locate Empedocles? influence less in the pervasive idea of the four 
 
 
8 See Paster, Humoring the Body: Emotions and the Shakespearean Stage (Chicago: Chicago 
University Press, 2004), esp. 11?19; Rust, The Body in Mystery: The Political Theology of the 
Corpus Mysticum in the Literature of the English Reformation (Evanston, IL: Northwestern 
University Press, 2013); Miner, The Metaphysical Mode from Donne to Cowley (Princeton: 
Princeton University Press, 1969); Knapp, Immateriality and Early Modern English Literature: 
Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert, and Milton (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020); and 
Sands, Demon Possession in Elizabethan England (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004).  
 
9 See Drew Daniel, ?The Empedoclean Renaissance,? in The Return of Theory in Early Modern 
English Studies, Volume II, ed. Paul Cefalu, Gary Kuchar, and Bryan Reynolds (New York: 
Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), but esp. 279 & 297. 
7 
elements than in the way his influence and reception help bring into focus a uniquely 
Empedoclean perspectival kinesis between monism and dualism?one that becomes a distinctive 
influence on the ecosystem of early modern materialism.  
 Moreover, the double tale of Empedoclean ontology helps to contextualize an early 
modern tendency for perspectival relativism that scholars have already identified in the period?s 
literature, crystallizing this mental motion within a humanist tradition whose distinctly 
Empedoclean contours have not yet been fully recognized as such. Gordon Teskey, for example, 
writes in Delirious Milton that Paradise Lost generates a ?delirium [that] works by a kind of 
oscillation, a flickering on and off of hallucinatory moments in rapid succession, driven by some 
underlying contradiction,? one that allows Milton to ?oscillate between two incompatible 
perspectives, at once affirming and denying the presence of spirit in what he creates.?10 Teskey 
describes precisely the kind of ontological flux that I suggest is a core aspect of Empedoclean 
thought, though he is interested in the way this perspectival dynamic functions as a figure of 
?poetic production,? one that shifts between an attitude of ?retrospective theory? and ?prophetic 
poetry.? For Teskey, this movement creates a sense that Milton ?is divided within by a sort of 
invisible rift,? one he crosses over endlessly in order to make the experience of reading Paradise 
Lost evoke a sense of disorienting mystery.11 I focus, in contrast, on how Milton?s perspectivism 
speaks to longstanding debates about the ontology of Paradise Lost, particularly when 
reevaluated as an Empedoclean phenomenon.        
 
 
10 Teskey, Delirious Milton: The Fate of the Poet in Modernity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard 
University Press, 2006), 4?5. I read Teskey?s ?spirit? in the commonplace sense of immaterial 
substance or incorporeal inner life, rather than in the early modern medical context that places 
spirit as a bodily interlocutor with (and corporeal counterpart to) soul or incorporeal substance. 
 
11 Ibid., 9.  
8 
 In a related way, I aim to show how an Empedoclean interpretive approach offers 
scholars an alternative entry point into the problem of early modern philosophy and materialism, 
one that avoids the anxiety that sometimes attends the reception of a more categorically 
materialist philosopher like Lucretius. This is illustrated by the two philosophers? divergent 
attitude toward religion. Lucretius? poem contains a widely cited condemnation of religio (or 
superstition)?though Lucretius is not an atheist, holding that Epicurean gods do exist, but they 
are removed from human concerns and non-threatening.12 In Lucretius? view, the gods thus 
become a model for human tranquility, despite having nothing at all to do with human affairs. 
Empedocles? viewpoint is quite different, as he draws the gods into the very fabric of the 
material world when he analogizes elements to divine beings, implying that not only are gods 
wrapped up in human affairs?they are dispersed within human bodies, corresponding as they do 
with the elemental substances that all bodies are made from.13 Moreover, Empedocles explicitly 
fashions his verse as an homage to the gods: 
 ?? ??? ????????? ?????? ?????, ??????? ?????, 
 ???????? ??????? <???? ???> ??? ????????? ??????, 
 ???????? ??? ???? ?????????, ??????????, 
???? ???? ??????? ?????? ????? ??????????. 
 
[For it, immortal muse, for the sake of any ephemeral creature,  
 <it has pleased you> to let our concerns pass through your thought, 
 
 
12 See Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, trans. W.H.D. Rouse (Cambridge, MA: Harvard 
University Press, 1992), 1.62?101, 1.44?9, and 2.646?51. 
 
13 See DK6. 
9 
 Answer my prayers again now, Calliopeia, 
 as I reveal a good discourse about the blessed gods.]14 
Praying to his muse Calliope, Empedocles frames his poetry as a celebration of the gods, showing 
how its vision of divine elementalism might be appealing to a classically obsessed writer like 
Milton, who articulates in Paradise Lost a materialist theodicy of his own. 
 In another fragment, Empedocles outright defends the gods. Notice his reverential attitude: 
 ??????, ?? ????? ???????? ???????? ???????,      
 ?????? ?? ? ????????? ???? ???? ???? ???????. 
 
[Blessed is he who has obtained wealth in his divine thinking organs,  
 and wretched is he to whom belongs a darkling opinion about the gods.]15 
Whereas Lucretius holds the Epicurean deities in a positive light by keeping them totally separate 
from human affairs, Empedocles writes the gods into the mind?s material grounding (?divine 
thinking organs?), uniting divine and bodily experience even as he puts the gods center stage in his 
work. But Empedocles? divine apologetics do not reduce to a simplistic dualism, especially when 
one considers Empedocles? claim, in another fragment, that he become a d?mon when he was 
banished from matter, as a punishment for speaking poorly of the gods (DK115). Thus, even if 
Empedocles insists on a laudatory regard for divine figures, it?s a much more idiosyncratic 
religiosity than one finds in Augustine?s neat division of body from soul. Unlike in Christian 
orthodoxy, where being too involved with the body risks God?s punishment of one?s transcendent 
 
 
14 See Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK131, and Laks and Most, V.364. 
 
15 See Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK132, and Laks and Most, V.366. 
10 
and incorporeal subjectivity (the soul), in Empedocles? system, the gods level punishment by 
taking one further away from material experience.16 
  These comparisons help show the unique role that an Empedoclean hermeneutics can 
play in the scholarly understanding of early modern philosophy and literature. The recent turn to 
materialism, while illuminating, has tended to emphasize one side of early modern materialism?s 
complex story. Empedocles, with his intermingling of religious and materialist ideas, offers 
something to the scholarly discussion of early modern philosophy that a focus on Lucretius alone 
cannot provide: namely, Empedocles emerges as highly influential on the landscape of 
Renaissance materialism, but not easily assimilable to a modern epistemological divide between 
sacred and philosophical contemplation.  
Yet despite their important differences, Lucretius and Empedocles also converge 
throughout the histories of their textual reception in a way that further complicates the image of 
both philosophers and their relationship to modernity. To begin with, Lucretius praises 
Empedocles? poetic style, and the Empedoclean idea of effluence is inscribed in the development 
of atomism, as I discuss later in these pages at greater length. For some early modern writers, 
like Milton, Empedocles functions as a bridge to Lucretian atomism, shuttling them between a 
transcendent, d?monic elementalism and an atomistic, vitalist materialism on the basis of 
effluence. In other words, Milton analogizes the breakdown of elemental difference in 
Empedoclean ontology to a collapse between body and soul. However, I do not suggest that this 
is a one-way bridge that moves its passengers neatly from one philosophical idea to another. 
Instead, it invites people into a philosophical movement, where they might cross freely from 
 
 
16 I discuss Augustine, and fragment DK115, in much more detail in Chapter One. 
11 
materialist to idealist viewpoints of the world and back again, unburdened by the demands of 
philosophical commitment.    
 The biographical tradition of Empedocles is another important, though secondary, focus 
of this study. When Lucretius praises Empedocles, he doesn?t mention his infamous jump into 
Mount Etna, instead using the volcano to analogize Empedocles? illustrious and influential 
reputation.17 However, this sets Lucretius apart from many ancient writers, like Horace, 
Diogenes Laertius, and Lucian, who draw on the philosopher?s alleged volcanic suicide in a 
mocking or satirical way. In the chapters that unfold below, I trace the emergence and evolution 
of the volcano myth, showing how its narrative transformations are inseparable from 
Empedocles? provocative and ambivalent metaphysics.  
 The blurriness created by Empedocles? perspectival relativism is partly rooted in the 
material conditions of the fragments themselves. In early modern Europe, Empedocles? poetry 
was highly fragmented but widely dispersed, meaning that early modern readers could develop 
multivalent impressions of the philosopher depending on which slivers of his poetry or legacy 
they happened to encounter in their reading. At the same time, it would be faulty to attribute 
Empedocles? perspectival flux solely to the material reception of the fragments, as Empedocles 
makes perspectival motion a defining feature of his work, and not only in his description of the 
elemental cycle as a ?double tale.?18 To put it differently, the Empedoclean blur may be a 
somewhat self-conscious feature of his work, not simply the result of a complicated doxography. 
 
 
17 I quote and discuss Lucretius? praise of Empedocles in Chapter Three. 
 
18 See Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK17.1. Empedocles? use of analogy throughout the 
fragments helps show his broader embrace of perspectival motion as a poetic and natural 
philosophic technique.   
 
12 
 The experimentalist Renaissance philosopher Francis Bacon registers awareness of 
Empedocles? blurry legacy, admiring the way he resists the Scholastic penchant for neat 
categorization. Although Empedocles had a significant influence on later thinkers like 
Aristotle?who would turn to aspects of Empedocles? elementalism to help articulate his own 
physical philosophy?Bacon puts Empedocles in opposition to Aristotle. In The Wisdome of the 
Ancients (1609), Bacon writes,   
 Atque magis probandus est, & Empedocles, qui tanquam furens, & Democritus qui 
 magna cum verecundia, queruntur, omnia abstruse esse, nihil nos scire, nil cernere, 
 veritatem in profundis puteis immersam, veris falsa miris modis adjuncta, atque intorta 
 esse?quam Aristotelis schola fidens & pronunciatrix. 
 
[I approve rather of Empedocles his Opinion, (who like a Mad-man, and of Democritus 
his Judgment, who with great moderation complained how that all things were involved 
in a Mist) that we knew nothing, that we discerned nothing, that Truth was drowned in 
the depths of Obscurity, and that false things were wonderfully joined and intermix'd 
with true?than of the confident and pronunciative School of Aristotle.]19 
Bacon pits Empedocles? and Democritus? inscrutable representations of truth against the ethic of 
of categorical clarity and deduction inscribed in the Aristotelian tradition. Notice Bacon?s delight 
in epistemological blending, his admiration for the way ?false things were wonderfully joined 
 
 
19 See Bacon, Francisci Baconi equitis aurati, procuratoris secundi, Iacobi Regis Magn? 
Britanni?, De sapientia veterum liber ad inclytam Academiam Cantabrigiensem (London, 1609), 
98?9, and Bacon, The Wisdome of the Ancients, written in Latine by the Right Honourable Sir 
Francis Bacon Knight, Baron of Verulam and Lord Chancelour of England. Done into English 
by Sir Arthur Gorges Knight (London, 1619), 130?1. 
 
13 
and intermix?d with true.? When he links Empedocles and Democritus, Bacon implicitly nods to 
the deep connection between Empedocles? elemental philosophy and the history of materialism, 
the way these philosophers teach that the true nature of reality lies submerged beneath the level 
of superficial appearances. Empedocles writes in a highly decomposed fragment that ?????? ??? 
?????? ????? ????????, ???? ????????? [...........there are effluences from all things that have 
come to be].20 This fragment puts the whole world in flux, suggesting that matter exists in a state 
of ooze and flow. For many of the writers included in this study, I will show, Empedocles? 
notion of effluence becomes an entry point for thinking about atomist materialism, shuttling 
them from a world made of many kinds of substance to a world made of one. 
At the same time, Bacon?s allusion exemplifies his approval of Empedocles? and 
Democritus? philosophical skepticism, one grounded in how the depths of this submerged 
particulate reality occlude people?s ability to understand it.21 Bacon thus implies that rather than 
distorting truth, these philosophers? impure definitions of knowledge actually point to a deeper 
realization?one clouded over by the deceptive appearances of the immediately perceptible 
world. In other words, Bacon paradoxically contends that the mental experience afforded by 
 
 
20 See Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK89, and Laks and Most, V.540. I return to this fragment 
throughout the dissertation, as the idea of effluence is a core part of my analysis. 
 
21 See Empedocles, DK17.1?2, and DK9. On Democritus? representation of truth as obscurely 
submerged, see Democritus. ?Testimonia, Part 2: Doctrine (D).? In Early Greek Philosophy, 
Volume VII: Later Ionian and Athenian Thinkers, Part 2, translated by Andr? Laks and Glenn W. 
Most, 60?347. Loeb Classical Library 530. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016), 
esp. D17?21. Gerard Passannante points out that ?depending on how and where you read of the 
philosopher?s ?abyss? or ?pit,? these ?depths? have at least two (seemingly contradictory) 
meanings. One is that we cannot know anything at all?that certain knowledge is 
impossible?The second possible interpretation is more optimistic: truth lies in hidden things 
that can be known by reason through the senses?things such as atoms and the void.? See 
Passannante, Catastrophizing: Materialism and the Making of Disaster (Chicago: University of 
Chicago Press, 2019), 16?17. 
14 
epistemological ?obscurity? might unexpectedly unveil hidden truths about the physical world, 
and points to Empedocles as one potential avenue to this way of thinking. But the passage also 
registers Bacon?s skepticism toward Empedocles? alleged immortal longing, implying that he 
demonstrated his search for ?Truth? by drowning himself, ?like a Mad-man,? in the ?depths of 
Obscurity??perhaps a reference to his dive into the volcano. Bacon sees Democritus as 
tempering Empedocles? overzealous search for knowledge in a move ?of great moderation.? His 
simultaneous commendation and suspicion of Empedocles? longing for truth therefore 
exemplifies the way the Sicilian philosopher?s biographical tradition reflects the ontological 
indeterminacy embedded in his fragments, a correlation that I will explore at length later in the 
dissertation. 
 Beyond Bacon?s nuanced treatment of Empedocles in early modern England, 
Empedocles? movement between materialism and idealism speaks to other philosophical periods 
and conversations, particularly the far-reaching debates about the nature of the soul and its 
relationship to the body. The temporal scale of the body/soul problem is vast: for example, in 
antiquity it arises in debates between Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, and later, it sits at the 
heart of Augustine?s isolation of the immortal soul from flesh in the Confessions (ca. 400 CE).22 
In the Renaissance, the idealism/materialism problem underlies major conversations, such as 
Pietro Pomponazzi?s controversial claim in the early sixteenth century that the soul is the highest 
material form of the body, and the later divide between philosophers like Descartes and Hobbes 
 
 
22 I am speaking in general terms about the split between Plato and Aristotle, but the nuances of 
their respective idealism and materialism are complex.  
 
15 
in the seventeenth century. 23 I show how Empedocles? distinctive perspectivism would be a 
welcome resource for this debate, as it mediates between the body and mind in a way that moves 
between the contrasting philosophical innovations of Pomponazzi and Descartes. The soul in 
Pomponazzi?s model can interface with an immaterial domain, but is in essence material. 
Contrast this with Descartes? later perspective, commonly known as the cogito, which insists on 
a fundamental division between body (res extensa) and mind (res cogitans). If Pomponazzi 
encapsulates the materializing impulse of early modern studies of the soul, Descartes exemplifies 
a competing viewpoint, broadly updating Platonic and Augustinian dualisms for a different 
philosophical age, even while simultaneously developing a mechanical philosophy to describe 
the physical part of reality. Attending to Renaissance representations of Empedoclean 
materialism, however, can complicate this picture by putting Pomponazzi and Descartes? 
philosophical maneuvers into closer proximity, offering an ancient mode of thought where the 
mind is brought into matter, even as it avoids the pitfalls of materialist determinism.  
The dissertation is organized into three long chapters that show three separate moments 
in Empedocles? literary reception. The first occurs in 1603, when an English translation of 
Plutarch?s Moralia by Philemon Holland introduces an influx of Empedoclean fragments to the 
English literary scene. The second moment occurs a few years later, when Shakespeare?s Antony 
and Cleopatra (1607) dramatizes Empedoclean effluence, representing Cleopatra?s death in both 
 
 
23 Eckhard Kessler explains how Pomponazzi identified the soul as a bodily substance: 
?Pomponazzi?referring to the principle that the intellectual soul cannot operate without 
imagination and is therefore dependent upon matter ut obiecto (as its object) even if it is 
independent from it ut subiecto (as its subject) in terms of natural philosophy?chose the 
material solution and maintained that the human soul was the highest material form, attaining in 
its most elevated operations something beyond materiality.? See Kessler, ?The Intellective Soul,? 
in The Cambridge History of Philosophy, 503, and Pomponazzi, Corsi inedita dell?insegnamento 
Padovano, ed. Antonino Poppi (Padua: Antenore, 1966?70), II.14?18. 
16 
material and transcendent terms as she is self-consciously sublimated into ?fire and air.?24 The 
third moment is from John Milton?s Paradise Lost (1667), a work which, unlike Shakespeare?s 
play, alludes to Empedocles by name. I have selected these three moments because they reveal a 
story about the way early modern writers make use of Empedocles? double vision to grapple with 
philosophical and political change, from debates about monarchy and republicanism in the years 
around Antony and Cleopatra to the later English Revolution and killing of Charles I?an act 
that Milton wrote in support of two weeks after it happened. What emerges from these moments 
is an understanding of how Empedocles? legacy as a political reformer is revitalized, if in the 
background, through literary experimentations with his elemental materialism.25  
Chapter One explores representations of Empedocles in the age of Shakespeare, showing 
how Philemon Holland?s 1603 translation of Plutarch?s Moralia amounts to a watershed moment 
for the renaissance of Empedoclean thought that would unfold in seventeenth-century England. 
The chapter begins with the ?double tale? told by Empedocles? fragments, demonstrating how 
the philosopher?s analogy of the elements to gods encapsulates the movement between 
materialist and idealist viewpoints within his poetry. I then explore this idea further by 
considering additional fragments that illustrate a perspectival movement between monist and 
dualist possibility, suggesting that Holland?s translation only augments a sense of ontological 
 
 
24 See Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, ed. John Wilders (New York: The Arden 
Shakespeare, 1995), act five, scene two, line 288. Hereafter, I cite the play parenthetically by act, 
scene, and line number. 
 
25 As Nicholas McDowell explains in his recent biography, ?Milton?s first vernacular defence of 
the execution of Charles I, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649), published within two 
weeks of the regicide?secured Milton his position as Latin Secretary and, in effect, chief 
propagandist for the new republican government?a position that Milton retained throughout the 
decade of kingless rule of the 1650s.? See McDowell, Poet of Revolution: The Making of John 
Milton (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020), 3.  
17 
flux already inscribed in Empedocles? poetic imagination. To this point, I focus particular 
attention on the Empedoclean idea of effluence, or the proto-atomic notion that all elemental 
substances give off tiny, similar particles, ultimately enabling the four elements to merge into 
one. I suggest that effluence analogically expresses Empedocles? movement between materialist 
and idealist viewpoints, an idea that will later find fuller expression in John Milton?s Paradise 
Lost.  
As my analysis of Plutarch and Holland unfolds, I show how even though Empedocles? 
poetry partially gravitates toward a materialist frame of reference, certain fragments lend 
themselves to the early modern period?s sacred culture by resonating with Christian ideas like sin 
and repentance. These fragments find themselves, in Holland?s translation, appropriated into 
visions of angelic transcendence. Moreover, I argue that Holland?s fashioning of Plutarch 
imposes an Augustinian prioritization of incorporeal substance over matter that is not actually 
present in Empedocles? thinking. In fact, I show how Empedocles presents a departure from 
matter as a movement away from the divine, in a much more complicated vision than the one 
suggested by Augustine?s insistent division of body and soul. I also consider two other aspects of 
Empedocles? legacy that permeated early modern culture in significant ways: the story of his 
apocryphal volcanic suicide, which appears in English print going back to at least the fifteenth 
century, and his reputation as an anti-monarchical, political revolutionary. The chapter concludes 
by observing how Ben Jonson directly alludes to Empedocles? death in his masque New from the 
New World Discovered in the Moon (1620), and how Shakespeare likely alludes to it in The 
Merry Wives of Windsor (1602). The picture of Empedocles that emerges from the early 
seventeenth-century accounts I consider throughout the chapter is simultaneously one of fiery 
spiritual foolishness, materialist contemplation, and Christian ventriloquism.  
18 
 Having established the saturation of Empedocles? double tale in the textual atmosphere of 
the early seventeenth century, Chapter Two turns to Shakespeare?s Antony and Cleopatra, first 
performed a few years after Holland?s translation appeared. I argue that Empedocles? unusual 
mixture of dualistic and monistic ideas functions as a chrysalis of the ontological flexibility that 
is reflected throughout the play?s psychodrama, helping Shakespeare hold together an emergent 
materialism and a thoroughgoing fascination with immortality. Within this theoretical 
framework, I propose that Antony and Cleopatra draws on the Empedoclean idea of elemental 
effluence to represent the world in flux?ontologically, politically, theatrically, and affectively. I 
then contextualize Shakespeare?s representation of flux by returning to Holland?s translation of 
Plutarch?s Moralia, which was a probable source for Shakespeare?s representation of Egypt in 
Antony and Cleopatra. In particular, I show how in the essay ?Of Isis and Osiris,? 
Plutarch/Holland turn to the notion of Empedoclean effluence to mediate between the dualistic 
and monistic aspects of the Egyptian myth of Isis and Osiris? deaths. This enables me to suggest 
that key passages in Antony and Cleopatra?such as Cleopatra?s association with the flux of the 
Nile and the elemental, ?immortal longings? she expresses as a transmutation to fire and air in 
the moments before her suicide?take on the distinctive perspectival movement of the 
Empedoclean mood. 
Extending the picture of Shakespeare?s potential Empedoclean encounters, I then 
consider another Plutarch text, the edition of Lives translated into English by Thomas North in 
1579. I point out that North?s translation, long recognized as one of Shakespeare?s major sources 
for the characterization within Antony and Cleopatra, contains a direct reference to Empedocles 
in the biography of Demetrius, in a passage that analogizes the four elements to the warring 
parties of the Roman civil wars. However, I show that while Shakespeare?s echoes of this 
19 
combative Plutarchan analogy underscore the political and interpersonal divisions between the 
triumvirs, he also uses the idea of effluence to weaken such divisions, developing a world so 
based in the mutability of flux that the hierarchies of imperial power melt away. This, I suggest, 
recalls the democratic legacy of Empedocles as a dissolver of oppressive political powers.  
 Finally, Chapter Three turns to Milton?s Paradise Lost (1667), arguing that the poem 
embodies an Empedoclean materialism that complicates Milton?s seeming dismissal of 
Empedocles in a direct allusion to the philosopher during Satan?s voyage from hell to earth in 
book three. In other words, I show how even though Paradise Lost invokes the embarrassment of 
Empedocles? rumored volcanic death, depicting the philosopher as an airy ghost in a ?Paradise of 
Fools,? Milton slyly voices the critique in a way that pays homage to Empedocles? actual 
philosophy, subtly continuing an alternative biographical tradition that counterbalances the 
sensationalism of Empedocles? volcanic legacy with an appreciation for his philosophical 
contributions to materialism. Broadening out from the poem?s direct allusion, I then propose that 
the blurry ontology of Empedocles? poetic vision is a heretofore unacknowledged key to 
unlocking the complexity of Milton?s labile materialism in Paradise Lost. By attending to how 
Milton frames his materialism in Empedoclean language, that is, scholars can better negotiate the 
seeming gap between Fallon?s influential claim that Milton was a monist materialist, and N. K. 
Sugimura?s counterpoint view that Milton maintains a Platonic dualism at odds with a strictly 
materialist philosophic commitment. To support the diplomatic potential of Empedocles? thought 
in relation to disagreements about the ontology of Paradise Lost, the chapter reinterprets 
Raphael?s famous ?one first matter all? speech with an eye toward Empedocles? materialism. I 
show how Milton?s vitalist materialism, which posits a continuum of material and spiritual 
substance, may rely on Empedoclean imagery of elemental homogenization and sprouting to 
20 
express its spiritual mechanics. Moreover, this reading illustrates how for Milton, Empedocles is 
a bridge to Lucretian atomism, ushering him between poles of philosophical possibility. 
Empedoclean poetry, with all its perspectival movement, helps explain the seeming incongruities 
of Paradise Lost. Milton, like Empedocles, invites readers to find a coherent vision from an 
incoherent onslaught.  
Taking inspiration from Empedocles? perspectival weave, my methodology in this study 
moves between philosophical consideration and literary close reading, aiming to blur the 
boundaries between the two epistemological modes. In doing this, I show that for many ancient 
and early modern readers, poetry was philosophy, and vice versa. Indeed, Empedocles is 
particularly attuned to this literary and philosophical synthesis, with a reputation for being the 
?last? ancient Greek philosopher to use verse rather than prose as the medium his thought, not to 
mention his pervasive use of analogy to explain the natural world, an approach he explicitly 
defends as valid natural philosophy in one of his fragments.26 Furthermore, I tend to move 
outward from individual moments of resonance toward larger philosophical questions and 
literary contexts, developing close readings around smaller details before broadening out to 
identify larger patterns or traditions. For example, I show how Cleopatra?s articulation of her 
death as a transmutation into ?fire and air? encapsulates a perspectival flux between materialist 
and transcendent visions of the afterlife, a moment which, on its own, might be merely 
incidental. However, when I then move on to consider Milton?s direct allusion to Empedocles? 
death, which similarly produces a double vision both materialist and idealist, I hope it becomes 
 
 
26 See Empedocles, DK9, and my discussions below, especially in Chapters One and Three. 
21 
easier to discern the constellation of an Empedoclean tradition emerging in Renaissance 
England, centered around the philosopher?s kaleidoscopic perspectivism.  
 Moreover, given the far-reaching nature of Empedocles? reception history, I have 
attempted to be as meticulous as possible when suggesting that a particular fragment or idea 
resonates with an early modern text. To this end, I carefully track not only these potential 
resonances, but also the textual circumstances under which these writers might have encountered 
a given fragment. Thus, my analysis of Antony and Cleopatra is driven by the panoply of 
Empedoclean quotation and allusion in Plutarch, whose significance to Shakespeare?s dramatic 
imagination has long been established. Similarly, when it comes to the even richer and more 
complex matter of Milton?s exposure to Empedocles, I have cross-referenced the doxographic 
history of the extant Empedoclean fragments with scholarly data about Milton?s library and 
reading material. The results of this analysis are captured in a table I have included as an 
Appendix to the dissertation, to which I refer in footnotes whenever I consider a given 
fragment?s relationship to Paradise Lost.27 
Taken together, these chapters contribute to the way scholars understand literary 
representations of materialism in Renaissance England, demonstrating that these writers? flexible 
ontological moods have ties to a specific humanistic tradition that insists on holding together 
seemingly incompatible visions. Thus, Empedocles helps underline the way early modern 
thinkers could contemplate materialist ideas with less concern about the burden of philosophic 
commitment and epistemological oppositions. By extension, an Empedoclean framework can 
 
 
27 Although I have been thorough in my analysis of the fragments, I have excluded certain new 
fragments identified by Inwood, as they would have been unavailable to the early modern writers 
included in this study. 
22 
help scholars resist the hermeneutics of trial advocated by Stanley Fish?s work on seventeenth-
century literature. First articulated in studies like Surprised by Sin and Self-Consuming Artifacts, 
Fish deduces an ethos of calculated deception in the period that aims to morally edify readers by 
subjecting them to perceptive examination. Thus, for Fish, the ontological vacillations of 
Paradise Lost are carefully designed to assess readers? righteousness, their ability to spot and 
reject the disordered thinking of a Satanic worldview. ?Milton?s poetry,? Fish claims, ?not only 
exercises one?s intelligence and perception, but tests it.?28 Fish thus writes of Milton?s ?strategy? 
in the poem, one ?where he plays God to us readers and invites us down the paths of error in the 
hope that by resisting them we may become wiser by the experience he has provided.?29 
However, Fish?s interpretive approach assumes a dualistic perspective that is undermined by 
early modern culture?s attraction to the blurry edges of Empedoclean philosophy. In other words, 
Fish?s analysis itself becomes ontologically charged, taking for granted a dualistic view that 
flattens out the challenging nuances of the period?s complex expressions of materialism.  
Rather than subjecting early modern literature to an ontological litmus test, in which 
materialist and idealist attitudes are defined as mutually exclusive positions that must be 
regulated by the enforcement of a strict opposition, reading for Empedocles? ?double tale? helps 
illuminate an unusual interplay between ways of understanding the world that appear radically at 
odds from later epistemological vantages. Moreover, it highlights a triangular movement 
between materialist, religious, and political contemplation that emerges at key moments in 
 
 
28 Stanley Fish, Versions of Antihumanism: Milton and Others (Cambridge: Cambridge 
University Press, 2012), 24. 
 
29 Ibid., 33. 
23 
English history, as writers draw on the ancient legacy of Empedocles to think about the world in 
new ways.  
 
 
A Note on Terminology 
Throughout the study, I will be referring to the binary opposition between materialism 
and idealism as I attempt to show how Empedocles weakens or distorts that opposition. By 
?materialism,? I mean ontological materialism, or the view that the world is made only of 
material substances, and that all phenomena, including thought, are fundamentally material. 
Conversely, ?idealism? describes perspectives that prioritize mind over matter, viewing thought 
as separate from bodily substance.  
  I will also be referring to additional sets of binary oppositions as the argument unfolds, 
and in the interest of clarity, I want to explain upfront how these binary pairs relate to each other 
in my thinking. Sometimes I will refer to the opposition between ontological monism and 
dualism. In the most basic terms, monism sees the world as made of only one type of substance 
(for example, matter), while dualism sees the world as made of two kinds of substance (for 
example, material and immaterial substance). While the monism/dualism opposition has a 
slightly different focus than the materialism/idealism problem, the two issues are closely 
connected, and my analytical framework aligns materialism to monism, and idealism to dualism.  
       Additionally, I will invoke the contrast between the many and the one in Empedocles? 
philosophy, because it moves between discussing the elements as four essentially distinct 
substances, and as fundamentally one substance. This is the bedrock of Empedocles? ?double 
tale? that I discussed above. At times, I suggest that the movement between the many and one 
emblematizes the broader transit between materialism and idealism in Empedocles? philosophy, 
24 
though this correspondence is less stable than the one between materialism/monism and 
idealism/dualism, and functions only at the level of analogy. That is, the idea of the four 
elements merging into one can serve to analogize the breakdown of the materialist/idealist 
opposition, as I show it does for Milton in Paradise Lost, but the two problems don?t correspond 
to each other as directly as materialism/monism and idealism/dualism do.  
           Finally, I will occasionally refer to the divide between social constructionism and 
essentialism along the lines of the ontological split between materialism and idealism, suggesting 
that some correspondence between these ideas can be found in Empedocles? own writing. For 
example, in a fragment (DK8) I discuss in detail later, Empedocles dilutes the idea of human 
nature on the basis of material mixture. From this view, the materialism of Empedocles? system 
helps him dissolve the idea of an essential human nature. At other times, Empedocles claims to 
be a reincarnated d?mon, drawing on an idealist frame of material transcendence to imagine an 
autonomous, essential subjectivity that crosses corporeal forms. It?s thus possible to think about 
Empedocles? materialism as corresponding to social constructionism, and his idealism as aligned 
to social essentialism; indeed, at one point I consider the ramifications of Empedocles? 
ontological flux for the way Shakespeare moves between essentialist and constructionist 
representations of gender and race in Antony and Cleopatra. However, I want to caution that this 
relationship between Empedocles? ontology and his view of human subjectivity is tenuous, and 
nowhere near close to fully articulated as a social theory in the extant fragments. Yet I explore 
the connection to think about how Empedocles? ontological movements might speak not just to 
philosophical problems, but also to social ones. In other words, I attempt to consider how 
Empedocles? ontological blur between materialism and idealism might register a parallel 
phenomenon in the early modern social imagination, without being a proximal cause of it. This 
25 
teleological distance is crucial, for a core provocation of this study is that due to Empedocles? 
dialectical flux, idealist ontology can be made to dismantle, rather than inflate, the socially 
destructive affliction of essentialist logic, social or otherwise.  
26 
Chapter One:  
Echoes of Empedocles in the Age of Shakespeare 
 
 
?I shall tell a double tale?: Empedocles as a Materialist Mystic 
Empedoclean thought in England experienced a watershed moment in 1603, when the 
physician and scholar Philemon Holland published an English translation of Plutarch?s Moralia. 
The work, packed with citations of Empedocles? philosophy, introduced into the English literary 
scene a much fuller representation of Empedocles? poetic and philosophic contributions than had 
been in the air previously. Whereas the memorable story of Empedocles? jump into the volcano 
had been an esoteric but persistent trope in English literature for many years, the early 
seventeenth century saw an influx of Empedoclean thought that expanded his reputation as a 
materialist philosopher embedded in the history of atomism. In this chapter, I survey 
representations of Empedocles? biographical tradition in the years before the publication of 
Holland?s translation, before turning to Holland?s treatment of Empedocles. With the appearance 
of Holland?s work, I argue, seventeenth-century English readers began to encounter a more 
complex depiction of Empedocles than had previously been available, one that captured his 
reputation as a mystical sage, political revolutionary, and materialist philosopher.  
The four elements are central to Empedocles? vision, and it?s tempting to selectively read 
the fragments to produce a wholly materialist Empedocles. The fragments do, after all, describe 
the elements as ?the four roots of all things,? language that grants an all-encompassing power to 
27 
the elemental plane: all things as elementally radical.30 Yet, as I discuss below, Empedocles 
paints himself as an incorporeal ?????? (d?mon) in exile from the elements, traversing the 
cosmos through a series of trans-subjective manifestations.31 Taken as a whole, Empedocles? 
fragments refuse easy reduction to categories like materialism and idealism, monism and 
dualism. Instead, they put on display a complex vision that undermines the modern binary 
between these distinctions, generating a perspective at once materialist and dualist. 
A passage about Empedocles in Holland?s 1603 translation illustrates the ontological flux 
I have been discussing. It occurs in the essay ?Against Colotes,? in which Plutarch defends 
Empedocles against the attacks of the Epicurean writer Colotes of Lampsacus. Plutarch focuses 
on Empedocles? fragment about generation and death as a particular point of contention: 
Colotes verily, as if hee dealt with some king that was ignorant and unlettered, falleth 
againe upon Empedocles, breathing out these verses: 
One thing will I say more to thee: there is no true nature 
Of mortall wights: of grisly death, no seed nor geniture. 
A mixture onely first there is of things, then after all,   
The same grow to disunion: and this men Nature call.32 
 
 
30 Empedocles, DK6. I discuss this fragment, which Shakespeare likely encountered in Plutarch, 
in more detail below. 
 
31 See Empedocles, DK115, and discussion below. On Empedocles? trans-subjective experiences, 
see also fragment DK117.  
 
32 Philemon Holland, trans., The Philosophie, Commonlie Called, the Morals (London, 1603), 
1114. The verse in this passage is a translation of Empedocles? fragment DK8: ????? ?? ??? 
????? ????? ??????? ????? ??????? / ??????, ???? ??? ????????? ???????? ???????, / ???? ????? 
????? ?? ????????? ?? ???????? / ????, ????? ?? ??????? ?????????? ???????????? [?I shall tell you 
something else. There is no growth of any of all mortal things / nor any end in destructive death, / 
28 
After criticizing Colotes? belittling view of Empedocles as ?some king that was ignorant and 
unlettered??which nods to Empedocles? posthumous reputation as a political reformer who 
once refused an offer of kingship?Plutarch cites Empedocles? fragment DK8, which denies that 
mortal beings experience either birth or death.33 How can this be? It is because the world is 
defined by ?mixture onely,? and particular bodies in time are the mere products of this flux, 
rather than wholly discrete entities with essential, differentiated selves. Putting it differently, all 
individuated beings are churned from a perpetual mixture, dissolution, and recombination of 
elemental substance. Thus, in the most radical terms, nothing really new is created at birth, and 
nothing is annihilated at death. This is a kind of early constructionism that, by emphasizing the 
Anaxagorean swirl of things, goes beyond denying birth and death to denying any real human 
nature or essence whatsoever (?there is no true nature / Of mortall wights?). Plutarch goes on to 
explain that, far from being ?repugnant and contrary unto life,? as Colotes views it, Empedocles? 
idea simply gives priority to mixture: it is the basis of all phenomena.34 Plutarch elaborates on 
the disagreement: 
And yet I say my selfe, that Colotes having alledged thus much, knew not that 
Empedocles did not abolish men, beasts shrubs or birds in as much as he saith that all 
these are composed and finished of the elements mixed together: But teaching and 
shewing them how they were deceived, who finde fault with naming this composition a 
 
 
but only mixture and interchange of what is mixed / exist, and growth is the name given to them by 
men?]. See Laks and Most, V.396, and Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK8.    
 
33 I explore Empedocles? political legacy and refusal of kingship in the conclusion of this section, 
and again in the chapter on Paradise Lost. 
 
34 Holland, Morals, 1114. 
29 
certaine nature or life: and the dissolution unhappy fortune and death to be avoided, he 
annulled not the ordinary and usuall use of words in that behalfe.35   
Railing against Colotes? rush to judgment, Plutarch zeroes in on the claim to essence as the true 
target of Empedocles? rejection of ?nature.? In other words, Empedocles is not denying that 
different life forms exist, but rather rejecting the idea that any particular life form has an 
essential nature, because everything is a composite of the elements. Plutarch concludes this 
passage by reminding readers that Empedocles ?annulled not? the conventional use of language 
in the human pursuit of reasoning about life and death, a nod to fragment DK9, in which he 
approves the use of conventional manners of speech, namely analogy, to describe the natural 
world.36  
On the one hand, Empedocles? denial of inherent nature (or essence) might unsettle 
committed dualists, as it suggests that there is no immutable aspect of the human being, and thus 
leaves little room for entertaining any Augustinian view of the soul, in which an accountable, 
individuated subjectivity is poised against the life of the body. In basing reality on the evolutions 
of material mixture, that is, Empedocles prioritizes matter in motion. On the other hand, 
Empedocles? insistence that there is no ?grisly death? invites speculation about the afterlife, 
making the passage amenable to the religious cultures of early modern England. Reformulating 
 
 
35 Ibid., 1115. 
 
36 DK9: ??? ?? ??? ??? ???? ???? ????? ??? ?????? ? ? / ? ???? ????? ????????? ????? ? ???? 
?????? / ?? ???? ??????, ???? ??? ??? ? ? ????????? / ???? ?? ???????????, ?? ?? ?? ?????????? 
??????, / ? <??> ?????, ?????????, ???? ?? ??????? ??? ?????? [?And they [men], when the things 
mixed [to make up] a man arrive in the aither, / or [the things mixed] [to make up] the race of wild 
beasts or bushes / or birds, then they say that this is coming to be; but when they are / separated, 
this again [they call] miserable fate. / It is not right, the way they speak, but I myself also assent to 
their convention.? See Laks and Most, V.398, and Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK9.  
30 
this slightly, Empedocles is a materialist with a flirtatious relationship to religious speculation. 
This blurry religio-materialism only deepens as Plutarch continues to discuss Empedocles? 
opinion on life and death:  
For mine owne part I thinke verily that Empedocles doth not alter in these places the  
 common maner of pronouncing and using the said words: but as before it was related, did 
 really as of a different minde as touching the generation of things that had no being,  
 which some call nature. Which he especially declareth in these verses. 
Fooles as they be of small conceit, for farre they cannot see,   
Who hope that things which never were, may once engendred be, 
Or feare that those which are shall die, and perish utterly.37 
Here, Holland quotes Empedocles? fragment DK11, whose lines claim it?s foolish to think that 
death leads to total annihilation, and nods again to Empedocles? liberality with respect to the 
?common maner? of using ?words.?38 The fragment is still broadly materialist, as it expounds on 
the primacy of material mixture to reiterate that life and death are merely momentary stages in an 
endless process of combinatorial change. However, it?s easy to see the religious appeal of 
Empedocles? denial of death in the context of early modern England?s widespread religiosity. 
Holland heightens Empedocles? religious appeal in his translation of the words immediately 
following this fragment. Plutarch declares, 
 
 
37 Ibid.  
 
38 DK11: ???????? ?? ??? ???? ???????????? ???? ????????, / ?? ?? ????????? ????? ??? ??? 
?????????? / ? ?? ???????????? ?? ??? ?????????? ??????? [Inwood: ?Fools?for their 
meditations are not long-lasting? / are those who expect that what previously was not comes to 
be / or that anything dies and is utterly destroyed?]. See Laks and Most, V.396, and Empedocles, 
trans. Inwood, DK11.  
31 
these verses are thundred out and do sound aloud in their hearing who have any eares at 
all, that he [Empedocles] doth not abolish generation absolutely, but that alone which is 
of nothing; nor yet corruption simply, but that which is a total destruction, that is to say, a 
reduction to nothing.39 
Holland?s admonition that the truth of Empedocles? claim will be ?sound[ed] aloud? for those 
?who have any eares at all? might remind seventeenth-century readers of similar imagery in the 
Bible. A common refrain of Christ in the Gospels, for instance, is ?hee that hath eares to heare, 
let him heare.?40 From a certain vantage, Holland?s translation intensifies the prophetic 
disposition of Empedocles, whom it identifies as a revealer of fundamental truths: in the case of 
fragment DK11, the material truth that death is not absolute destruction, when one considers the 
material mixture into which all life dissolves, and through which the body?s material constituents 
persist after death, however diffuse and dispersed such continuance must be.  
 Just after this, Plutarch gestures toward the vacillating, elusive quality of Empedocles? 
claims. Having cemented his point that Empedocles denies destruction at death, Plutarch 
introduces a twist:  
For unto a man who were not willing, after such a savage, rude and brutish maner [of  
 Colotes] but more gently to cavil, the verses following after might give a collourable  
 occasion to charge Empedocles with the contrary, when he saith thus:    
No man of sense and judgement sound, would once conceive in minde 
 
 
39 Ibid. 
 
40 See The Holy Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), Matthew 13:9. See also Matthew 
11:15, as well as Mark 4:9, 4:23, & 7:16. Holland did not invent the ear imagery in this passage; 
it appears in Plutarch?s original language. 
32 
That whiles we living here on earth, both good and bad doe finde, 
So long onely we being have: (yet this, men life doe call) 
And birth before, or after death, we nothing are at all.41 
After once again condemning the ?rude and brutish? style of Colotes? objections, Plutarch quotes 
Empedocles? fragment DK15 to show how one might accuse Empedocles of having just the 
opposite opinion about death: that is, of believing that death equals total destruction. The words 
that appear after the colon are particularly equivocal, as it becomes unclear who believes ?we 
nothing are at all? before birth or after death. Is this a faulty opinion of the ?men? whom the lines 
condemn for unsound judgment, or is it Empedocles? rejoinder to such opinions? Holland?s 
readers in early seventeenth-century England might regard the last line of the quoted fragment as 
an expression of mortalism, the belief that the soul (or in its Cartesian form, res cogitans) 
perishes along with the body at the time of death. Plutarch hints at this ambiguity when he writes 
that treating the verse more ?gently? than Colotes might reveal ?contrary? perspectives. In so 
doing, Plutarch reveals his sensitivity to Empedocles? elusive posture about the nature of life and 
death, and to how his verse generates a movement of perspectives attuned to the vibrancy of 
mental experience. Moreover, the fragment impels readers to interrogate what constitutes their 
 
 
41 Holland, Morals, 1115?6. The Empedoclean verse translated in this passage is DK15: ???? ?? 
???? ??????? ????? ????? ???????????, / ?? ???? ??? ?? ?????, ?? ?? ?????? ????????, / ????? 
??? ??? ?????, ??? ???? ???? ????? ??? ?????, / ???? ?? ????? ?? ?????? ??? <????> ?????, ????? 
??? ?????? [Inwood: ?A wise man in his thoughts would not divine such things: / that while they 
live what they call life / for so long they are, and have good and evil things, / but before they are 
formed as mortals and <when> they are dissolved, they are nothing?]. See Laks and Most, V.396, 
and Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK15. 
 
 
 
 
33 
human subjectivity?is it mind or matter? Their elemental fabric or their cognitive experience? 
And are these things separable? Modern translations of the passage tend to make it more 
straightforwardly consistent with Empedocles? outright denial of generation and destruction in 
other fragments. Consider Inwood?s translation, for example: 
 A man wise in his thoughts would not divine such things:  
 that while they live what they call life,  
 for so long they are, and have good and evil things,  
 but before they are formed as mortals and <when> they are dissolved, they are nothing.42 
Wise people, aware of their status as elemental compounds, realize that the matter of their bodies 
has always existed and will always persist, scattered across space and time in perpetual 
remixture. Even here, the verses invite ambiguity, an inescapable effect of Empedocles? choice 
to frame the last three lines in negative terms. But this ambiguity, as Plutarch recognizes, is a 
feature of Empedocles? style rather than a flaw, one that reflects the competing roles of the 
elements and the forces that act upon them (Love and Strife) in Empedocles? cosmic system.  
In Empedocles? poetry, there is often a tension between the many and the one. First, there 
is tension between the primacy of the four elements and of the extra-elemental forces that work 
upon them. One can think of this as a separation of matter and mind, or in a Cartesian hue, res 
extensa and res cogitans. Do Love and Strife exist wholly independently of earth, water, fire, and 
air, or are these forces immanently constituted therein? Secondly, a tension between the many 
and the one asserts itself among the four elements because these substances are susceptible to 
homogenization, according to Empedocles. Ultimately, I want to demonstrate how Empedocles 
 
 
42 See Inwood, pp. 223. 
34 
implies a connection between these two levels of struggle between the many and the one, a 
connection he facilitates through analogy. In other words, Empedocles? four elements can merge 
into one, and this process analogizes his poetry?s representation of the relationship of matter to 
mind, of elements to forces, of essence to construction.  
The potential for Empedocles? four elements to experience total interfusion over time is 
explained by another key concept, the idea of effluence, which is the process that brings the 
elements into flux. Empedocles envisions the four elements as only distinct from each other in 
superficial ways; at their core, he suggests, the four elements are built of similar tiny particles 
that stream off them constantly. The best encapsulation of this is the fragment DK89, which 
reads: ?...........there are effluences from all things that have come to be.?43 When 
Plutarch/Holland introduce this fragment, they offer useful examples:  
Weigh and consider what Empedocles writeth: 
Wot well, all mortall things that be, 
Defluxions have in some degree. 
For there passe away continually, many defluxions, not onely from living creatures,  
 plants, earth and sea, but also from stones, brasse and iron: for all things perish and yeeld  
 a smell, in that there runneth something alwaies from them, and they weare continually.44 
In this passage, Holland/Plutarch/Empedocles declare that things give off ?defluxions? or 
 
 
43 Empedocles, DK89. As I discuss below, Shakespeare may have encountered this fragment in 
his reading of Holland?s edition of Plutarch?s Moralia. 
 
44 Holland, ?Natural Question 19: ?Why doth the Polyp change his colour?,? in Morals, 1009. 
The passage translates Empedocles, DK89: ?????? ??? ?????? ????? ????????, ???? ????????? 
[Inwood: ?...........there are effluences from all things that have come to be?]. See Laks and Most, 
V.540, and Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK89. 
35 
effluences, which ?passe away continually? from all substances. The text then points to the 
phenomenon of smell to support this claim, reasoning that it proves an invisible transference of 
particles across elemental domains, as does the natural wearing away of objects in time. But 
more importantly, these tiny particles, whether they flow from earth, water, fire, or air, share a 
common structure. 
This proto-atomic idea enables the four elements to exist in a state of interoperability 
with one another, linked by an invisible substratum of similitude. One knows these particles exist 
because of phenomena like vision, which would be impossible without miniscule particulate 
bodies that act upon the senses.45 Notice how, even as Empedocles attempts to describe a 
substance beneath the level of elemental differentiation, he reaches for an elemental analogy. 
That is, he describes these emissions of miniscule particles in terms of fluid movement, of 
?effluence.? Myrto Garani explains that Empedocles creates a ?metaphorical conceptualization 
of the ubiquitous and unremitting emission of roots out of matter in terms of ?flowing water,? 
what he calls ?effluences.? ?46 In short, Empedocles uses an elemental analogy to deemphasize 
elemental difference, a stylistic choice that illustrates his point about the elements? potential to, 
in a way, transcend themselves. 
  Elsewhere in the same section of Morals, Plutarch bolsters the monist aspect of 
Empedocles with the memorable image of Empedocles as a cosmic welder who fuses together 
the building blocks of the universe. ?Empedocles,? Holland translates, ?sodering [soldering] as it 
 
 
45 On Empedocles? theory of vision and its connection to effluence, see Mark Eli Kalderon, 
Form without Matter: Empedocles and Aristotle on Color Perception (Oxford: Oxford 
University Press, 2015), esp. 6?7. 
 
46 Myrto Garani, Empedocles Redivivus: Poetry and Analogy in Lucretius (New York: 
Routledge, 2007), 114. 
36 
were and conjoining the elements by heats, softness and humidities, giveth them in some sort a 
mixtion and composition unitive.?47 The effluence of tiny, similar particles from the elements is 
what enables Plutarch to see a ?composition unitive? in Empedocles? vision, one born of 
Empedocles ?sodering? the elements into a single unified substance. Plutarch?s analogy of 
Empedocles as cosmic welder lucidly conveys how, although he is closely associated with a 
division of physical reality into four, Empedocles? philosophy equally prioritizes the power of 
oneness: a precarious monism. This monistic potential of Empedocles? elements surfaces 
elsewhere in the Moralia, like when Plutarch explains how ?Empedocles composeth the 
Elements of smaller masses, which he supposeth to be the least bodies, and as a man would say, 
the Elements of Elements.?48 Even in spite of Plutarch?s anti-Epicurean reputation, Empedocles? 
tiny particles take on an atomic glow in this analogy, underscoring the philosopher?s appeal to 
materialist understandings of reality. 
The idea of flux leads Empedocles to the related notion of elemental transmutation, or the 
elements? potential to transform into each other. As Holland puts it, ?Empedocles is of opinion, 
that the places of the elements are not alwaies steadie and certeine, but that they all interchange 
mutually one with another.?49 This principle is reflected in Empedocles? description of how the 
elements were formed, which also appears in Holland?s translation. He explains how the world 
once existed as a single unified substance, from which the elements separated under the 
influence of Strife. According to Empedocles/Holland, fire and earth first separated from this 
 
 
47 Holland, Morals, 1114. 
 
48 Ibid., 814.  
 
49 Ibid., 819. 
37 
homogenous mass. Then, from this separated earth, ?being thrust close and pressed together by 
the violence of revolution, sprang Water, from which Aire did evaporate.?50 Originating from a 
common substance, the elements are connected by their ability to flow into one another. One 
might think of effluence as the link between Empedocles? monist and dualist tendencies, the 
point where his system of four elements flows into one. In short, effluential flux, enabled by 
streams of similar tiny particles across elemental categories, is the bedrock of Empedocles? 
pluralism. It is the mechanism that allows his force of Love to hold the elements together.  
The blurry ontology I?ve been describing is not the result of overreading or a refusal to 
make up my mind about an accurate interpretation of Empedocles. Instead, it is a fundamental 
aspect of the philosopher?s style, and one related to his preference for analogy as a tool for 
understanding the world. Indeed, Empedocles is possibly self-aware about the dual nature of his 
elemental vision: 
????? ????? ???? ??? ??? ?? ?????? ????? ????? 
?? ???????, ???? ?? ?? ????? ?????? ?? ???? ?????.51 
 
[I shall tell a double tale. For at one time [they] [the elements] grew to be one alone 
from many, and at another, again, [they] grew apart to be many from one.]52  
 
 
50 Ibid. Note that Empedocles identifies a fifth substance, ?ther or sky, which is the first to 
separate from the homogenous globe of Love. I have omitted ?ther from the discussion above 
because this detail is not directly relevant to my argument. But see Michael M. Shaw, ?Aither 
and the Four Roots in Empedocles,? Research in Phenomenology 44, no. 2 (2014): esp. 173?8. 
  
51 See Laks and Most, V.410. 
 
52 Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK 17.1?2. This is part of a lengthy and widely cited fragment, 
which was often quoted piecemeal in ancient texts. For instance, two lines from later in the 
fragment appear in Plutarch?s ?Dialogue on Love? in the Moralia, at 756d. Aristotle?s Physics 
38 
In these lines, Empedocles illustrates the movement of the universe between states of elemental 
isolation and interfusion. Sometimes the elements are four, and sometimes they are one. But the 
shifting of the four elements between isolated and interspersed states also analogizes the 
pluralism of Empedocles? broader cosmic system, which simultaneously entertains materialist 
and idealist viewpoints, insisting on the cohesion of viewpoints that later thinkers would demand 
to separate. The very beginning of this fragment, ?I shall tell a double tale,? in addition to 
registering the four elements? uniqueness and compatibility, hints at the way Empedocles? poetry 
insists on gathering together thoughts that are difficult to entertain concurrently. The movement 
of Empedocles? interlocking imagery calls attention to the traffic between the many and the one, 
in a cycle of elemental unification and isolation that determines the material constitution of the 
world in any given moment.  
 Later, in the same fragment DK17, Empedocles includes lines that relate the tension 
between the many and the one within his four elements to the tension between mortal and 
immortal potential in his broader vision: 
????? ???? ????? ?????, ??? ???????? ?? ?????? 
????????? ?????? ???? ??? ??????? ???? ?????.  
[? ? ? | ? ? ? | ? ? ???????]???? ??? ??? ??????, 
[? ? ? | ? ? ? | ? ????? ???]??? ?? ???? ?????, 
??? ?? ????? ??? ?? ?? ??? ?? ???? ???? ?? ?????? ???????? 
???????? ?? ????????? ??? ??????? ??? ????????, 
 
 
also cites portions of the fragment, at A28b. The two lines I cite here, which exemplify the 
?double? quality of Empedocles? system, are cited in Simplicius? commentary on Aristotle?s 
Physics.  
39 
??????? ?? ???????? ??? ???? ????????????????? ?????? 
????? ?? ???? ????????????? ??????[? ????????. 
 
[But these very things [the four elements] are, and running through each other 
they become different at different times and are always perpetually alike. 
???.. we come together into one cosmos, 
?????.. to be many from one, 
from which all things that were, that are, and will be in the future 
have sprung: trees and men and women  
and beasts and birds and water-nourished fish, 
and long-lived gods first in their prerogative.]53 
Empedocles uses watery imagery (?running,? as a stream) to signify the elements? underlying 
interoperability, the particulate effluence that links them in a continuum of transmutability. I say 
?underlying,? because the elements still function in distinct ways, too; they are ?different at 
different times? and yet ?always perpetually alike.? The fragment adopts a materialist timbre in 
the lines that follow, when Empedocles claims that ?all things that were, that are, and will be in 
the future / have sprung? from these same elements. But when he lists examples to support his 
claim of elemental primacy, Empedocles obliterates any hope of articulating a simple 
materialism, for he concludes this list with ?long-lived gods, first in their prerogative.? Not only 
can these elements produce gods, but such a process is a leading ?prerogative? of elemental 
substance. But more generally, the passage exemplifies Empedocles? commitment to blurring the 
 
 
53 See Laks and Most, V.415?16, and Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK17.34?41.  
40 
relationship between divine and material speculation. From one vantage, the passage implies that 
?gods? are, in truth, just material substances which wield great power over the experience of 
living things. From another angle, though, the lines suggest a spiritual apotheosis that results 
from the progressive sequence of a material process: the gods as the rarified outcomes of an 
elemental metamorphosis.  
The ambivalent status of the ?gods? in the passage marks a central trope in Empedocles? 
poetry, the analogy of the elements to gods. Consider fragment DK6: 
??????? ??? ?????? ???????? ?????? ?????? 
???? ????? ??? ?? ????????? ??? ???????? 
?????? ??, ? ???????? ?????? ???????? ????????.54 
 
[First, hear of the four roots of all things, 
gleaming Zeus and life-bringing Hera and Aidoneus 
and Nestis, who moistens with tears the spring of mortals.]55 
?Roots? (??????????) is another word for ?elements? in this context, so Empedocles is drawing a 
parallel between fire, air, earth, and water and the Greek gods Zeus, Hera, Aidoneus, and Nestis, 
respectively. Shakespeare may have encountered a translation of this fragment in Holland?s 
edition of the Moralia, which Romanizes the deities in the analogy and provides an interpretative 
gloss, as follows: 
Foure seeds and rootes of all things that you see, 
 
 
54 See Laks and Most, V.400. 
 
55 Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK6. ?Nestis? is an alternative name of Persephone. 
41 
Now listen first, and hearken what they be: 
Lord Jupiter with his ignipotence,56 
And lady Junoes vitall influence, 
Rich Pluto, and dame Nestis weeping ay, 
Who with her teares, our seed-sourse weets alway. 
By Jupiter hee meaneth fierie heat, and ardent skie; by Juno giving life, the aire; by 
Pluto, the earth; by Nestis and this humane fountaine of naturall seed, water.57 
Holland?s choice to translate the fragment into rhyming couplets reflects the correspondence 
between elements and gods that is described in the passage. By analogizing the elements as gods, 
Empedocles only increases the ambiguity of his metaphysics, and the analogy begs the question: 
is he undermining the gods, essentially materializing them and suggesting that the gods are 
human inventions for organizing the powerful forces of a material reality, meaning that the four 
elements and the forces that shape them are the only truly immortal substances? Or does the 
vector of his analogy work in the opposite direction, infusing the material world with an 
immanent divinity? The allegorical unpacking provided by Holland?s gloss weakens the 
ontological ambiguity of the fragment, giving the analogy a sense of straightforward resolution 
that is external to Empedocles? lines. Holland?s translation may somewhat simplify the fragment, 
but it still captures the unique proximity of elemental and divine substance in Empedocles? 
analogy. Because of its sympathetic pairing of material and divine substance, Empedoclean 
 
 
56 ?Ignipotent?: ?Ruling or having power over fire.? See ?Ignipotent, adj.? in The Oxford English 
Dictionary Online (cited hereafter as OED in footnotes). 
 
57 Holland, Morals, 808. The passage appears in the section ?Of principles or first beginnings, 
what they be.? 
42 
thought provides a useful framework for early modern thinkers attempting to reconcile 
materialist philosophy with religious faith. 
Empedocles? desire to bring together seemingly opposed visions is even reflected in the 
reception history of his verse, its fragmentation and gradual reconstruction. Traditionally, editors 
divided Empedocles? poetry into two separate works, which they called the ?Purifications? and 
the ?Physics.? Although, as Inwood observes, ?no two independent editors have assigned the 
same set of fragments to each,? they tended to assign more mystical fragments to the 
?Purifications,? while including the more scientific (from a modern standpoint) fragments in the 
?Physics.?58 However, in Inwood?s opinion, ?we have no good reason to believe that there ever 
were two distinct poems by Empedocles,? which is why Inwood?s edition reorganizes the 
fragments into a single poem and encourages a ?unitary interpretation of Empedocles? 
theories.?59 This tendency of editors to divide the fragments into two groups reveals itself as a 
strategy for managing the unwieldy ideas they contain, their ?double tale? of Empedocles? 
materialist and idealist intimations.60 The textual history of Empedocles? poetry therefore reflects 
the very process of elemental stratification and reunion that forms the basis of his physical and 
metaphysical universe. Like his four elements, Empedocles? fragments have moved between 
states of division and wholeness. 
 In Shakespeare?s day, Empedocles was known not only for his theory of the four 
elements, but also for the sensational myth of his death by leaping into a volcano. The story of 
 
 
58 Inwood, ?Introduction,? 9. 
 
59 Ibid., 9?10. 
 
60 See Empedocles, DK17.1. 
43 
Empedocles? volcanic suicide, notwithstanding its status as fiction, reflects the unusual blend of 
materialist and idealist vantages in his poetry. As Diogenes Laertius tells it, Empedocles died by 
suicide after jumping headfirst into the volcano of Mount Etna in an attempt to prove he was a 
god.61 Laertius? mocking account ends with the volcano emitting one of the philosopher?s bronze 
sandals in his wake, a regurgitation that is viewed as a kind of punchline, serving to prove that 
Empedocles did not in fact become a god. Laertius? invention of Empedocles? suicide should be 
understood in the context of ancient Greek biographical tradition, which was usually less 
concerned with creating a realistic account of the subject?s life than it was of building a narrative 
that exemplifies important aspects of his or her philosophy or teachings. In fact, a careful reading 
of Laertius? account of Empedocles reveals that he kills Empedocles in multiple ways, giving 
several different descriptions of his death. Empedocles? leap in Etna is the most famous of these, 
but Laertius also writes that Empedocles died by drowning in the sea, and by hanging himself on 
a noose in a tree, deaths which nod to a fragment in which Empedocles claims to have been a 
fish and a bird in past lives.62 In her book Death by Philosophy, Ava Chitwood explains it like 
this: 
 It is not unusual for a philosopher to have more than one death; death was a favorite topic  
 for the biographers and entire collections were devoted to famous or unusual deaths.  
 
 
61 Diogenes Laertius writes: ?He [Empedocles] set out on his way to Etna; then, when he had 
reached it, he plunged into the fiery craters and disappeared, his intention being to confirm the 
report that he had become a god. Afterwards the truth was known, because one of his slippers 
was thrown up in the flames; it had been his custom to wear slippers of bronze.? See Diogenes 
Laertius, ?Empedocles? in Lives, trans. R.D. Hicks (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 
1931), 8.2.69.  
 
62 For Diogenes Laertius? account of Empedocles? death by drowning and hanging, see Lives, 
8.2.74?5. For Empedocles? claim that he has been a fish, a bird, a bush, a boy, and a girl, see 
Empedocles, DK117, and my discussion below. 
44 
 Biographical death, however, is always telling, because it is always drawn from the  
 subject?s work, and indicative of the biographers? reaction to that work?rarely does  
 death glorify its subject.63  
In Empedocles? case, the story of his volcanic descent hearkens back to his emphasis on 
elemental flux and on the volcano as an important site of elemental transformation. For 
Empedocles, the volcano is a site of elemental mixture and emergence, a deep well in which the 
elements experience dynamic change and interfusion, as crystallized by the substance of lava. As 
earthen stone transformed to liquid fire, lava encapsulates the power of elemental transmutation 
and flux. Empedocles even claims that life itself emerged from the volcano.64 Thus, when people 
imagine Empedocles falling into Etna, they implicitly celebrate a key feature of his elemental 
system, returning the philosopher to the material flux that is the centerpiece of his philosophical 
teaching. As he jumps into the volcano, Empedocles is absorbed into the elements he regards as 
eternal gods, drawn into a divine flux and dispersed back into the fabric of the cosmos.   
At the same time, the story of Empedocles? dive into lava places him among a group of 
materially minded philosophers, like Democritus and Lucretius, to whom ancient biographers 
attribute a suicidal end. For instance, St. Jerome wrote that Lucretius took his own life after 
becoming insane from consuming a love potion.65 The story of Lucretius? suicide, especially 
 
 
63 Chitwood, Death by Philosophy: The Biographical Tradition in the Life and Death of the 
Archaic Philosophers Empedocles, Heraclitus, and Democritus (Ann Arbor: University of 
Michigan Press, 2007), 49. 
 
64 On the volcano as a source of life, see Empedocles, DK31, DK35, DK57, and DK62. And see 
Waterfield, ?Empedocles of Acragas,? 140. 
 
65 On Jerome?s account of Lucretius? death, see Martin F. Smith, ?Introduction,? in Lucretius: 
On the Nature of Things, Loeb Classical Library 181 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 
45 
considering its Christian author, is a case of a religious person slandering Lucretius as insane, 
implying that materialism is madness. But how does Empedocles? reputed death compare to this? 
On the one hand, one might read the myth along similar lines as Jerome?s narrative about 
Lucretius, that is, as an attempt to mock the proto-materialism of Empedocles? elemental system 
as an invitation to madness. On the other hand, though, the story embodies a much different 
ideology, actually criticizing Empedocles for his implied belief in incorporeal substance and his 
own ascension to a divine pitch, as Laertius has it.  
Although an extensive English translation of Diogenes? Lives would not appear until the 
late seventeenth century, the story of Empedocles? volcanic plunge had already been dispersed 
into English writing secondhand by the early late fifteenth century, at which point it had become 
a persistent feature of English writing.66 In fact, the incendiary tabloid myth had already been 
Shakespeare?s day. An English translation of Tommaso Garzoni?s L?Hospidale de' Pazzi 
Incurabili [The Hospital of Incurable Fools] (1586), for instance, highlights how ?Empedocles 
Agrigentine being a Foole, one degree above all others, threw himselfe headlong into the flames 
of mount Aetna, to the end that men might undoubtedly thinke, how he was flowen up into 
heaven.?67 In an even earlier example from a book of manners, which is one of the first printed 
 
 
Press, 1992), x, & xviii?xxii. On Democritus? purported suicide, see Chitwood, Death by 
Philosophy, esp. 134?140, & 189fn6. 
 
66 See Diogenes Laertius, The Lives, Opinions, and Remarkable Sayings of the Most Famous 
Ancient Philosophers. Written in Greek, by Diogenes Laertius. Made English by Several Hands. 
The First Volume (London, 1688) and The Second Volume (London, 1696). 
 
67 See Tommaso Garzoni, The Hospital of Incurable Fools, Erected into English (London, 1600), 
69. English references to Empedocles as an exemplar of divine zealotry and foolishness reach 
back at least to the fifteenth century. See for example Jacques Legrand, Here Begynneth the 
Table of a Book Entytled the Book of Good Maners (London, 1487), EEBO image #59 
(unnumbered page). And see, EEBO image #73 (unnumbered page).  
46 
references to Empedocles in English, Empedocles? death is cast as a moral lesson, namely: ?he 
that ent?[n]deth to haue heuene, ought lytyl to preyse his lyf.?68 This sarcastic aphorism 
implicitly chastises Empedocles, suggesting that his volcanic suicide and emphasis on divinity 
may lead others to disregard their own lives. More broadly, these passages from Garzoni and 
Legrand reveal that early moderns understood Empedocles not only as a materially minded 
thinker, but also as a figure of fiery religious passion, and sometimes primarily as such.  
Although he may never have leapt into lava, Empedocles does appear to declare himself a 
god in his poetry, as in this fragment: 
? ?????, ?? ???? ???? ???? ?????? ?????????? 
?????? ??? ???? ??????, ?????? ??????????? ?????, 
?????? ??????? ???????, ????????? ???????, 
???????? ??? ?? ???? ???? ????????, ?????? ?????? 
???????? ???? ???? ?????????, ????? ?????, 
???????? ?? ??????????? ???????? ?? ????????? 
?????? ??? ???? ?? ?????? ?? ????? ??????????, 
???????? ??? ??????? ?????????? ?? ?? ??? ??????? 
?????? ?????????? ??? ???? ?????? ???????, 
?? ??? ??????????? ??????????, ?? ?? ??? ?????? 
???????? ???????? ?????? ?????? ????? 
????? ?? ???????? ?????????? <???? ???????>. 
 
 
 
68 Jacques Legrand, The Book of Good Maners (London, 1487): EEBO images 59?60. 
47 
[O friends, who dwell in the great city of the yellow Acragas, 
up in the high parts of the city, concerned with good deeds 
<respectful harbours for strangers, untried by evil,> 
hail! I, in your eyes a deathless god, no longer mortal, 
go among all, honoured, just as I seem: 
wreathed with ribbons and festive garlands. 
As soon as I arrive in flourishing cities I am revered 
by all, men and women. And they follow at once, 
in their ten thousands, asking where is the path to gain, 
some in need of divinations, others in all sorts of diseases 
sought to hear a healing oracle, 
having been pierced <about by harsh pains> for too long a time.]69 
Witness Empedocles? divine self-image as he describes the hordes of people who follow him for 
wisdom and healing. At the same time, notice how he hedges his claim to divinity by saying he is 
a god ?in your eyes,? rather than a god in truth.70 He could be describing how people revere him 
as a god, rather than fully identifying with such a status. While some, like Diogenes Laertius, do 
not appreciate this nuance and accuse Empedocles of being egotistical, others have attempted to 
 
 
69 See Empedocles, trans. Inwood DK112, and Laks and Most, V.362. Diogenes Laertius cites 
this fragment in Lives at 8.61?2 and elsewhere. The fragment is also found in Sextus Empiricus? 
Adversus Mathematicos at 1.302?3 and in the entry for ?Empedocles? in The Suda. See Suidae 
Lexicon, 358.   
 
70 The Laks and Most translation also captures this ambiguity by translating the line, ?I greet 
you! I, who for you am an immortal god, no longer mortal? (emphasis mine). Similarly to the 
Inwood translation I cite above, this version emphasizes the second-person framing of 
Empedocles? statement: he is a god ?for you.?  See Laks and Most, V.363.   
48 
reconcile Empedocles? statement with his proto-materialist, elemental philosophy. The 
Byzantine poet Joannes Tzetzes, for example, glosses Empedocles? claim of being a god with the 
paraphrase, ?i.e. ?I shall be dissolved into the impassible and immortal elements themselves, 
from which I was compounded.??71 As Inwood explains, ?it is clear that Tzetzes wants to 
reconcile Empedocles? claim of personal immortality with the doctrine that only the elements, 
love, and strife are immortal.?72 This ambiguously divine self-regard surfaces elsewhere in 
Empedocles? poetry, for example when he claims to be an exiled god enduring a cycle of 
purification or repentance for some act committed in a past life, but only after explaining that 
process of moral purification in terms of elemental movement and recombination (as opposed to 
incorporeal substance).73 What these examples and reactions to Empedocles? legacy illustrate is 
his blurry status in the histories of materialism and religion. Like the rumor of his leap into the 
volcano, Empedocles? claim to divinity in DK112 can be read as an earnest declaration of a 
divine self-regard, or as a dramatic analogy for his teachings about death and material flux. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
71 See Tzetzes, Exegesis in Homeri Iliadem, 29.21?7, and Diogenes Laertius, Lives 8.66. 
 
72 See Inwood, 82fn2. Inwood points out that Philostratus interprets Empedocles? claim similarly 
to Tzetzes in his Life of Apollonius at 8.76, qtd. in Inwood, The Poem of Empedocles, pp. 166. 
 
73 See Empedocles, DK115, quoted below. Shakespeare may have encountered this fragment in 
Plutarch?s On Exile, which cites it at 607c?d, or his ?Isis and Osiris,? which cites it at 361c. 
Plutarch also refers to the fragment in the ?Obsolescence of Oracles? at 418e and 420d. Beyond 
this, the passage was cited heavily throughout antiquity, in works like Plotinus? Enneads (at 
4.8.1, 17?22), Origen?s Contra Celsum (at 8.53), and Hippolytus? Refutatio (at 7.29.9?7.30.4).  
49 
Into the Volcano & Up to the Moon: Erupting the Ghost of Empedocles 
Shakespeare appears to be thinking of Empedocles? infamous death in the Merry Wives of 
Windsor (written ca. 1599) when Falstaff hyperbolically compares his plunge into the Thames to 
a fall into Mount Etna, declaring, ?I will be thrown into Etna, as I have been into Thames, ere I 
will leave her thus.?74 Transforming the fire and ash of Empedocles? plummet into river water, 
Falstaff?s plunge into the Thames exploits the hyperbolic nature of Empedocles? volcanic death 
and translates Empedocles? overzealous confidence in his own divinity into Falstaff?s overblown 
self-image as a worthwhile lover. I introduce this allusion because it may signal Shakespeare?s 
engagement with the afterlife of Empedocles at an earlier moment in his career, even before the 
publication of Holland?s 1603 translation of Plutarch, that watershed of Empedoclean thought in 
English literary history.  
Jonson, too, alludes to Empedocles? volcanic death in his masque News from the 
New World Discovered in the Moon (performed in 1620). The masque centers around a 
conversation between several characters, in which they discuss supposed new findings 
about the moon. At one point, a herald explains that one way to reach the moon is  
old Empedocles? way, who when he leaped into Aetna,  
having a dry, sere body and light, the smoke took him and  
whift him up into the moon, where he lives yet, waving up  
and down like a feather, all soot and embers coming out of  
 
 
74 Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, ed. Giorgio Melchiori (New York: Bloomsbury 
Arden Shakespeare, 2000), act three, scene five, lines 117?18. 
 
50 
that coal pit. Our poet met him and talked with him.75   
Reduced to ?soot and embers,? Empedocles floats among a ?coal pit? on the moon, transmuted 
into fire and ash but still able to hold a conversation as he wafts up and down ?like a feather?? 
an image that probably gestures to a fragment in which Empedocles claims to have been a bird in 
a past life.76 The passage from News, like Empedocles? writing, registers a complex engagement 
with materialism: Jonson?s lunar Empedocles is able to talk, seemingly in possession of a post-
mortem personality, but also described as essentially material, ?all soot and embers? following 
his plunge into Etna. Jonson was not the first early modern writer to invoke the image of 
Empedocles on the moon; Rabelais includes a similar image in Gargantua and Pantagruel 
(1532), for example.77 Jonson and Rabelais? placement of Empedocles on the moon?whose 
orbit traditionally marks the boundary between the celestial and the earthly or sublunar?speaks 
to Empedocles? liminal relationship to materialism and idealism, to elemental commitment and 
transcendence.  
Jonson and Rabelais? depiction of a moon-bound Empedocles hearkens back to 
Lucian?s Icaromenippus (ca. 165 CE), a text in which a departed Empedocles explains 
that, after he threw himself into the volcano, ?the smoke snatched me up here, and now I 
 
 
75 Ben Jonson, ?News from the New World Discovered in the Moon? in Ben Jonson: The 
Complete Masques, ed. Stephen Orgel (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969), lines 167?74.  
 
76 See Empedocles, DK117, and below. Diogenes Laertius quotes the fragment in Lives of the 
Eminent Philosophers at 8.77. It is a key moment in Empedocles? transcorporeal ideation, and 
one I revisit later in the context of Antony and Cleopatra and Milton?s Paradise Lost. 
 
77 See Francois Rabelais, The Complete Works of Francois Rabelais, trans. Donald M. Frame 
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 178?9. And see Sacvan Bercovitch, 
?Empedocles in the English Renaissance,? in Studies in Philology 65, no. 1 (Jan. 1968): 72fn19.  
 
51 
dwell in the moon, although I walk the air a great deal, and I live on dew.?78 Lucian?s 
lunar treatment of Empedocles humors the Presocratic philosopher?s belief in 
intersubjective d?mons but subjects him to the material conditions of Empedocles? own 
philosophy, describing the philosopher?s posthumous body as a fundamentally elemental 
being, composed of airy, appetitive ash that feeds on ?dew.? By making Empedocles into a 
man on the moon, Lucian suggests a transition to fire and air at death that occurs as a 
material process, even as he depicts Empedocles as an ashen ghost with an intact psyche.   
One inspiration for later figurations of Empedocles? afterlife comes in his own 
poetry, in fragment DK117. I have already referred to this fragment in passing, but I want 
now to examine it more closely: 
??? ??? ???? ??? ??????? ?????? ?? ???? ?? 
?????? ?? ?????? ?? ??? ?????? ??????? ?????.79 
 
[For I have already become a boy and a girl 
and a bush and a bird and a fish [??] from the sea.]80 
Empedocles? presentation of his past incarnations illustrates a movement across genders and 
elements. Empedocles follows his claim of sexual metamorphosis in the first line with a 
 
 
78 See Lucian, ?Icaromenippus, or the Sky-Man,? in Lucian II, translated by A. M. Harmon, 
edited by Jeffrey Henderson, Loeb Classical Library 54 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 
Press, 1915), 288?91. 
 
79 Laks and Most, V.370. 
 
80 Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK117. The fragment is not quoted directly in Plutarch. However, 
it appears in the entry on ?Empedocles? in The Suda, and is also quoted in Diogenes Laertius, 
Lives, at 8.5.77, as well as in Hippolytus? Refutatio at 1.3. For the entry in The Suda, see Suidae, 
358.  
52 
progression from earth to air to water in the second. The images in the second line, that is, are 
each strongly associated with a different elemental environment. The ?bush? is anchored to the 
earth, while the ?bird? soars through air and the ?fish? swims through ?the sea.? The fragment 
shows Empedocles meditating on his material composition, and how it connects him to other 
living creatures in other times and elemental domains. In a way, this is another illustration of 
Anaxagorean intermixture, where elemental substances ultimately become so interspersed, 
across vast spans of time, as to blend into oneness. The fragment unsettles the binaries between 
masculine and feminine, humans and animals, and plants and animals, as these various 
distinctions collapse into one another. Furthermore, one can find Empedocles? denial of 
generation and destruction underlying these lines: he intuits that his material fabric existed in 
other combinations, other manifestations before he was born, undermining the idea that any of 
these forms held any true nature or essence, aside from their shared elemental roots. That is one 
interpretation. But at the same time, the fragment can be read as an expression of Pythagorean 
reincarnation. From this view, Empedocles is playing the role of an incorporeal d?mon who has 
inhabited several material forms, animal, human, and plant, male and female.81 This ambiguous 
blending of perspectives (one of Anaxagorean combination and the other of incorporeal 
 
 
81 Valentino Gasparini offers a helpful summary of the d?mon?s origins: ?The concept of the 
demon, born in Mesopotamia and developed in the Babylonian and Egyptian era, is attested in 
Greece since Homer (who conceives of it generically as ?divine?) and Hesiod (the first person to 
distinguish demons from gods, also dividing demons into good and evil ones). Plato thought of 
demons as ministers of the gods and interpreters of humans: lower divinities, souls of the 
deceased, intermediate and guardian spirits. Demons share both the divine status (they are 
superior and eternal beings) and the human one (they have corporeal, or semi-corporeal, 
intellectual and emotional characteristics).? See Gasparini, ?Isis and Osiris: Demonology vs. 
Henotheism?,? Numen 58, no. 5/6 (2011): 703. 
 
53 
transmigration) is part of Empedocles? self-presentation ?as a kind of poetic vates?a prophet 
who could read the past and future of matter,? as Passannante writes.82 
 Empedocles? prophetic self-fashioning is perhaps most direct in fragment DK115, in 
which he claims to be one of the incorporeal d?mons (??????????) in exile from the gods. In 
ancient Greek religion, d?mons are incorporeal entities that can occupy different bodily subjects; 
they are the imagined helpers by whom vatic poets longed to be possessed in the name of poetic 
inspiration. And yet, even here, attentive readers will see how Empedocles obscures the precise 
quality of his d?monic composition: 
????? ??????? ?????, ???? ??????? ???????, 
??????, ????????? ???????????????? ??????? 
???? ??? ?????????? ???? ???? ???? ????? 
? ? ? ?? ?? ???????? ????????? ????????, 
???????? ???? ?????????? ???????? ?????, 
???? ??? ?????? ???? ??? ??????? ?????????, 
????????? ??????? ??? ?????? ????? ?????? 
???????? ??????? ????????????? ?????????. 
???????? ??? ??? ??? ????? ???????? ??????, 
?????? ?? ?? ?????? ????? ????????, ???? ?? ?? ????? 
?????? ?????????, ? ?? ??????? ?????? ??????? 
????? ?? ?? ????? ???????, ????????? ?? ??????. 
??? ??? ??? ??? ????, ????? ?????? ??? ??????, 
 
 
82 Passannante is referring to how both Empedocles and Lucretius adopt a vatic persona as they 
describe their visions of matter. See Catastrophizing, 203. 
54 
?????? ????????? ???????. ? ? | ? ? ? | ? ?  
 
[There is an oracle of necessity, an ancient decree of the gods, 
 eternal, sealed with broad oaths: 
 whenever one, in his sins, stains his dear limbs with blood 
 ? [the text is corrupt here] by misdeed swears falsely, 
 [of] the daimons [that is] who have won long-lasting life, 
 he wanders for thrice ten thousand seasons away from the blessed ones, 
 growing to be all sorts of forms of mortal things through time, 
 interchanging the hard paths of life. 
 For the strength of aither pursues him into the sea, 
 and the sea spits [him] onto the surface of the earth and earth into the beams   
 of the blazing sun, and it throws him into the eddies of the air; 
 and one after another receives [him], but all hate [him]. 
 I too am now one of these, an exile from the gods and a wanderer, 
 trusting in mad strife.]83  
This fragment, resonating with the Christian doctrines of sin and repentance, claims that an 
ancient decree of the gods lays out a rule of conduct for divine beings: causing bloodshed 
amounts to ?sin,? for which they are punished with exile from the ?blessed ones,? forced into 
 
 
83 See Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK115, and Laks and Most, V.368. Plutarch quotes the 
fragment, as I discuss immediately below. Other doxographic moments include Plotinus, 
Enneads, at 4.8.1, 17?22, Celsus? Contra Celsum, at 8.53, Porphyry in Stobaeus at 2.8.42, and 
Hierocles? commentary on the Carmen Aureum, at 24.2?3.   
 
55 
mortal incarnations. This prohibition against bloodshed reflects Empedocles? vegetarianism, 
which, like his apparent belief in reincarnation, he absorbs from Pythagoras? influence.84 But 
notice how the fragment unfolds this description of divine exile. To be banished from the gods is 
to be shunned by element after element, as the exiled entity is passed off from ?ther to the sea, 
which ?spits? him onto the ?earth.? The earth ejects the exile into the sun?s hot ?beams,? which 
hurls him into ?air.? The movement of Empedocles? imagery therefore represents exile from the 
gods as an exile from the elements. Empedocles concludes by claiming that he, the singer of 
these verses, is such an exile, a ?wanderer? who ?trust[s] in mad strife? as he is shuffled from 
one bodily incarnation to another. It?s helpful here to recall Empedocles? analogy of the gods to 
elements in DK6, which I discussed above. The further one moves away from elemental 
substance, the further from gods she wanders. In Empedocles? view, to depart from matter is to 
depart from the divine. Nevertheless, Empedocles doesn?t reject incorporeal experience 
altogether; he instead defines it as the inverse of divine substance, in another example of his 
nimble ontological attitude.   
 Holland?s translation of Empedocles? fragment on elemental exile (DK115) emphasizes 
its appeal to a largely Christian early modern audience: 
 Empedocles in the very beginning of his philosophie maketh this praeface:  
An auncient law there stands in force, decreed by gods above,    
Grounded upon necessitie, and never to remoove: 
That after men hath stein?d his hands in bloudshed horrible, 
And in remorse of sinne is vext with horrour terrible.   
 
 
84 On Empedocles? prohibition against eating meat, see fragments DK136 & DK137. 
56 
The long liv?d angels which attend in heaven, shall chase him quite, 
For many thousand yeeres from view of every blessed wight: 
By vertue of this law, am I from gods exiled now, 
And wander heere and there throughout the world I know not how.85 
Holland significantly alters the meaning of Empedocles? description of exile. Whereas the 
Inwood translation (quoted in the prior paragraph) makes clear that elemental substances banish 
the exiled god, in Holland?s version, it is ?the long liv?d angels which attend in heaven? who 
shun or ?chase? the exile, bringing the fragment firmly into a Christological mode (emphasis 
mine). Moreover, by swapping Empedocles? shunning elements for a clique of socially exclusive 
heavenly ?angels,? Holland reverses the fragment?s point about incorporeal substance, bringing 
the image into line with an Augustinian worldview in which fallen experience is decidedly 
earthbound.86 Instead of being exiled from the elements, as Empedocles has it, Holland makes 
this divine exile into a more typical description of a fallen state. Finally, observe how Holland 
ends the fragment with the statement, ?I?wander?throughout the world I know not how? 
(emphasis mine). Holland?s translation makes Empedocles a lot less confident in his own cosmic 
transcendence, registering the indeterminate status of the Sicilian philosopher?s true opinion of 
immortality, as well as his assimilation to a later Christocentric worldview.  
 
 
85 Holland, ?Of Exile,? in Morals, 281. And see Plutarch, Moralia, 607c?d, 361c, & 418e.  
 
86 See Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 
esp. II.ii.2?4 & V.ix.16. 
 
57 
 Like Holland, Shakespeare invokes the d?mon in the language of ?angels? in Antony and 
Cleopatra. When Antony asks the Soothsayer whether Caesar or he will have a better fortune, 
the Soothsayer resorts to d?monology: 
ANTONY:   
Say to me,  
whose fortunes shall rise higher, Caesar?s or mine? 
SOOTHSAYER:  
Caesar?s. 
Therefore, O Antony, stay not by his side. 
Thy daemon?that thy spirit which keeps thee?is 
Noble, courageous, high unmatchable, 
Where Caesar?s is not. But near him, thy angel 
Becomes afeard, as being o?erpowered; therefore 
Make space enough between you. (2.3.14?22) 
The Soothsayer explains the discord between Antony and Caesar as a friction of d?monic 
disagreement. Notice how Antony?s ?d?mon? becomes ?thy angel? after two lines, jostling 
Empedoclean and Christian frames of reference. Yet as Shakespeare introduces a sacred register 
through the Soothsayer?s esoteric knowledge, he brings it into material focus, describing the 
d?monic relationship between Caesar and Antony in terms of ?space?: ?stay not by his side,? he 
warns Antony, and ?make space enough between you.? In the Soothsayer, Shakespeare offers us 
a glimpse of Empedoclean d?monology, giving us a character who contemplates divine 
experience in terms of physical reality. 
58 
 As I?ve been showing, Empedocles? fragments paint him as a d?mon in exile from the 
gods. But in addition to this confession of spiritual banishment, Empedocles developed a 
posthumous reputation as a political exile. This is thanks to Diogenes Laertius, who implies that 
Empedocles was exiled from his homeland in Acragas late in life after becoming unpopular.87 As 
Chitwood explains, ?the story of exile?is?[a] standard theme in the life of the poet or 
philosopher, and, in Empedocles? case, could easily be read into those fragments which speak 
metaphorically about exile.?88 In other words, Laertius may have felt the need to create a 
biographical detail about political exile that would align with Empedocles' statements about the 
subject.89 Laertius? claim about Empedocles? exile comes just after he describes Empedocles as a 
leader of anti-oligarchical political reforms, implying that those reforms may have led to his 
banishment. Laertius writes that Empedocles ?broke up the assembly of the Thousand three years 
after it had been set up, which proves not only that he was wealthy but that he favoured the 
popular cause.?90 Empedocles begins to look like a veritable political reformer in Laertius? 
account, which goes so far as to cast him as a champion of democracy. Laertius claims that 
Empedocles ?declined the kingship when it was offered to him, obviously because he preferred a 
 
 
87 See Diogenes Laertius, Lives, 8.67. 
 
88 Ava Chitwood, ?The Death of Empedocles,? The American Journal of Philology 107, no. 2 
(Summer 1986), 179. 
 
89 Chitwood points out that Laertius? desire to portray Empedocles as a political reformer is also 
an attempt to reflect fragment DK146, in which Empedocles claims that noble civic and political 
leaders possess the capacity to ?????? ???????????? ???? ?????? ????????? [?sprout up as gods?]. 
See Chitwood, ?The Death of Empedocles,? 179, Laks and Most, V.384, and Emepdocles, trans. 
Inwood, DK146.  
 
90 Diogenes Laertius, Lives, 8.66. 
 
59 
frugal life. With this Timaeus agrees, at the same time giving the reason why Empedocles 
favoured democracy??91 These stories are almost certainly untrue according to Chitwood, 
although ?there undoubtedly was some sort of political change in Acragas at or around 
Empedocles? time, with which he later became associated.?92 Although ?none of the stories can 
be substantiated,? it is clear that Laertius wants to find ?evidence of Empedocles? hatred of 
tyranny? around every corner.93 
 Chitwood recognizes that, despite its dubious biographical accuracy, Laertius? account of 
a democratic, populist, and anti-monarchical Empedocles had a lasting effect on the 
philosopher?s reputation. ?Once these stories become part of the legend,? she writes, ?it is hard 
to escape their influence, and modern writers as well as ancient ones tend to fall into the trap.?94 
Montaigne is one example of this. In his essay ?Of Pedantry,? Montaigne writes that 
?Empedocles refused the royaltie, which the Agrigentines offered him," as he ?found the seat of 
justice, and the throne of Kings, to be but base and vile.?95 The tradition continues in Holland?s 
translation of Plutarch, which combines the story of Empedocles? dissolution of the Thousand 
with his legacy as a healer and controller of the elements: 
 
 
91 Ibid., 8.64. 
 
92 Chitwood, ?The Death of Empedocles,? 179. 
 
93 Ibid. 
 
94 Ibid. 
 
95 Michel de Montaigne, ?Of Pedantisme,? in Florio?s Montaigne, Volume I, trans. John Florio, 
ed. J. I. M. Stewart (London: The Nonesuch Press, 1931), 128.  
 
60 
And Empedocles not onely judicially convented and condemned the principall persons of  
 the city wherein he dwelt, for their insolent behaviour and for distracting or embeselling  
 the publicke treasure, but also delivered all the territorie about it from sterility and  
 pestilence, whereunto before time it was subject, by emmuring and stopping up the open  
 passages of a certaine mountaine, through which the southern winde blew and overspred  
 all the plaine country underneath.96  
Empedocles is fashioned as a civic leader who can protect Acragas against sickness and 
oligarchy alike. He punishes the corrupt rulers of Acragas, and uses his elemental wisdom to 
avoid a plague by diverting an infected wind that was blowing through a mountain passage into 
the city. He has become a figure of populist appeal who saves lives and corrects injustice. The 
political dimension of Empedocles? afterlife developed in part from Laertius? response to 
Empedocles? claims about being an exiled d?mon, illustrating how the Agrigentine 
philosopher?s metaphysical claims are broken apart, reimagined, and rebirthed as political 
wisdom for later ages. But how does Empedocles? blurry status in relation to materialism and 
idealism relate to his appeal as a figure of political reform? This is a question I hope to answer 
by turning next to the Empedoclean mood of Antony and Cleopatra, one of Shakespeare?s most 
politically and philosophically elemental dramatic works.
 
 
96 Holland, Morals, 1128. 
61 
Chapter Two:  
Empedoclean Effluence and Analogy in Shakespeare?s Antony and Cleopatra 
 
Introduction 
Shakespeare?s Antony and Cleopatra (1607) dramatizes the relationship between gods 
and elements. The parting vows of Antony, Octavia, and Caesar in act three suggest an analogy 
between divine and elemental fortune: 
ANTONY: 
So the gods keep you, 
And make the hearts of Romans serve your ends. 
We will here part. 
CAESAR: 
Farewell, my dearest sister [to Octavia], fare thee well. 
The elements be kind to thee and make 
Thy spirits all of comfort! Fare thee well. (3.2.36?41) 
Notice how the dialogue moves between a religious and a material focus: ?the gods keep you? is 
met with ?the elements be kind to thee,? placing divine and elemental invocations on the same 
plane while also perhaps suggesting a difference of perspective between Antony and Caesar. 
Reminding readers of the play?s vast geography?and its characters? reliance on the 
contingencies of wind, sea, land, and sun?Shakespeare calls up a Homeric image of divine 
interference in human affairs, and then immediately recasts the gods in this scenario as elements. 
While at first blush, Caesar?s blessing, ?the elements be kind to thee,? might seem like an 
insignificant commonplace, in fact it is the only example of the phrase printed in any extant 
62 
English book before 1700.97 This suggests that Shakespeare is thinking in a very specific way 
about the flux between elements and gods in this passage, as he does throughout the play. Such a 
movement between elemental and divine thinking exemplifies how Antony and Cleopatra 
derives poetic inspiration from Empedocles, who makes an analogy between the gods and the 
elements (DK6).  
 I argue that Shakespeare draws on an Empedoclean framework of elemental analogy and 
flux to construct the dramatic universe of Antony and Cleopatra. Shakespeare uses the imagery 
of elemental flux, that is,  to undergird the political and romantic transformations of the play?s 
characters. As I will show, Antony and Cleopatra takes inspiration from Empedocles? pluralism, 
using elemental flux to ponder the relationship between body and mind as the play?s titular 
figures confront death. What emerges from my analysis is a picture of how Shakespeare?s play 
draws poetic inspiration from Empedocles? motley ontology. As I will show, Empedocles? 
movement between materialist and idealist frames of reference underwrites the perspectival blur 
of Antony and Cleopatra. On one level, Empedoclean poetry offers Shakespeare the opportunity 
to ponder materialist possibility while still entertaining the possibility of transcendence. On 
another level, it provides him with a rich analogic palette for exploring political and imperial 
power. 
In recent decades, scholars have shown how attention to Shakespeare?s elementalism in 
Antony and Cleopatra reveals insights about the play?s relationship to humoral subjectivity, 
 
 
97 Antony and Cleopatra in the First Folio is the only text in the entire Early English Books 
Online (EEBO) database to contain the phrase ?elements be kind,? with the qualifier that this 
statement does not consider texts that may be un-transcribed, mis-transcribed, or excluded from 
EEBO. See William Shakespeare, Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies 
Published According to the True Originall Copies (London, 1623). The EEBO database covers 
roughly the years 1473?1700. 
63 
climatological theory, geography, and gender.98 Gail Kern Paster shows how for writers 
including Shakespeare, ?humoral subjectivity becomes recognizable as a fluid form of 
consciousness inhabited by, even as it inhabits, a universe composed of analogous elements.?99 I 
want to build on this work by interrogating whether Antony and Cleopatra could be relying, in 
key ways, on a specifically Empedoclean understanding of the four elements. As the chapter 
unfolds, I aim to show how the nuances of Empedocles? particular brand of elementalism offer 
important considerations about Shakespeare?s representation of human subjectivity, ones that 
have not yet been fully explored.  
A bit of caution is warranted in this undertaking, however. Since the notion of concordia 
discors was influential on Aristotle?whose intellectual frameworks remained predominant, if 
increasingly challenged, in the early seventeenth century?it is easy to start finding 
Empedoclean influence under every stone, when in reality one is merely encountering a broader 
 
 
98 For example, Paster has shown how Cleopatra?s intersubjective draw to Antony?s horse 
illustrates ?that the passions shared by humans and animals were elemental in their nature? and 
thus make ?affective regulation an early modern aspect of basic bodily management in ways that 
we may find difficult to recognize.? See Paster, Humoring the Body, 187. For a discussion of the 
play?s elementalism in the context of climatological theories of human development, see Mary 
Floyd-Wilson, ?Transmigrations: Crossing Regional and Gender Boundaries in Antony and 
Cleopatra, in Enacting Gender on the English Renaissance Stage, edited by Viviana Comensoli 
and Anne Russel (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 73?96. On the relationship 
between the play?s elementalism and geography, see Mary Thomas Crane, ?Roman World, 
Egyptian Earth: Cognitive Difference and Empire in Shakespeare?s Antony and Cleopatra,? in 
Comparative Drama, vol. 43, no. 1 (Spring 2009): 1?17. For discussions of Shakespeare?s 
elementalism and gender, see Paster, esp. 65, 114fn45, and 175, and Katherine B. Atti?, 
?Regendering the Sublime and the Beautiful: Shakespeare?s Cleopatra and Feminist Formalism,? 
in The Routledge Companion to Women, Sex, and Gender in the Early British Colonial World, 
eds. Kimberly Anne Coles and Eve Keller (London: Routledge, 2019), 46?8.  
 
99 Paster, Humoring the Body, 137. 
64 
epistemological tradition that is not Empedoclean per se.100 Moreover, there are other sources 
that likely influenced Shakespeare?s elementalism?book 15 of Ovid?s Metamorphoses, for 
example?so one should resist the temptation to conflate any discrete reference to the four 
elements as evidence of ?direct? Empedoclean influence.101 With these potential pitfalls in mind, 
my approach in these pages is to focus on moments that resonate in a more particular way with 
Empedocles and his legacy, rooting the discussion in a consideration of Shakespeare?s potential 
exposure to specific fragments through his reading of Plutarch, who ?had a profound influence 
on the way Shakespeare dramatized human character,? as Colin Burrow writes.102 In a word, I 
have attempted in my analysis to hew closely to the details of Empedocles? actual writings, 
considering them through the particular translations that made the fragments available to 
Shakespeare.   
Another objection some readers may raise is Shakespeare?s supposedly limited classical 
knowledge. Ben Jonson?s remark that Shakespeare ?hadst small Latine, and lesse Greeke? might 
sound particularly damning for an exploration of Empedoclean influence.103 However, Burrow 
 
 
100 I discuss Daniel?s point about the pervasiveness of the four elements in the Introduction. See 
Daniel, ?The Empedoclean Renaissance,? 279. On Aristotelian epistemology and Antony and 
Cleopatra, see Crane, ?Roman World, Egyptian Earth: Cognitive Difference and Empire in 
Shakespeare?s Antony and Cleopatra,? Comparative Drama 43, No. 1 (Spring 2009), esp. 2?5.  
 
101 See Ovid, ?Book XV,? in Metamorphoses Volume II, LCL 43, trans. Frank Justus Miller 
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 363?428.  
 
102 See Burrow, Shakespeare & Classical Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 13. 
And see Robert S. Miola, Shakespeare?s Reading (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), esp. 
99?108. 
 
103 See Jonson, ?To the memory of my beloved the author Mr. William Shakespeare and what he 
hath left us,? in the Digital Facsimile of the Bodleian First Folio of Shakespeare's Plays, Arch. 
G c.7, https://firstfolio.bodleian.ox.ac.uk (London, 1623), A4 recto. 
65 
claims that Jonson?s remark would also apply to Jonson himself, as well as most other 
seventeenth-century English readers. As Burrow sees it, the view that Shakespeare?s classical 
learning was inferior compared to Jonson?s has been somewhat overemphasized.104 Moreover, if 
one allows that Shakespeare?s reading of Plutarch might have extended beyond Lives to include 
the Moralia, as Burrow posits, then the matter of Shakespeare?s potential exposure to 
Empedocles is clearer, for the Moralia mentions Empedocles over 100 times, in a range of 
contexts, as opposed to a single allusion within all of the Lives. Even if he read no Greek, 
Shakespeare likely would have encountered Empedocles in English translations of Plutarch 
circulating in the years leading up to his composition of Antony and Cleopatra.  
Moreover, of all the Pre-Socratic philosophers, Empedocles has enjoyed the most 
extensive textual afterlife. Although Empedocles? capacious poetry exists only in fragments, 
Inwood points out that ?for no other Presocratic thinker is there so much evidence,? referring 
both to the number of fragments and the forests of doxography and testimonia that surround 
them.105 Inwood explains how ?the literal quotations of Empedocles? own poetry are extensive, 
the biographical tradition generous (if eccentric), and the volume of ancient discussion of his 
thought staggering.?106 Thus, while considering the influence of Pre-Socratic philosophers on 
 
 
104 See Burrow, esp. 12?14. And see Plutarch, Plutarch: Moralia, edited by Jeffrey Henderson, 
17 vols., Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927?2004). 
 
105 Inwood, ?Introduction,? 3. In addition to Empedocles? transmission through doxographic 
sources such as Plato, Aristotle, and Plutarch, the appearance of Henri Estienne?s Poesis 
Philosophica (1573) marked the first printing of gathered Pre-Socratic fragments in early modern 
Europe. 
 
106 Ibid. Inwood?s reminder about the extensiveness of Empedocles? work and legacy helps 
establish that, while the matter of Presocratic influence on early modern texts is a thorny 
undertaking, Empedocles is a more promising and less obscure figure than, say, Thales or 
Heraclitus.  
66 
Shakespeare warrants some caution?not least because of the millennia that separate them?the 
sheer volume of Empedocles? writings, as well as his enduring influence throughout the Middle 
Ages and early modern period, make this a promising investigation, particularly when I attune to 
the distinctive ontological movement that emerges as a central aspect of Empedocles? influence 
in the Renaissance, rather than any one particular and widely disseminated idea. 
I then turn more directly to Antony and Cleopatra to demonstrate how Shakespeare 
represents the play?s heroine as an Empedoclean deity, developing this interpretation from my 
examination of Plutarch?s repeated Empedoclean emphases. In the subsequent section, I show 
how Shakespeare draws on two details of Empedocles? philosophy to underwrite the imaginative 
world of Antony and Cleopatra: an analogy of the four elements as warriors with civil strife 
between them, and the idea of elemental effluence or flux. By portraying the world in flux, I go 
on to suggest, Shakespeare experiments with dissolving the hierarchies underlying imperial 
power. My analysis is supported by two key sources of Shakespeare?s access to Empedoclean 
fragments, Thomas North?s 1579 translation of Plutarch?s Lives, and Philemon Holland?s 1603 
translation of Plutarch?s Moralia. I demonstrate how North?s translation influences 
Shakespeare?s characterization of political strife in Antony and Cleopatra, while Holland?s book 
contributes to Shakespeare?s fascination with the idea of flux?a concept Plutarch and Holland 
frame as an Empedoclean teaching.    
 
 
 
 
 
67 
Cleopatra as an Empedoclean God 
 Like Empedocles? poetry, Shakespeare?s Antony and Cleopatra expresses its own kind of 
pluralism, its own ?double tale? that weaves together an analogic elemental perspective and a 
preoccupation with elemental transcendence.107 Cleopatra is the most striking example of this 
thematic mixture in the play. As Anna Brownwell Jameson recognized over a century ago, 
?Cleopatra is a brilliant antithesis, a compound of contradictions.?108 In this section, I want to 
show how Cleopatra can be read as an Empedoclean construction who holds together 
Shakespeare?s emergent materialism with his longstanding interest in immortality.109 The world 
organizes itself around Cleopatra at the elemental level, and she reaches for incorporeal 
transcendence through the language of elemental transmutation and flux.    
 Throughout the play, Shakespeare turns to elemental language to evoke Cleopatra?s 
transfixing aura. Enobarbus? description of Cleopatra in her barge captures the heroine?s material 
power. He waxes elemental to Maecenas and Agrippa:  
ENOBARBUS:  
I will tell you. 
 
 
107 Empedocles, DK 17.1?2. 
 
108 Anna Brownell Jameson, Shakespeare?s Heroines (London: J.M. Dent, 1905), 241.  
 
109 Shakespeare?s interest in immortality is expressed throughout much of his other work, but 
perhaps most poignantly in the first part of the Sonnets. I am grateful to Michael Schoenfeldt for 
bringing the elemental imagery of ?Sonnet 44? and ?Sonnet 45? to my attention in a 
conversation we held during the ?Shakespeare and the Elements? seminar at the 2021 meeting of 
the Shakespeare Association of America. I presented an early iteration of this chapter as part of 
the seminar. I am also indebted to Hannah Korell, who participated in the same seminar, for 
helping me consider the political possibilities of elemental philosophy. See Shakespeare, ?Sonnet 
44? and ?Sonnet 45,? in Shakespeare?s Sonnets and Poems, ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul 
Werstine (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009), 107?9. 
68 
The barge she sat in like a burnished throne 
Burned on the water. The poop was beaten gold, 
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that 
The winds were lovesick with them; the oars were silver, 
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made 
The water which they beat to follow faster, 
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, 
It beggared all description: she did lie 
In her pavilion, cloth-of-gold of tissue? 
O?erpicturing that Venus where we see 
The fancy outwork nature. On each side her 
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids, 
With divers-colored fans, whose wind did seem 
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool, 
And what they undid did. (2.2.200?14) 
Cleopatra sets off a series of elemental reactions that steer the imagery of Enobarbus? dazzled 
account of the moments just before the play?s central figures meet for the first time. Notice how 
Cleopatra?s barge ?burned on the water? with its deck of shimmering golden hue and seductive, 
aromatic purple sails. The queen occupies a throne of floating fire, its flames unhindered by the 
water that surrounds them. Moreover, through these elemental reactions, Enobarbus depicts 
Cleopatra as both lovely and Lovely: that is, as both an individual person charged with a 
?supremely sexual? presence, as Harold Bloom puts it, and as an emblem of Love in the way 
Empedocles and Lucretius use the concept, namely, as a natural force responsible for the world?s 
69 
material cohesion.110 When Enobarbus, therefore, goes on to compare Cleopatra to ?Venus,? he?s 
alluding not only to her seductive affective power but also portraying her as a force of cosmic 
Love.  
What is more, Cleopatra?s embodiment of Venus analogizes the political dimension of 
Cleopatra?s sexuality: that is, how the relationship between Egypt and Rome, and between the 
Roman triumvirates, hangs in the balance of her physical entanglements with Antony. As 
Jonathan Dollimore writes, ?Antony and Cleopatra dramatizes the connections between desire 
and power; more exactly, sexual love and political struggle.?111 To say it differently: 
Shakespeare portrays erotic energy as element-binding, cosmic Love, a move which makes 
Cleopatra responsible for holding the world together, politically and materially. Maynard Mack 
reads Enobarbus? speech as ?a kind of absolute oxymoron: Cleopatra is glimpsed here as a force 
like the Lucretian Venus, whose vitality resists both definition and regulation.?112 Indeed, the 
elements are both captivated and disordered by Cleopatra?s presence. For example, the oars of 
her barge make the water ?amorous of their strokes,? lovesick after the most fleeting and indirect 
contact with the Queen of Egypt. Along similar lines, the fans of Cleopatra?s attendant Cupids 
don?t simply ?cool? her, but produce a wind that makes her cheeks ?glow...And what they undid 
did.? In other words, the winds themselves grow lusty as they cool Cleopatra?s lust. She can?t so 
 
 
110 Bloom, Cleopatra: I Am Fire and Air (New York: Scribner, 2017), 8. And see Empedocles, 
DK17.7?8 and DK26.5. As I described above, Empedocles envisions Love and Strife exerting 
control over the elements in an alternating cycle. 
 
111 Dollimore, ?Shakespeare Understudies: The Sodomite, the Prostitute, the Transvestite and 
their Critics,? in Political Shakespeare: Essays in Cultural Materialism, 2nd ed., ed. Jonathan 
Dollimore and Allan Sinfield (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), 144?5. 
 
112 Mack, ?Introduction,? in Antony and Cleopatra (New York: Penguin Books, 1970), 17. 
70 
much as lounge in the breeze without inflaming elemental passions. Her love is 
multidimensional: she is Venus Physica and Venus Pandemos incarnate. 
 Even as Shakespeare characterizes Cleopatra as a Venus who holds the world together, he 
also renders her a force of strife who threatens to disorder nature. Later in Enobarbus? account, 
Cleopatra?s effect on the air around Cydnus becomes so strong that it threatens to create a void in 
nature:  
       ?The city cast 
Her people out upon her, and Antony, 
Enthroned i?th? market-place, did sit alone, 
Whistling to th?air, which, but for vacancy, 
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too 
And made a gap in nature. (2.2.251?6) 
The residents of Cydnus flock to Cleopatra, leaving Antony behind to ?whistl[e] to th? air??air 
which longs to ?gaze? on Cleopatra like the people. The image of an ineffectual, aloof Antony 
provides an immediate contrast to the element-attracting power of Cleopatra. Whereas the wind 
and water around Cleopatra?s barge are attracted to the queen?s every inconsequential move, 
Antony?s ?whistling? seems to have little effect on the air, which wishes to flee his sight and 
?make a gap in nature.? However, note how the air doesn?t actually drift away to Cleopatra. The 
air wants to move toward Cleopatra, the lines imply, except that doing so would create a vacuum 
in space (?but for vacancy?). In denying the existence of void, Enobarbus exhibits a common 
71 
Aristotelian teaching of Shakespeare?s day, the old saw that nature abhors a vacuum.113 
Empedocles held a view similar to Aristotle?s, as fragment DK13 reveals.114 Empedocles? denial 
of the void marks one of the ?key points? of disagreement between his philosophy and the later 
theories of Lucretius.115 Shakespeare?s depiction of Antony?s whistle is thus situated within an 
Aristotelian and Empedoclean framework for imagining the limits of nature, even as he makes 
the air desirous of subverting that framework.   
At the same time as Shakespeare emphasizes the elemental transactions of Cleopatra?s 
material surroundings to emblematize her erotic and political power, he gestures toward her 
immortal aspiration and longing for transcendence. Enobarbus? scene of Cleopatra on the barge 
in the River Cydnus?the queen seducing elements and eventually, Antony?establishes an 
image to which Cleopatra?s immortally longing psyche later returns in Act Five. Having seen 
Antony ?melt? before her (4.15.73), Cleopatra?s mind revisits the scene as she decides to follow 
her lover in death:  
?I am again for Cydnus 
To meet Mark Antony. (5.2.227?8)  
Cleopatra?s announcement recasts the River Cydnus in a Stygian hue. Janet Adelman writes of 
this moment, ?Cleopatra herself asserts that she is exempt from the natural limitation of death. 
 
 
113 For Aristotle?s arguments against the existence of void, see The Physics, Books I?IV, ed. 
Jeffrey Henderson, trans. Philip H. Wicksteed and Francis M. Cornford, LCL 228 (Cambridge, 
MA: Harvard University Press, 1957), IV.VI (213a?b).  
 
114 DK13: ????? ?? ??? ?????? ?????? ????? ???? ????????? [?Nor is any of the totality empty or 
in excess.?]. See Laks and Most, V.394, and Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK13. This fragment 
does not appear in Plutarch; its doxographic provenance includes Theophrastus, De Sensibus, at 
13, and Pseudo-Aristotle, De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia, at 976b22-7. 
 
115 Garani, Empedocles Redivivus, 6. 
72 
She is again for Cydnus to meet Mark Antony: and she returns to no literary Cydnus but to the 
Cydnus of Enobarbus?s description, where the limitations of nature itself were defied.?116 To put 
it differently, Cleopatra is intent upon meeting her dead lover in the afterlife, by way of recalling 
their elementally dynamic first encounter, marking an intersection of elementalism and 
immortality. The scene of Cleopatra on the barge becomes an elementally charged touchstone for 
Cleopatra?s transcendent imagination: an elemental scene that she later refashions as an avenue 
to immortality.  
Cleopatra?s alignment to Venus is complemented by Antony?s associations, as a military 
icon, with Mars. Scholars have read Cleopatra and Antony?s relationship as symbolic of the myth 
of Venus? seduction of Mars, and on solid ground: Cleopatra?s attendant eunuch Mardian, after 
all, mentions the story early on in the play. When asked by the queen if he maintains a libido in 
spite of his castration, Mardian replies, 
Not in deed, madam, for I can do nothing 
But what indeed is honest to be done. 
Yet have I fierce affections, and think 
What Venus did with Mars. (1.5.16?19)  
Though ostensibly invoking the reference to illustrate his own erotic desire (despite that he can 
?do nothing?), the image of the gods of love and war united also gestures toward Antony and 
Cleopatra?s pairing, analogizing her seductive elemental allure and his (former) military 
accomplishments. Describing Venus? seduction of Mars, Adelman points out that ?the union of 
these divine adulterers was one of the ruling mythological commonplaces of the English 
 
 
116 Adelman, The Common Liar: An Essay on ?Antony and Cleopatra? (New Haven, CT: Yale 
University Press, 1973), 150. 
73 
Renaissance.?117 One can view the conjunction of love and war as analogues for Love and Strife 
in the Empedoclean sense. In such a reading, Antony and Cleopatra are a pairing of opposites 
whose affair develops both a moralistic and ontological meaning. Adelman recognizes this when 
she observes that the myth of Venus? seduction of Mars has been ?subject to a dizzying variety 
of interpretations, from the simplest moralizing to the most abstruse Neoplatonic explication of 
Harmonia as that discordia concors which proceeds from the union of a very Empedoclean Mars 
and Venus.?118 Adelman may find certain ?very Empedoclean? interpretations of the myth 
?abstruse,? but her reading of Antony and Cleopatra?s divergent perspectives takes on an 
Empedoclean resonance of its own. For example, when Adelman describes the blurry mortality 
of Cleopatra and Antony, her words could apply equally well to the apparent contradictions of 
Empedoclean thought: ?But what do we make of a play in which our modes of vision lead us to 
several contradictory meanings? Antony and Cleopatra insists that we take the lovers 
simultaneously as very mortal characters and as gigantic semidivine figures.?119  
In other words, Shakespeare crafts a play which presents the audience with concurrent visions of 
mortal and transcendent experience, ones mediated by the contingencies of unreliable 
messengers and expansive geography. Adelman views the ?movement of perspectives? within 
 
 
117 Adelman, The Common Liar, 83. 
 
118 Ibid., 84. Specifically, Adelman is interested in Lucretius? and Ovid?s divergent responses to 
the myth of Mars and Venus united. Whereas Lucretius ?treats the fable with philosophic high 
seriousness? by envisioning the two divine lovers as emblematic of Empedoclean Love and 
Strife, Ovid deduces a moral conclusion from the myth. Adelman explores how Antony and 
Cleopatra unfolds in relation to these two responses, but does not further consider the matter of 
the play?s more direct Empedoclean resonances. See Adelman, Common Liar, esp. 83?5. 
 
119 Adelman, 11. Bloom also regards these characters in semidivine terms; he sees Antony, for 
instance, as ?a Herculean hero.? See Bloom,  7. On Plutarch?s association of Antony with 
Bacchus, see Adelman, 175.  
74 
Antony and Cleopatra? as a central concern of the play.120 An important inspiration for 
Shakespeare?s perspectival movement is Empedoclean pluralism, in which a world constituted 
by material elements nevertheless offers the possibility of transcending them. The play is like 
Empedocles? fragments: they point at once toward a materializing worldview, even as they 
entertain the existence of divinity and put on display an aspiration to godliness. Thus, in addition 
to Venus Pandemos and Venus Physica, one can count Venus Urania among the specific 
Venusian resonances that accrue in Cleopatra?s character. 
But Cleopatra?s divine associations aren?t limited to the Roman Venus, for Shakespeare 
also links her to the Egyptian god Isis.121 Like the historical Cleopatra, the heroine embraces Isis, 
swearing oaths by her name and aligning herself politically to the figure.122 Isis was a major 
deity of ancient Egyptian religion, a figure associated with magic and maternal protection. She 
married her brother, Osiris, and gave birth to the sky god Horus. When Osiris was murdered by 
his brother Set, Isis helped resurrect Osiris? body, and her tears became the Nile River. Isis isn?t 
merely a name Cleopatra invokes for protection; she is a god who is interwoven, bodily, with the 
landscape of Egypt. And moreover, she is a popular religious figure whose significant following 
could be politically useful to Cleopatra, leading her to embrace the god to the point of 
 
 
120 Adelman, The Common Liar, 30. 
 
121 Mack captures these associations when he writes of Antony and Cleopatra, ?he descends from 
the god Hercules, she from the moon-goddess Isis.? See Mack, ?Introduction,? 15. 
 
122 Cleopatra, like her attendants Charmian and Isis, swears ?by Isis.? (1.5.83). On the historical 
Cleopatra VII?s embrace of Isis, see D. Plantzos, ?The Iconography of Assimilation: Isis and 
Royal Imagery on Ptolemaic Seal Impressions,? in More than Men, Less than Gods: Studies on 
Royal Cult and Imperial Worship. Proceedings of the International Colloquium Organized by 
the Belgian School of Athens, November 1?2, 2007, ed. P. P. Iossif, A. S. Chankowski, and C. C. 
Lorber, (Leuven, 2011), 389?416, and Bricault, Laurent and Miguel John Versluys, ?Isis and 
Empires,? in Power, Politics and the Cults of Isis (Brill, 2014), esp. 9?12. 
75 
embodying her. For example, in Act 3, Octavian Caesar recounts how Cleopatra would appear 
dressed as Isis in public displays: 
   ?She 
In th?habiliments of the goddess Isis 
That day appeared, and oft before gave audience, 
As ?tis reported, so. (3.6.16?19) 
Although Caesar recalls this scene with a tone of derision?highlighting the queen?s use of 
Egyptian iconography in the Roman sphere during her relationship with Julius Caesar?Isis was 
already a transnational figure well before Cleopatra?s day, and there was a Greco-Roman cult of 
Isis that developed an anti-imperial political reputation. Moreover, Isis? entanglement in both 
Roman and Egyptian culture makes her a useful character study for Shakespeare?s play, and 
helps to challenge dualistic reductions of the play?s thematic atmosphere to a simplistic 
Roman/Egyptian binary. Indeed, L?onie Hayne notes that it was in imperial Rome that Isis 
?achieved official recognition and approval.?123 There is even evidence that ?in 43 the newly 
established triumvirs [Caesar, Lepidus, and Antony] decided to erect a temple [to Isis], obviously 
in a bid for popular support,? a project that was ultimately abandoned.124 More specifically, 
though, Isis was ?identified with the Pompeian rather than the Caesarian cause,? and the deity 
was predominantly a figure of popularis politics who was especially venerated ?among ex-
slaves, who were a majority of Rome?s population.?125 Thus, as a political and religious referent, 
 
 
123 Hayne, ?Isis and Republican Politics,? Acta Classica 35 (1992): 143. 
 
124 Ibid., 146?7. 
 
125 Ibid., 146 & 143. 
 
76 
Isis speaks to Shakespeare?s interest in the flux between Rome and Egypt, and to the internal 
dynamics of Rome?s transition from Republic to empire, a shift that forms the historical 
backdrop of Antony and Cleopatra?s dramatic universe.  
 As a divine analogue of Cleopatra, Isis therefore exemplifies the cross-cultural flux that 
the play dramatizes. To say it differently, Cleopatra and Isis speak to the play?s resistance to 
social and political polarity. As Katherine Eggert claims, 
Antony and Cleopatra is configured not as a set of imperial decisions and their 
repercussions, but as a set of Cleopatran displays and Roman reactions, as if the entire 
Roman empire is compelled to fix its eyes upon Egypt and its queen. On grounds that are 
the very basis of theatrical presentation, the grounds of the ocular, the traditional division 
of the play into two realms is shown to be spurious, only a red herring. The play has 
really only one sphere, composed both of the Cleopatran enigma and of those who are, to 
a more or less complete degree, attracted to her. The play?s two apparently discrete points 
of view join in a single, theatrical arena.126 
Isis is part of this polarity breaking, a figure whose political and religious adherents crossed 
boundaries, a phenomenon of culture in flux.  
 At the same time, Cleopatra?s association with Isis also participates in the play?s 
Empedoclean experimentation, as it keys into the play?s dual interest in materialist and idealist 
perspectives. The story of Isis and Osiris encapsulates both vantages, as I want to show now. The 
following passage from Bloom helps unfold this idea:  
 
 
126  Eggert, Showing Like a Queen: Female Authority and Literary Experiment in Spenser, 
Shakespeare, and Milton (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 140. 
77 
Cleopatra?s identification with the goddess Isis, whose name meant ?throne,? is crucial for 
understanding the mythic aspects of her personality. Isis gathered up the remnant of her 
brother and husband, Osiris, and thus aided his resurrection. The annual rising of the Nile 
was attributed to the tears of Isis lamenting Osiris.127 
On the one hand, the Isis myth advances an idea of incorporeality by suggesting an afterlife in 
which bodily death is overcome. On the other hand, it imagines this process in material terms, 
with Isis collecting her husband and brother?s physical remains and translating her tears into the 
flow of the Nile. After Isis? successful intervention, the myth holds that Osiris was embodied as a 
principle of goodness, in opposition to Typhon, who embodied evil. Like the principle of 
effluence in Empedocles? system, Isis holds together a duality which is comparable to Love and 
Strife. As Gasparini explains, ?the role of Isis (the feminine principle of nature and matter) 
consists of recomposing this dualism, generating order (the cosmos), which is embodied in the 
myth by Horus.?128 As in Empedocles? system, two opposing forces exert themselves through a 
material extension that is analogized to a divine power: the tears of Isis and the immortal 
elements. The confluence between Egyptian myth and an Empedoclean ontological framework 
may seem surprising, but Empedocles? Pythagorean roots help explain the similarities. 
Pythagoras supposedly spent time studying in Egypt, among other places, absorbing the 
influence of other cultural, religious, and philosophical traditions.129  
 
 
127 Bloom, 4. 
 
128 See Gasparini, ?Isis and Osiris,? 707. 
 
129 As Leonid Zhmud explains, ?apart from his teachings, wonders and scientific discoveries, 
Pythagoras was also known for his wide-ranging journeys. Ancient authors alleged that he 
visited many countries and nations from Egypt to India, stayed with the Phoenicians and the 
Ethiopians and talked to the Persian Magi and Gallic Druids.? See Zhmud, ?Pythagoras? 
78 
 To be sure, Egyptian mythology and Empedoclean metaphysics are distinct, with their 
own histories and nuances. But there are points of convergence. Plutarch, for instance, turns to 
an Empedoclean frame at key points in ?Isis and Osiris,? showing that Shakespeare could have 
encountered the mixture of these two traditions in a work he likely read before writing Antony 
and Cleopatra.130 To show this, it?s helpful to return to Holland?s translation of Plutarch, 
because the essay ?Of Isis and Osiris? represents the myth in an Empedoclean light, discussing 
the story partially in terms of effluence, and partially in relation to Empedocles? exiled demons. 
 For example, in the following passage, Holland/Plutarch express the flow of the Nile in 
terms of effluence: 
Those who serve and worship Osiris are streightly forbidden and charged, not to destroy 
any fruitfull tree, nor to stop the head of any fountaine. And not onely the river Nilus, but 
all water and moisture whatsoever in generall, they call the effluence of Osiris: by reason 
whereof, before their sacrifices they cary alwaies in procession a pot or pitcher of water, 
in honour of the said god.131   
Plutarch emphasizes the elemental devotion of Osiris? followers, who are committed to the 
perpetuation of the flow state and use water to sanctify their offerings. Like one of Empedocles? 
immortally inflected elements, water is presented here as a material substance that embodies a 
divine entity. At the same time, notice how Plutarch relies on the language of ?effluence? to 
 
 
Northern Connections: Zalmoxis, Abaris, Aristeas,? The Classical Quarterly 66, no. 2 
(December 2016): 446. 
 
130 I discuss Shakespeare?s reading of Plutarch in the introduction to this chapter, above. 
 
131 Holland, ?Of Isis and Osiris,? in Morals, 1301. 
 
79 
highlight a natural philosophical interpretation of the story, suggesting a movement of 
perspectives between divine myth and its potential to analogize the material world. Plutarch 
heightens this natural philosophical attitude slightly later in the same work, again turning to 
effluence as a coupling link between divine and material ideation: 
And as they [followers of Isis and Osiris] both hold and affirme, Nilus to be the effluence 
 of Osiris; even so they are of opinion, that the body of Isis is the earth or land of Aegypt; 
 and yet not all of it, but so much as Nilus oversloweth, and by commixtion maketh fertile 
 and fruitfull: of which conjunction, they say, that Orus [Horus] was engendred, which is 
 nothing else but the temperature and disposition of the aire, nourishing and maintaining 
 all things.132   
Again, it?s hard not to think of Empedocles? analogized god-elements here, as Plutarch describes 
the Nile as the ?effluence of Osiris,? and the land of its floodplain as ?the body of Isis,? while 
analogizing the god Horus to the air. In the prior section, I discussed how Empedocles positions 
effluence as a central facet of his ontology, and one that helps move between his interest in the 
many and the one, and between dualism and monism. Plutarch is relying on effluence for a 
similar reason in these passages. Bearing this in mind, consider the following moment from a 
few pages later in Holland?s translation:   
Now then, in the soule, reason and understanding, which is the guide, and mistresse of all 
the best things, is Osiris. Also in the earth, in the windes, in water, skie and the starres, 
that which is well ordained, staied, disposed and digested in good sort, by temperate 
 
 
132 Ibid., 1302. 
 
80 
seasons and revolutions, the same is called the defluxion of Osiris, and the very apparent 
image of him.133   
Observe how Holland and Plutarch first assign a divine role to Osiris, correlating him to ?reason 
and understanding? within ?the soule.? But then Plutarch recasts Osiris in elemental terms when 
he describes the ?earth?windes?water, skie and the starres? as ?the defluxion [or effluence] of 
Osiris.? Moreover, by making these elements ?the very apparent image of? Osiris, Plutarch and 
Holland end the passage on a materializing note. They turn to an analogizing view of 
Empedocles? four elements (plus ?ther or ?skie?) in order to transmute Osiris into a primarily 
elemental being.134  
It?s easy to see how Shakespeare might take dramatic inspiration from Plutarch?s 
presentation of Egyptian mythology in the language of Empedoclean effluence and ?defluxion? 
in Antony and Cleopatra.135 From the play?s earliest moments, Shakespeare constructs a vision 
of a world in flux, from Philo?s comment that Antony?s lovesickness ?o?erflows the measure? of 
masculine conduct, to the ?winds and waters? of Cleopatra?s passionate temperament, which 
swell beyond the limits of ?sighs and tears? (1.1.2 & 1.2.155). As Mack writes, Shakespeare 
 
 
133 Holland, ?Of Isis and Osiris,? in Morals, 1307. 
 
134 I am reading Holland/Plutarch?s ?starres? and ?skie? as corresponding to Empedocles? fire 
and ?ther, respectively. While I have been emphasizing the materialist possibilities of the 
passage, Plutarch?s desire to bring Osiris down to earth may be due to an ideological aim that 
represents the Egyptian religious tradition as inferior to the Greek tradition. As Daniel S. Richter 
sees it, ?the de Iside is an appropriative text that has as one of its central aims the demonstration 
of the priority of Greek philosophy over Egyptian cult.? See Richter, ?Plutarch on Isis and 
Osiris: Text, Cult, and Cultural Appropriation,? Transactions of the American Philological 
Association (1974?2014), vol. 131 (2001): 194. 
 
135 Holland, ?Of Isis and Osiris,? in Morals, 1307. 
 
81 
creates ?a world in which nothing stays to scale because everything overflows its own 
boundaries.?136 Amplifying this sense of flux, the play associates Cleopatra with the Nile as 
much as Egyptian mythology associates Isis with it. For example, we learn that Antony calls 
Cleopatra his ?serpent of old Nile,? an unusual endearment that is both unflattering and 
elevating, linking the queen with the earthly embodiment of Isis (1.5.26). And in the middle of 
the play, Cleopatra imagines her death as the disintegration of her body into the Nile?s mud 
(3.13.164?72). Elsewhere, Antony declares his commitment to Cleopatra, swearing  
By the fire  
   That quickens Nilus? slime, I go from hence 
 Thy soldier, servant, making peace or war 
 As thou affects. (1.3.69?72) 
Here, Antony expresses his devotion by invoking the interaction of the sun (?fire?) upon the mud 
of the Nile, which ?quickens? it, bringing it to life.137 Antony invokes the animating power of the 
sun upon the Nile before describing how he himself is enlivened by his love for Cleopatra. Thus, 
the structure of the oath suggests an analogy: Cleopatra as the vitalizing ?fire? that stirs 
Antony/the Nile to action.  
In a related passage, Antony and Lepidus refer to the Nile?s flux as a source of life. The 
passage is a torrent of ebbs and flows, a landscape of slime and ooze: 
ANTONY:  
Thus do they, sir: they take the flow o?th? Nile 
 
 
136 Adelman, Common Liar, 144. 
 
137 ?Quicken, verb,? sense 1: ?To come or bring to life,? in the OED.   
82 
By certain scales i?th? Pyramid. They know 
By th?height, the lowness, or the mean, if dearth 
Or foison follow. The higher Nilus swells, 
The more it promises. As it ebbs, the seedsman 
Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain, 
And shortly comes to harvest. 
LEPIDUS:  
You?ve strange serpents there? 
ANTONY:  
Ay, Lepidus. 
LEPIDUS: 
 Your serpent of Egypt is bred, now, of your 
mud by the operation of your sun; so is your crocodile. 
ANTONY:  
They are so. (2.7.17?28) 
Helping to create ?the sense of an enormous and mingled fertility? that is ?everywhere in the 
play,? Antony describes how Egyptian farmers monitor and work with the Nile?s changing 
conditions to produce a harvest, sowing grain ?upon the slime and ooze.?138 Lepidus introduces 
 
 
138 See Adelman, 127. Barbara C. Vincent makes a similar point, explaining that ?as well as 
imaging a beneficent and intriguingly polymorphous sexuality in Egypt, overflowing Nilus also 
offers an analogue for the vitalizing effect of experiencing the swollen torrents of magnified 
human passions projected by the histrionically gifted queen. In contrast to the busily temporal 
world of Rome, Egypt is an eternal realm, which transfixes Romans in the endlessly recurrent 
and fertilizing experience of love.? See Vincent, ?Shakespeare?s Antony and Cleopatra and the 
Rise of Comedy,? English Literary Renaissance 12 (1982), 57. 
 
83 
the possibility that the Nile gives birth to more than grains when he suggests that snakes and 
crocodiles also emerge from its fecundity. According to Wilders, Lepidus? lines reflect a 
common belief ?that organic life, such as snakes and flies, could be created out of vegetable 
matter.?139 Moreover, Lepidus? mention of a ?serpent? is ironic, foreshadowing the moment 
when Cleopatra commits suicide by clasping a venomous snake to her breast at the end of the 
play (5.2.303?5). Thus, while in Antony?s oath, Cleopatra is figured as the sun which heats the 
Nile, in this moment the Nile gives birth to the entity that will destroy her, placing Cleopatra 
within a cyclical chain of material interactions that center on the river?s role as a facilitator of 
flux.   
 I?ve been exploring how Shakespeare takes inspiration from Plutarch?s depiction of 
Empedoclean flux, allegorizing gods and queens to the cycles of the Nile. As I demonstrated 
above, Plutarch relies on the notion of effluence in ?Isis and Osiris? to explore divine figures in a 
material register. But elsewhere in the text, Plutarch?in alignment with his own Middle 
Platonism?invokes Empedocles as an expert d?monologist. It is unsurprising that Empedocles 
is among the experts Plutarch turns to as he considers this subject, considering Empedocles 
identified himself as one of these beings, as I discussed in the previous section.140 The allusion 
comes during a lengthy digression in which Plutarch explains that he considers the mythological 
figures he?s been discussing to be ?d?mons.?141 When Plutarch casts Isis and Osiris in a 
 
 
139 John Wilders, ed., Antony and Cleopatra, The Arden Shakespeare (New York: Bloomsbury, 
2018), 164fn26?7.  
 
140 See Empedocles, DK115, and above. 
 
141 Plutarch/Holland write: ?I hold better with them who thinke that the things which be written 
of Typhon, Osiris, and Isis, were no accidents or passions incident to gods or to men; but rather 
to some great Daemons.? See Holland, ?Of Isis and Osiris,? in Morals, 1296. 
84 
d?monic light, his earlier description of these gods in both elemental and divine language comes 
into sharper focus, because the d?mon is an intermediate being composed of divine and material 
associations. As Plutarch explains,  
that divinitie which they [d?mons] had, was not pure and simple; but they were   
 compounded of a nature corporall and spirituall, capable of pleasure, of griefe, and other  
 passions and affections, which accompanying these mutations, trouble some more, others  
 lesse.142  
The d?mon encapsulates the pluralistic attitude I have been highlighting in Empedoclean 
thought?both ??corporall and spirituall,? the category of the d?mon is oriented to a mixture of 
divine and bodily ideation. In other words, Plutarch understands the d?mon as susceptible to 
error, a point he reinforces by directly citing the volcanic philosopher. ?As for Empedocles,? 
Plutarch writes,  
he saith, that these Daemons or fiends, are punished and tormented for their sinnes and  
 offences which they have committed, as may appeere by these his verses: 
For why? the power of aire and skie, did to the sea them chace: 
The sea them cast up, of the earth, even to the outward face: 
The earth them sends unto the beames, of never-tyred Sunne, 
The Sunne to aire, whence first they came, doth fling them downe anon: 
Thus posted to and fro, twixt seas beneath, and heav'ns aboue, 
   From one they to another passe: not one yet doth them love. 
 
 
142 Holland, ?Of Isis and Osiris,? in Morals, 1297. 
 
85 
untill such time as being thus in this purgatory chastised and clensed, they recover againe  
 that place estate and degree which is meet for them and according to their nature.143   
Holland?s translation of this passage is an example of how Empedocles poetry occasions a blend 
of d?monic, elemental, and Christian imagery: Holland interprets Empedocles? description of 
the d?mons? journey as a ?purgatory? in which they are ?chastised and cleansed? for their 
?sinnes and offences.? And yet, even as these Christian inflections introduce a heightened 
severity to Empedocles? description of the outcast d?mon, their orientation to an Empedoclean 
fragment produces an unusual admixture: Christian sin and punishment are recast as an 
elementally driven affair. More to the point, this compound of religious and materialist 
contemplation helps show why writers like Shakespeare, creating art in an age of enforced 
Christian orthodoxy, are drawn to Empedocles as a source of inspiration for thinking in material 
terms without wholly discarding key tenets of the culture?s sacred beliefs. In Shakespeare?s 
dramatic imagination, Empedocles is fuel for contemplating immortality and materialism, for 
envisioning ?new heaven, new / earth? (1.1.17).144 Like Empedocles, Cleopatra and Antony are 
at once mortally bound and immortally poised.   
Against this backdrop, I want to turn to a moment when Cleopatra envisions her own 
kind of intersubjective journey. Distressed about the consequences of her and Antony?s defeat by 
Caesar, Cleopatra worries about what would happen to her body if she were to be killed by 
Caesar?s forces and taken into possession by Rome. She worries that her corpse will be made 
 
 
143 Ibid., 1297. The passage cites Empedocles, DK115.9?12. In the prior section, I explored how 
Plutarch cites this same fragment in ?Of Exile.? 
 
144 These are Antony?s lines to Cleopatra after she asks him to explain how much he loves her, 
and they speak the play?s commingling of material and divine concern.  
86 
into a political ?puppet? and displayed around Rome (5.2.207), and she laments that future 
generations will experience her as a character acted out on the stage:  
?The quick comedians 
Extemporally will stage us and present 
Our Alexandrian revels; Antony 
Shall be brought drunken forth; and I shall see 
Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness 
I?th? posture of a whore. (5.2.215?19) 
Cleopatra?s lines create a metatheatrical flux between audience, actor, and history. Due to the all-
male casting of Shakespeare?s day, the play?s original audiences would have seen Cleopatra?
played by a male actor?contemplate her future representation in the body of a boy actor. It?s as 
if Shakespeare makes Cleopatra cognizant of the very theatrical culture that gives voice to her 
lines, functioning ?primarily as a reminder of the theatrical being that Cleopatra is becoming.?145 
In other words, Shakespeare puts on display a version of the theatrical remediation Cleopatra 
fears will influence her legacy. To be clear, I?m not suggesting Cleopatra thinks she will 
transmigrate metaphysically into the boy actor?s body; instead, she is imagining how future 
bodies will come to be associated with her. But by calling attention to the boy?s body that would 
be performing the lines, Shakespeare gives Cleopatra?s contemplation a sense of movement, a 
telescoping effect expanding outward from the Roman theatrical depictions she immediately 
 
 
145 Vincent, 85. This histrionic metafictional experimentation is a recurring phenomenon in 
Shakespeare?s plays. Consider, for instance, the play within the play of Hamlet (see act three, 
scene two), or the use of crossdressing as dramatic and comedic fodder throughout Twelfth 
Night.  
 
87 
imagines, and then centuries into the future with a nod to the specific norms of early modern 
theater. If it is true, as Bloom holds, that ?Shakespeare would have known that women 
performed upon the Roman stage,? then Shakespeare?s investment in a temporally expansive 
metatheatrical scale is even more clear, as it shows him deliberately giving Cleopatra 
consciousness of her future early modern theatrical remediation.146   
Stanley Cavell notices the scene?s metatheatrical experimentation and Cleopatra?s self-
consciousness. He writes: 
Cleopatra?s specification of her consciousness of herself as actress shows Shakespeare at 
I imagine his most daring in his always daring us to become conscious of his theater: 
?...and I shall see / Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness / In the posture of a 
whore??[5.2.217?19]?daring us to see the boy here and now squeaking this Cleopatra, 
in that line, to challenge us to ask and specify in what (other) position she is here and 
now presented, presents herself.147   
To put it another way, Shakespeare creates the sense that Cleopatra is aware of her own 
histrionic depiction, even in the very moment the lines are performed; yet the way Shakespeare 
does this, by calling attention to the actor?s gender and the theatrical environment, he 
simultaneously breaks the illusion of transtemporal subjectivity. Dramatically, this self-defeating 
illusion supports Shakespeare?s attempt to show how, as Floyd-Wilson puts it, ?Cleopatra?s 
indecipherable quality can transmigrate over time and place, to be appropriated by the impolitic 
 
 
146 Bloom, Cleopatra: I Am Fire and Air, 145. 
 
147 Cavell, Disowning Knowledge in Seven Plays of Shakespeare: Updated Edition (New York: 
Cambridge University Press, 2003), 31. 
 
88 
northerner.?148 Floyd-Wilson?s phrasing reflects the dual vision that Shakespeare constructs: he 
creates the experience of Cleopatra subjectively moving through time to critique the theatrical 
performance that gives her voice, as if she had an immortal, ?transmigrat[ing]? and 
?indecipherable quality,? while undercutting this illusion of transcendence by deliberately 
spotlighting the means of its status as ?appropriation.?149  
Cleopatra?s seeming awareness of her future appropriation by early modern theatrical 
spaces also occurs in an earlier passage from the same scene. When she imagines the Roman 
theater that will portray her, Cleopatra could just as well be describing an early modern venue 
like the Globe. She says to Iras, 
     ? Mechanic slaves 
 With greasy aprons, rules and hammers shall 
 Uplift us to the view. In their thick breaths, 
 Rank of gross diet, shall we be enclouded 
 And forced to drink their vapour. (5.2.208?12)  
The queen is disturbed by the material processes that will envelop future representations of her. 
Notice how Cleopatra describes her disgust in the language of elemental flux. She cringes at the 
?thick breaths? of the playgoers, in which she will be ?enclouded.? At the end of the passage, 
Cleopatra?s repulsion seems to liquefy the exhalations of the onlookers, whose breaths she 
 
 
148 Floyd-Wilson, ?Transmigrations,? 90. 
 
149 Floyd-Wilson elaborates on her reading of Cleopatra?s fear of appropriation: ?Cleopatra 
insists that in representation, her greatness will be ?boyed? or reduced to the mere? posture? of a 
woman defined by carnality; in other words, the spirit of Cleopatra?s greatness, which 
encompasses her unreadability and ?infinite variety,? will necessarily be lost in the translation of 
Egyptian culture.? See Floyd-Wilson, ?Transmigrations,? 89. 
 
89 
imagines ?drink[ing].?150  But who is the future ?we? whom Cleopatra imagines being ?forced? 
to ?drink?vapour?? It?s as if she ponders sharing some subjectivity with the future actors who 
will depict her, disgusted by the way that in the future, ?Cleopatra and her women would be all 
but suffocated by the rank vapors of coarseness and grossness.?151 As she grapples with her 
future legacy in the language of elemental mixture and transformation, Cleopatra calls attention 
to the way that, throughout the play, she is identified as a product of material origin and flux, 
even in future manifestations of her character that extend outside the historical timeline of the 
play. Moreover, by introducing a metatheatrical sheen to these lines (calling attention, that is, to 
the very theatrical spaces that will produce the lines), Shakespeare creates an illusion of 
transcorporeal transcendence, presenting to theatergoers an ancient ruler who seems to be 
cognizant of the theatrical remediation happening before their eyes. Thus, the moment nods to 
Cleopatra?s longing for incorporeal transcendence, even as it generates this illusion through 
images of elemental interaction. 
 
 
150 The treatment of air as liquid is not limited to Cleopatra?s lines in this scene. Consider 
Enobarbus? description of how Cleopatra, when she was in Rome with Julius Caesar, would 
?hop? through the ?public square,? speaking and panting, even after she had ?lost her breath.? In 
so doing, ?she did make defect perfection / And, breathless, pour breath forth? (2.2.270?3). In 
the image of Cleopatra ?pour[ing] breath forth,? Shakespeare calls attention to elemental 
transformation, describing air as a watery substance. Perhaps this contradictory sounding 
description helps express the paradoxical act being described?exuding breath even when out of 
breath. Admittedly, this interpretation is hindered by one possible reading of the First Folio?s 
spelling in this line, which reads ?powre breath forth,? which could be understood as ?power 
breath forth? rather than ?pour.? However, as Wilders explains, understanding the word as 
?pour? (as most modern editions do) is the more plausible interpretation, ?consistent as it is with 
Cleopatra?s other paradoxical qualities.? See Wilders, ed., Antony and Cleopatra, 141fn242.   
 
151 Bloom, Cleopatra: I Am Fire and Air, 145. 
 
90 
 We might think back to Empedocles? own intersubjective journey as Cleopatra imagines 
her future reincarnations in terms of gender changes and elemental repulsion. Recall 
Empedocles? claim,  
??? ??? ???? ??? ??????? ?????? ?? ???? ?? 
?????? ?? ?????? ?? ??? ?????? ??????? ?????.  
 
[?for I have already become a boy and girl 
and a bush and a bird and a fish?from the sea?].152 
Although Empedocles envisions the past, and Cleopatra the future, they both reflect on their 
reincarnations in materially ambiguous terms, at once evoking a sense of widescale material 
recombination and a potential claim to trans-subjective experience. Empedocles has been a ?girl? 
as well as a fish, and Cleopatra will be a ?squeaking boy? who, fishlike, occupies a liquid reality, 
?forced to drink their vapour? (5.2.218, 5.2.208). She is an elemental wanderer who 
contemplates immortality through elemental recombination. 
 Shakespeare?s Empedoclean framework is useful for highlighting how this scene posits 
gender difference in terms that are both essentializing and constructionist, simultaneously 
challenging the gender construct even as it reinforces it. To put it differently, I?m suggesting a 
parallel between Empedocles? view of the elements (which he regards as both distinct but 
ultimately homogeneous) and Shakespeare?s representation of gender in the scene I?ve been 
discussing. Critics of the play have tended to respond to this scene by emphasizing either its 
 
 
152 See Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK117, and Laks and Most, V.370. In Chapter One, I 
showed how Jonson likely alludes to this fragment in his masque News from the New World 
Discovered in the Moon (1620).  
91 
constructionist or essentializing ideological implications. Alan Sinfield reflects on this 
ambivalent gender politics and its divergent critical responses: 
Femininity and boyishness coincide, personifying the gender identities and erotic 
opportunities that have enthralled and tantalized the characters. Whether this enacts an 
audacious triumph of womanhood, or a teasing breakdown of theatrical allusion, is 
disputed. Poststructuralist critics have believed that this is one of the moments at which 
illusion collapses and the sex/gender system is revealed as an ideological expedient.153  
To reframe this in Empedoclean terms, Shakespeare?s depiction of a transmigrating, transgender 
Cleopatra has led some critics to see the moment as reifying a rigid gender essentialism?
viewing differences of gender as distinct and immutable?and led others to regard it as just the 
opposite, as a denial of any distinct feminine nature and in which categories of gender difference 
dissolve into each other as they are brought into flux. To indulge an elemental analogy, 
Shakespeare?s representation of gender is like seeing a double vision of fire and water as 
essentially incompatible and as sympathetically linked, as participants in both the many and the 
one. The unwieldy pluralism of the Empedoclean perspective helps to explain this disagreement 
in the scene?s reception, to explain why Shakespeare?s view of gender holds together viewpoints 
that seem opposed.  
 A moment in Anne Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass? book, Renaissance Clothing 
and the Materials of Memory, speaks to Shakespeare?s interest in moving between divergent 
perspectives of gender. Writing about the scene when Cleopatra sticks the asp onto her breast, 
 
 
153 Sinfield, Shakespeare, Authority, Sexuality: Unfinished Business in Cultural Materialism 
(New York: Routledge, 2006), 122.  
 
92 
Jones and Stallybrass perceive Shakespeare?s attempt to create ?a radical oscillation between a 
sense of the absolute difference of the boy from his role and the total absorption of the boy into 
the role,? which is also true of Cleopatra?s self-projection of herself into the body of a 
?squeaking Cleopatra? (5.2.218). The dramatic effect of this oscillation is ?an eroticism which 
depends upon the total absorption of male into female, female into male.?154 This sounds a lot 
like a world under the power of Love and Strife, one that moves between states of material 
fragmentation and inter-absorption. The dynamism of Empedoclean ontology helps undergird the 
play?s isolation and deconstruction of rigid gender categories. 
 Some responses to the play?s depiction of race have also registered Shakespeare?s 
tendency to move between essentialist and constructionist modes of representation. As Joyce 
Green MacDonald writes, the play betrays ?a certain indecision about the color of Cleopatra?s 
skin, about this color?s relationship to her race, and even about what her race might actually 
be.?155 MacDonald points out that the play presents the heroine as ?tawny,? and ?with Phoebus? 
amorous pinches black? (1.1.6, 1.5.29), emphasizing ?that whatever the color of her skin, it is 
different from that of the Romans.?156 At the same time, MacDonald continues, ?Cleopatra refers 
to the ?bluest veins? (2.5.29) in the hand she offers the messenger who brings her news of 
Antony?s marriage to kiss.?157 Shakespeare both emphasizes and undermines the ways in which 
 
 
154 Jones and Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory (Cambridge: 
Cambridge University Press, 2000), 215.  
 
155 MacDonald, Women and Race in Early Modern Texts (New York: Cambridge University 
Press, 2002), 45. 
 
156 Ibid., 45. 
 
157 Ibid. 
 
93 
Cleopatra is racially different from the play?s Roman characters. ?The play,? MacDonald 
suggests, ?is finally so convinced of the cosmic import of Cleopatra?s racial difference from the 
Romans that it cannot be bothered to be consistent about her skin color.?158 Simultaneously 
isolating and dispersing markers of Cleopatra?s racial difference, the play unsettles racial 
boundaries by removing any possibility of complexional fixity. For MacDonald, this is tied to the 
play?s ambiguous depiction of gender. She explains, ?just as the question of Cleopatra?s skin 
color remains open, on two occasions observers confuse her with Antony.?159 Shakespeare 
vacillates between reifying and shattering hierarchies of gender and race until these constructs 
are brought into flux.  
The critical opinions I?ve been considering here (of MacDonald, Jones and Stallybrass, 
and Sinfield) offer readings of Shakespeare?s representation of race and/or gender that 
correspond to the broader Empedoclean mindset that informs the play, moving between 
materialist and idealist visions of the world. More often, though, critics tend to characterize the 
Shakespeare?s attitude toward gender in more fixed terms, as either constructionist or 
essentialist. Exemplifying the view that the play sees gender as a construct, Arthur J. Little, Jr. 
remarks that Cleopatra's imagination of herself performed by a boy is ?arguably the most 
celebrated scene of transvestism on the early modern English stage, a kind of transvestic coup de 
th??tre,? implying that the play delights in its gender bending metatheatricality.160 In contrast, 
 
 
158 Ibid., 60. 
 
159 Ibid., 53. 
 
160 Little, Jr., Shakespeare Jungle Fever: National-Imperial Re-Visions of Race, Rape, and 
Sacrifice (Stanford: Stanford Unversity Press, 2000), 173. 
 
94 
Sujata Iyengar claims that ?Cleopatra rejects cross-gender impersonation as she attempts to turn 
herself into the transcendental or unearthly, into ?fire and air? ? (5.2.288).161 Iyengar is referring 
to Cleopatra?s transcendent proclamation on the cusp of death, ?I am fire and air,? arguing that 
this elemental aspiration overrides the spirit of gender fluidity Cleopatra exhibits in other 
moments of the play. While both Little, Jr. and Iyengar offer insight into Cleopatra?s attitude 
toward her future representation through gender bending performances, I would suggest that 
Little, Jr.?s reading somewhat overemphasizes the scene?s commitment to transvestic boundary 
crossing, whereas Iyengar?s interpretation may overstate Cleopatra?s aversion to it. To be sure, 
Cleopatra is unenthusiastic about being played by a boy actor; but this refusal to appreciate 
gender dissolution is not reinforced by her elemental self-description at death. It might be true 
that the heroine?s embrace of fire and air speaks to a spiritual aspiration that longs to leave 
behind the baser elements of earth and water. Yet bearing in mind the Empedoclean view of 
these elements as substantially interconnected, Cleopatra?s sublimation into flames and air can 
also mark a celebration of intermixture, of material flux, and of spiritual apotheosis as elemental 
dispersion and reintegration. The transcendent view of fire and air is only one side of the coin, 
and to read Cleopatra?s elemental declaration as a wholesale rejection of constructionism risks 
glossing over Shakespeare?s Empedoclean double vision. 
This double vision, and Cleopatra?s proximity to an Empedoclean immortality, is perhaps 
no more pronounced than when Cleopatra processes her own death as an elemental 
transformation:  
 
 
161 Iyengar, ?Shakespeare?s Embodied Ontology of Gender, Air, and Health,? in Disability, 
Health, and Happiness in the Shakespearean Body, ed. Sujata Iyengar (New York: Routledge, 
2015), 186. 
95 
Husband, I come! 
Now to that name my courage prove my title! 
I am fire and air; my other elements 
I give to baser life. So, have you done? 
Come then, and take the last warmth of my lips. (5.2.286?90).  
The passage encapsulates a materialist and idealist view of death, relying on the flux of the ?fire 
and air? analogy, which on the one hand metaphorizes Cleopatra?s ghostly refashioning as an 
incorporeal entity, and on the other, gives voice to the queen?s awareness of her impending  
elemental breakdown and dispersion after death. Shakespeare?s use of elemental imagery at the 
moment of Cleopatra?s death helps blur the line between sacred and secular, putting Cleopatra?s 
immortal aspiration in material terms. As William D. Wolf describes the effect, ?however sure 
we are of what they [Antony and Cleopatra] escape from, we cannot know what they escape to; 
thus the play maintains its worldly, pagan tone, only hinting at transcendence in Cleopatra?s 
visions.?162 The play?s Empedoclean framing of death is one important contributor to this 
?pagan? tone that ?hint[s] at transcendence,? oscillating between idealist and materialist poles of 
possibility. The idealist interpretation is perhaps the more transparent one. After all, Cleopatra 
does address her dead husband in the same speech, as if headed for the underworld. And, as 
Iyengar points out, Cleopatra?s embrace of fire and air over the sublunar elements of ?baser life? 
(water and earth) can be read as a grasping for the ?transcendental or unearthly.?163 Similarly, 
 
 
162 William D. Wolf, ??New Heaven, New Earth?: The Escape from Mutability in Antony and 
Cleopatra,? Shakespeare Quarterly 33, no. 3 (Autumn 1982), 335. 
 
163 Iyengar, 186. Iyengar also provides a helpful overview of the central role of air in early 
modern physiology: ?Air fueled and fired the early modern body and bonded body and soul 
through the medium of ?spirit.?...air turned nutritive blood into ?pure blood,? the sanguine humor, 
96 
Jan H. Blits contends that ?Cleopatra repudiates her bodily elements. In the end, she rejects the 
living world in its entirety...Formerly the incarnation of bodily pleasure, she now sees herself as 
the decarnation of bodily life.?164 Bloom, too, produces a transcendent reading of this scene, 
writing that ?Cleopatra chooses to die upward in an audacious venture into the Elysian 
Fields.?165 Indeed, the scene dramatizes Cleopatra?s aspiration to a divine status, one heightened 
by Shakespeare?s choice of the phrase ?I am? to describe Cleopatra?s immortal sublimation, 
which might resonate for early modern audiences with the Old Testament ?I AM? identified as 
the name of God in the Book of Exodus.166 Like Empedocles in the myth of his suicide, 
declaring himself a god as he?s poised over the flames and smoke of Etna, Cleopatra announces, 
while ?aloft,? that ?I have / immortal longings in me,? and figuratively leaps into elemental 
oblivion (5.2.279?80, 88).167   
 
 
in the right ventricle of the heart, and ?spirituous blood? in the left ventricle. Authorities differed 
on whether this aerated, spirituous blood required an additional purification, this time in the 
brain, in order to render it into the animal spirit that served as the vehicle of the soul, or whether 
spirituous blood itself united body and soul in this way.? See Iyengar, 177. 
 
164 Blits, New Heaven, New Earth: Shakespeare?s Antony and Cleopatra (New York: Lexington 
Books, 2009), 212. 
 
165 Bloom, 128. 
 
166 See The Holy Bible, Exodus 3:13?14. 
 
167 Cleopatra?s positioning ?aloft? is made clear in the stage directions at the beginning of 4.15. 
While she does not, like the mythic Empedocles, jump to her death from this elevated 
positioning, the mechanics of the scene are similar in a general way, in the sense that both 
Empedocles and Cleopatra occupy elevated spaces as they announce their sublimation into 
elemental immortality. As David Bevington notes, Shakespeare largely follows the lead of 
Plutarch in describing the visual mechanics of Cleopatra?s death. Moreover, the vertical staging 
places Cleopatra ?and her women?above, Antony and his guard below, at first; the vertical 
relationship is particularly vivid and essential to the story.? See David Bevington, ? ?Above the 
element they lived in?: The Visual Language of Antony and Cleopatra, Acts 4 and 5,? in Antony 
and Cleopatra: New Critical Essays (Routledge: New York, 2005), 99, 101. I am grateful to 
97 
Although typically not included in modern editions of the fragments, some ancient texts 
ascribe a definition of the soul as fire and air to Empedocles, as a recent article by Simon 
Tr?panier points out.168 While Tr?panier is primarily concerned with the question of what 
Empedocles actually wrote in antiquity, he observes that Theodoret (393?458/66 CE) included 
the fire/air definition of soul and attributed it to Empedocles in his work Graecarum affectionum 
curatio.169 This licenses Tr?panier to argue that the mixture of fire and air is a ?viable candidate 
for the transmigrating soul? within Empedoclean philosophy.170 I?ve been unable to determine if 
Shakespeare had direct exposure to the writings of Theodoret, but Cleopatra?s expression of her 
immortal aspiration as a reformulation into fire and air could suggest that he had some awareness 
of the idea, at least in the context of the additional Empedoclean resonances of Cleopatra?s death. 
While the question warrants further investigation, then, it is not untrue to say that Cleopatra 
recites a textbook Empedoclean definition of the soul in the moment of her death. 
 
 
Justine DeCamillis for encouraging me to explore Cleopatra?s positioning in the monument at 
the end of the play in relation to Empedocles? volcanic leap.  
 
168 See Tr?panier, ?From Hades to the Stars: Empedocles on the Cosmic Habitats of Soul,? 
Classical Antiquity 36, No. 1 (Aprl 2017): esp. 150.   
 
169 See Theodoret, Graecarum affectionum curatio, 5.16.10?19. According to Tr?panier, the 
mixture of fire and air is ?a viable candidate for the transmigrating soul? in Empedoclean 
philosophy. See Tr?panier, ?From Hades to the Stars,? 144.  Tr?panier is attempting to revise 
Diels? decision to reject Theodoret?s testimonium on this issue as invalid. The fragment in 
question is Empedocles, DK9, the first line of which contains a lacuna that is the source of the 
ambiguity (??? ?? ??? ??? ???? ???? ????? ??? ?????? ? ? ?). See Laks and Most, V.398. 
 
170 Tr?panier: ?the closeness of B9.1 to the doxographic account of soul offers us a good reason 
to think that Empedocles did in fact identify the transmigrating soul as a mixture of fire and air.? 
See Tr?panier, ?From Hades to the Stars,? 144?5.  
 
98 
Cleopatra?s ?immortal longings,? therefore, can be seen as an elemental statement, 
especially if one considers Empedocles? definition of the elements as immortal entities 
(5.2.280).171 This perspective opens up an alternative reading of Cleopatra?s elemental death 
sequence, the materialist view I alluded to above. It?s helpful to return for a moment to Holland?s 
translation of Plutarch, which emphasizes the mortalist ramifications of Empedocles? 
philosophy: 
EMPEDOCLES saith, that Death is a separation of those elements whereof mans Bodie is 
compounded: according to which position, Death is common to Soule and Bodie: and 
Sleep a certaine dissipation of that which is of the nature of fire.172   
From this vantage, when she clings to ?fire and air,? Cleopatra is materially schematizing her 
elemental ?separation? at death, which includes the dissolution of the ?Soule.?173 This is a kind 
of transcendence, but distinct from the vision of a transmigrating soul that Cleopatra?s speech 
also conjures. It?s a transcendence rooted in the persistence of matter after death, in a vision of 
 
 
171 Earlier, I discussed how Empedocles analogizes the four elements to immortal gods in 
fragment DK6, available to Shakespeare through Holland?s translation of the Moralia. 
Empedocles also refers to the elements? immortality in a fragment less likely to have reached 
Shakespeare, DK21, where he claims, ??? ?????? ??? ????? ??? ?? ?? ??? ?? ???? ??? ?????? 
[?From these [the elements] all things that were, that are, and will be in the future / have 
sprung?]. See Laks and Most, V.432, and Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK21.9?10. 
 
172 Holland, ?Whether of the twain it is, that sleepeth or dieth, the Soule or the Bodie,? in 
Morals, 848. 
 
173 Daniel suggests that Cleopatra?s self-identification with fire and air draws on an 
?Empedoclean framework that ultimately diminishes the material threat of death by insisting 
upon the resilient presence of the four elemental ?roots? of earth, air, fire and water beneath the 
rippling surface of change.? See Daniel, The Joy of the Worm (Chicago: Chicago University 
Press, forthcoming June 2022), 74. 
99 
bodily beings as innately eternal by virtue of their physicality. Early in the play, speaking to 
Antony, Cleopatra finds ?eternity? in the material details of her lover?s embrace: 
Eternity was in our lips and eyes, 
Bliss in our brows? bent; none our parts so poor 
But was a race of heaven. (1.3.36?8) 
Cleopatra thus already regards carnal experience as capable of evoking ?heaven.? This 
diminishes the view of her death scene as an illustration of bodily transcendence alone, because 
it shows how the queen already placed immortal meaning inside the body, rather than beyond it. 
To put it another way, since Cleopatra had already found ?heaven? in embodied experience, her 
later ?immortal longings? in death shouldn?t be read as an absolute rejection of material 
experience, as critics including Iyengar and Little, Jr. have tended to do. 
A final example will help concretize Shakespeare?s Empedoclean portrait of Cleopatra. It 
comes from the discussion in Act Two between Antony and Lepidus about the Nile that I 
discussed above in this section, when I considered how Shakespeare associates Cleopatra with 
the river?s generative capabilities. Recall that Antony casts the Nile as a site of ooze and 
generative flux (2.7.17?28). Lepidus grows fascinated with the crocodile, supposedly born from 
the Nile?s muddy incubation, and asks Antony, ?What manner o? thing is your crocodile?? 
(2.7.41). Antony?s reply takes on an Empedoclean luster: 
ANTONY It is shaped, sir, like itself, and it is as broad as 
it hath breadth. It is just so high as it is, and moves 
with it own organs. It lives by that which nourisheth 
it, and the elements once out of it, it 
Transmigrates. (2.7.42?6) 
100 
After three lines of tautology, Antony claims that once ?the elements? are ?out of? the crocodile, 
?it / Transmigrates.? Like an Empedoclean d?mon, the crocodile exceeds the elements that 
constitute it?is defined by them, but supersedes them; takes form from them, but experiences 
repulsion out of elemental states as transmigratory.174 Although she is not speaking directly of 
the passage?s Empedoclean resonances, Floyd-Wilson offers a helpful gloss of these lines, 
writing that ?Antony describes the crocodile as a creature that is bred by its environment; 
however, in a mysterious metamorphosis, it seems to transcend that which produces it.?175 The 
image helps gives voice to Shakespeare?s persistent interest throughout the play in the 
relationship between matter and transcendence.   
More to the point, Antony?s element-transcending crocodile might help foreshadow 
Cleopatra?s elemental transformation into immortality at the play?s conclusion. Some critics, like 
Daniel Stempel, claim that Lepidus and Antony are referring to the crocodile as a derogatory 
metaphor for Cleopatra, similar to Antony?s ?serpent? nickname for her (2.7.26 and 1.5.30).176 If 
one follows Stempel?s reading, then Antony?s description of the elementally transmigrating 
crocodile helps to prefigure the later destruction of Cleopatra, who abandons half her elements in 
the moment of her death, leaving them to ?baser life? (5.2.342?6). In other words, she 
?transmigrates? toward immortality as the ?elements? leave her. Cleopatra?elemental and 
transcendent, ambivalently immortal?is Shakespeare?s dramatization of an Empedoclean god.  
 
 
174 See Empedocles, DK115, and discussion above. 
 
175 Floyd-Wilson, ?Transmigrations,? 84. 
 
176 See Stempel, ?The Transmigration of the Crocodile,? in Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 7, no. 1 
(1956): 68. And see Jennifer Bates, ?Phenomenology and Life: Hegel?s Inverted World, 
Cleopatra and the Logic of the Crocodile,? in Criticism, Vol. 54, No. 3 (Summer 2012): esp. 
428?32.  
101 
Civil Strife as Elemental Change in Antony and Cleopatra 
Shakespeare underwrites his play about holding the world together with the drama of 
elemental sympathy and discord. For instance, an Empedoclean analogy buried in the pages of 
Thomas North?s translation of Plutarch?s Lives (1579) may inform Shakespeare?s representation 
of military strife and political realignment in Antony and Cleopatra. In the entry on Demetrius 
(whose name Shakespeare borrows for a minor character in Antony and Cleopatra), Plutarch 
directly invokes Empedoclean physics to capture the turbulence of internecine conflict among 
the successors of Alexander the Great:  
For like as the elements (according to Empedocles opinion) are euer at strife together,  
 but specially those that are nearest eache to other: euen so, though all the successors of  
 Alexander were at continuall warres together, yet was it soonest kindled, and most cruell  
 betweene them which bordered nearest vnto eche other.177  
North?s translation expresses the drama of political strife as an analogy of elemental discord. The 
passage, in other words, encourages readers to think about the Empedoclean elements and their 
relentless reconfigurations as an analogy for the strategic maneuvering of military actors 
operating in the historical-geographical shadow of Alexander?s imperial conquest, as the 
characters of Antony and Cleopatra do. The dramatic world of the play is grounded in the 
tension of political and romantic attraction, repulsion, and realignment, from Antony?s alignment 
with Cleopatra and Egypt, to the political marriage of Octavia and Antony, to the internecine 
division and confrontations within the triumvirate. This is why Shakespeare draws on 
 
 
177 Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romanes, trans. Thomas North (London, 
1579), 943. And see Plutarch, Lives, Volume IX, trans. Bernadotte Perrin (Cambridge, MA: 
Harvard University Press, 1920), 890.V (pp. 12?13). 
102 
Empedocles? analogic view of the elements to represent civil war, creating an elemental drama 
that translates the human tragedy into a contest of cosmic scale.178  
Indeed, Shakespeare persistently turns to elemental imagery to describe the play?s 
military actors and their complex maneuvers. Throughout the play, characters negotiate their 
engagements in the language of elemental contingency. Pompey, for example, is known for his 
formidable oceanic agility from early in the play: ?Pompey is strong at sea,? a Messenger reports 
to Lepidus and Caesar (1.4.36). In Robin Lough?s 2018 revival for the Royal Shakespeare 
Company, this conversation is staged inside a sauna, steam wafting around the actors as they 
make their plans.179 Setting the actors amidst vaporized water emphasizes the elementally 
informed decisions they are making, and the way seawater mediates their encounters. ?By sea he 
is an absolute master,? Caesar later says of Pompey, who himself declares, ?the people love me, 
and the sea is mine? (2.2.172?3 & 2.1.9). Pompey claims possession of the ocean, and others 
regard his military prowess in terms of his ability to wield water to his will. Pompey?s claim of 
dominion over the sea almost elevates him to a Poseidon or Proteus, holding all the sea?s 
changeable volatility at his command. Pompey?s soldierly identity rests on water.  
 
 
178 It is likely that Shakespeare encountered Plutarch?s Empedoclean analogy, because in North?s 
translation of Plutarch?s Lives, the description of Demetrius (where the Empedoclean analogy 
occurs) immediately precedes the account of Mark Antony, and Plutarch comments on 
similarities between the two figures. Plutarch: ?This treaty conteineth the liues of Demetrius, 
surnamed the Fortgainer, & M. Antony the Triumuir, & great examples to confirme the saying of 
Plato: That from great minds, both great vertues & great vices do procede.? See North, Lives,  
941. At the very least, Plutarch?s allusion to Empedocles provides some evidence that the figure 
may have been on Shakespeare?s mind during the composition of Antony and Cleopatra, since it 
occurs in the context of biographical entries (Demetrius and Antony) that Shakespeare almost 
certainly consulted whilst composing the play.   
 
179 Antony and Cleopatra, directed by Robin Lough, Royal Shakespeare Company (BBC, 2018), 
Blu-ray Disc, 195 min. 
103 
But the play?s elemental militarism extends beyond Pompey. In the play?s world of 
violent conflict, characters make decisions based on their ability to negotiate elemental domains. 
Consider the triumvir Lepidus, who explains, 
Tomorrow, Caesar, 
I shall be furnished to inform you rightly 
Both what by sea and land I can be able 
To front this present time. (1.4.78?81)  
Lepidus visualizes his future military encounters as intimately connected to the elemental venues 
that will host them. He announces his plan to calculate what he can do ?by sea and land,? 
equating his soldierly competence to his ability to manipulate earth and water to strategic 
advantage. Moreover, Lepidus? elemental language envisions this global conflict as operating at 
the level of the world?s material building blocks, as if the whole universe has been brought into 
the play?s tragic swirl of strife.   
 Throughout the play, Shakespeare creates dramatic tension around the question of where 
future battles will occur, emphasizing military maneuvers in elemental terminology. For 
example, in this exchange, Caesar is insistent that the forces finish their battle at sea before they 
fight by land: 
CAESAR:  
Taurus! 
TAURUS:  
My lord? 
CAESAR:  
Strike not by land; keep whole; Provoke not battle 
104 
Till we have done at sea. Do not exceed 
The prescript of this scroll. [Gives him a scroll]. Our fortune lies 
Upon this jump. (3.8.3?7) 
Similarly to Lepidus, Caesar asserts his military prowess through a mastery of elemental 
calculation and manipulation. He insists to Taurus that the infantry ?keep whole? on land until 
the naval battle is over, making decisions of formation as a coordination of elemental encounters, 
and deliberating about when to stick together and when to break apart. As he gives Taurus a 
scroll of instructions, which presumably contains additional commands, Caesar verbalizes 
elemental acumen as the most important order, emphasizing that ?Our fortune lies / Upon this 
jump??that is, upon the risk of waging battle in two domains at once and risking chaos.180 
Caesar?s expression of elemental control extends beyond the land and the sea to the air. For 
example, having turned against Antony, Caesar claims that  
I have eyes upon him [Antony], 
And his affairs come to me on the wind. (3.6.65?6)  
Touting his powers of espionage, Caesar says that news of Antony?s maneuvers ?come to me on 
the wind? (delivered by seafaring messengers). Caesar uses the air to suggest a rapid delivery of 
intelligence that overcomes the geographical boundaries between Antony and him: one element, 
air, mitigating the limitations of others (land and water).181  
 
 
180 ?Jump, n. 1?: ?Venture, hazard, risk.? See ?jump, n. 1,? sense 6.b, in the OED. 
 
181 In a related image, Enobarbus expresses his doubts about remaining loyal to Antony by 
saying, ?my reason / Sits in the wind against me? (3.10.44?5). In contrast to Caesar?s confident 
use of the wind as a stream of intelligence, Enobarbus? metaphor positions the wind as a force of 
his rational doubts. And since the winds will literally influence the success or failure of Antony 
at sea, the metaphor moves between literal and figurative poles of meaning. 
 
105 
On the other side of the conflict, Antony?s forces are divided about where to wage war, 
and his attraction to a naval battle is a deciding factor in his defeat. Antony always seems to be  
out of his element. In this passage, Enobarbus attempts to convince an adamant Antony to fight 
Caesar on land rather than water: 
ENOBARBUS:    
Your ships are not well manned, 
Your mariners are muleteers, reapers, people 
Engrossed by swift impress. In Caesar?s fleet 
Are those that often have ?gainst Pompey fought. 
Their ships are yare, yours heavy. No disgrace 
Shall fall you for refusing him at sea, 
Being prepared for land. 
ANTONY:        
By sea, by sea. (3.7.34?40) 
Enobarbus offers several reasons why Antony should avoid a naval conflict, including an 
inadequate number of seafaring troops and ill preparation in comparison to Caesar?s forces, who 
have experience fighting against Pompey. These well-reasoned objections have little effect on 
Antony, whose response, ?By sea, by sea,? uses stichomythia to complete Enobarbus? line, 
producing a metrical union of sea and land. No matter what his counselors advise him, Antony is 
determined to fight at sea. Later in the same scene, Antony?s general Canidius?who like 
Enobarbus, warned Antony against fighting at sea?explains to another soldier how  
Marcus Octavius, Marcus Justeius, 
Publicola, and Caelius are for sea, 
106 
But we keep whole by land (3.7.71?3).  
The strategic disagreements among Antony?s troops are expressed in the language of elemental 
difference: those who are ?for sea? prefer to battle on water, while others desire to fight on earth. 
The way the leaders balance their energies across these elemental domains is a central factor in 
their success or failure.  
 When Antony?s battle at sea with Caesar unfolds, the warnings of Enobarbus and 
Canidius are born out. As Scarus relates in Act 3, just as Antony?s naval troops were slated for 
victory against Caesar, they retreated from the conflict by following the ship bearing Cleopatra 
away from the battle. Antony follows suit, turning away from Caesar?s navy to sail after 
Cleopatra (3.10.25?37). Even after this humiliation, Antony soon determines to continue the 
fight against Caesar. When he makes this decision, he imagines the fracture and regrouping of 
his navy through a watery analogy, finding hope in how the pieces of  
our sever?d navy too 
Have knit again, and fleet, threat?ning most sea-like. (3.13.175?6) 
Reading these lines, it is hard not to think back to Plutarch?s analogy of warring factions as the 
Empedoclean elements. Shakespeare is not merely emphasizing the material reliance of Antony?s 
forces upon the sea; he is also analogizing the navy to the sea itself, as it is ?threatening most 
sea-like.? In other words, Antony draws on the changeable nature of the ocean, with all its ebbs 
and flows, to signify the setback and recovery of his forces.   
 Antony?s attraction to the sea is interspersed with his love for Cleopatra, who is herself a 
figure of oceanic associations. Observe how Enobarbus describes the heroine in act two: 
 Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides, 
So many mermaids, tended her i?th? eyes, 
107 
And made their bends adornings. At the helm 
A seeming mermaid steers. (2.2.216?19)  
By comparing Cleopatra?s ?gentlewomen? to ?the Nereides,? Enobarbus elevates Cleopatra to a 
sea god: like Nereus or Poseidon, she is attended by a consort of aquatic nymphs whose ?bends? 
mark a sign of devotion. Antony?s determination to engage at sea, therefore, is partly driven by 
his love for Cleopatra, whom Shakespeare presents as an Empedoclean element: an analogized 
god of the water. 
Cleopatra and Antony may not be as masterful as Pompey at sea, but their identification 
with the ocean runs deep. Consider Cleopatra?s remembrance of Antony after he dies near the 
end of the play: 
     His delights 
 Were dolphin-like; they showed his back above 
 The element they lived in. (5.2.87?9) 
Antony?s charisma and charm pull him into a higher elemental domain than he primarily 
occupies. Actually an inhabitant of cold, sublunar water, Antony?s attractive body and demeanor 
fleetingly elevate him from base liquid to refined air. Like a dolphin, he breaches the surface of 
his aquatic habitat in rapid bursts, partaking of the air before diving back into his native element. 
Rosalie Colie contends that a ?suggestion of Antony?s being more than a man lies in the 
implications of this simile, in which a creature ?transcends? its element: so he, a man, becomes 
(at least in Cleopatra?s imagination) a god.?182 Colie?s very Empedoclean interpretation 
highlights another instance of Shakespeare exploiting elemental transitions to gesture at 
 
 
182 Colie, Shakespeare?s Living Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), 192. 
 
108 
transcendence. Yet as the tragedy unfolds, Antony is ultimately assigned a watery (as opposed to 
aerial) fate, his confidence and power melting away.  
   Cleopatra?s image of Antony as a dolphin captures his tendency to leap the bounds of 
his elemental limitations. In Act Four, he desires to confront his enemies  
i? the fire or i? the air; 
We?d fight there too. (4.10.3?4)  
On the one hand, Antony?s longing to fight in fire and air amounts to braggadocio, as he 
proclaims a wish to engage in every material domain, not just land and sea. On the other hand, it 
analogizes a spiritual contest between the combatants by calling attention to the celestial 
elements of fire and air, conventionally understood as more spiritually consequential than water 
and earth?a detail I considered earlier in relation to Cleopatra?s death. This hierarchy of 
elements is registered in Holland?s translation of Plutarch?s Moralia, which describes ?these 
foure bare Elements that Empedocles writeth of? in the following couplet:  
Hot Fire, cold Water, sheere and soft: 
Grosse Earth, pure Aire that spreads aloft.183  
Here, ?grosse earth? and ?cold water? are contrasted to the ?Hot Fire? and ?pure Aire? which 
rise above them. When he aspires to fight in fire or air, he reaches beyond the limits of what is 
possible, exceeding the domains of land and sea to which ancient military conflict is usually 
confined, and reaching analogously for elevation to impossible regions. Furthermore, as Iyengar 
observes, Antony?s desire ?to fight ?i?th? fire or i?th? air,? rather than at sea,? is ?a formulation 
 
 
183 Holland, Morals, 109.   
 
109 
that prefigures Cleopatra?s dying ?I am fire and air?? (4.10.3, 5.2.288).184 The two lovers are 
united in their mutual aspiration to fire and air, which analogizes their longing for an immortal 
influence on the world. 
 Even as Antony unsuccessfully aspires to the celestial elements of fire and air, the lower 
terrestrial elements of water and earth reject him over the course of the play. Following this 
embarrassment at sea, Antony expresses his damaged reputation as elemental rejection:  
Hark, the land bids me tread no more upon?t.  
It is ashamed to bear me? (3.11.1?2) 
As if the land holds agency, it ?bids? Antony to get off it, ?ashamed to bear? him. This 
exemplifies how Shakespeare develops a transactional relationship between elemental and 
human affairs. The land externalizes Antony?s shame, encapsulating the disappointment of his 
followers. Like the earth that ?spits? Empedocles ?into the beams / of the blazing sun,? the earth 
rejects Antony and leaves him elementally exiled.185 Shakespeare therefore uses elemental 
language not only to analogize the play?s various military figures and their clashes; he also uses 
it to dissolve Antony?s political power over the course of the play. To put it another way, 
Shakespeare doesn?t simply create simple elemental correspondences to emblematize the 
strengths and strife of the play?s various military actors?he develops an atmosphere of 
elemental flux that threatens to dissolve imperial might altogether.  
 For instance, when a lovesick Antony relinquishes concern for Rome in deference to 
Cleopatra, he dissolves the empire into fluvial oblivion. He tells his lover: 
 
 
184 Iyengar, 188. 
 
185 See Empedocles, DK115, and above. 
110 
Let Rome in Tiber melt and the wide arch 
Of the ranged empire fall. Here is my space. 
Kingdoms are clay. Our dungy earth alike 
Feeds beast as man. (1.1.34?7)  
Antony imagines Rome?with all its land, power, and possessions?disintegrating into the Tiber. 
This melting away of the imperial state opens a new terrain of possibility for Antony, redefining 
human experience at the level of appetitive material reality. The lines emphasize the malleability 
of states by reducing them to ?clay,? constituted by the same ?dungy earth? that provides food 
for all creatures. Shakespeare brings Rome?s imperial superstructure down to its base of ?dungy 
earth,? an image which, ouroboros-like, blurs the boundary between consumption and excretion. 
Antony realizes his imbrication in a global process of elemental flux, one that knocks the wind 
out of imperial culture?s hierarchies and exploitation.  
Antony?s melting of Rome into the Tiber shifts his attention from imperial concerns to 
basic material ones. He transforms the ?clay? of empires into the base ?dungy earth? that 
underlies them, highlighting how that earth provides sustenance for all life forms. Later in the 
play, Cleopatra mimics Antony?s image of a melting Rome when she declares, ?Melt Egypt into 
Nile? (2.5.78). Whereas other moments in the play emphasize the Nile?s flow as a source of life 
and generation, in these passages, the Nile and the Tiber become sites of imperial dissolution, 
where the power of empire, and the contortions of human affairs it requires, are brought into a 
boundary-destroying environment of flux, and so dismantled.186 The imagery weakens claims of 
 
 
186 This is particularly interesting in light of the way the Isis and Osiris myth, in 
Plutarch/Holland?s account, draws on Empedoclean effluence to describe the murder, 
dissolution, and monistic afterlife of royal figures.   
111 
imperial identity and greatness by exposing imperial might as a construct?one formed by the 
same material environment that all rely upon.      
Cleopatra and Antony?s visions of melting authority in the first half of the play are 
realized in the second half, as their personal and political defeats accumulate. However, it is not 
empire that melts, but Antony and Cleopatra?s empowerment by empire. Melting?a flux of 
solid into liquid?is a change of state that captures the way Antony?s failures transform his 
former reputation as a military icon into an embarrassing image of an unprepared and 
inconsistent leader. Humiliated in battle, for example, Antony laments how ?authority melts 
from me? (3.13.95). As the play unfolds, Antony finds himself increasingly identified with the 
unstable conditions of elemental transformation, his clout as changeable as the elements. In the 
moments leading up to his unsuccessful suicide, for example, Antony fixates on the clouds? 
protean metamorphoses: 
Sometime we see a cloud that?s dragonish, 
A vapor sometime like a bear or lion, 
A towered citadel, a pendent rock, 
A fork?d mountain, or blue promontory 
With trees upon ?t that nod unto the world 
And mock our eyes with air. (4.14.2?7)  
The air?s mockery of Antony extends his portrayal as an elemental exile toward the end of the 
play, as I noted above of the moment when Antony feels rejected by the land (3.11.1?2). Antony 
is concentrated on how the clouds resemble objects like ?a bear? or ?citadel,? a ?rock? or 
?mountain,? while really being nothing but ?vapor??they are not what they are, to put it another 
112 
way. The lines signal Antony?s recognition of his warped reputation, of how his greatness was 
mutable, an illusion that now mocks him. Antony continues to ruminate on cloudy mutability: 
That which is now a horse, even with a thought 
The rack dislimns and makes it indistinct 
As water is in water. (4.14.9?11) 
Here, ?rack? means ?a mass of cloud moving quickly,? implying that Antony continues to gaze 
at the sky as he speaks these lines.187 He observes how a cloud can look like a horse?a figure 
with which Cleopatra earlier associates Antony in the same breath as she calls him ?the demi-
Atlas of this Earth? (1.5.19?25)?and then blow apart into unrecognizable mist. Notice how 
Antony resorts to elemental language as he describes this ?dislimn[ing]?: the horse disperses into 
billows, becoming as ?indistinct / As water is in water.? Tragically, this scene of whimsical 
cloud gazing analogizes Antony?s own dissolving dignity in the trenches of geopolitical flux, his 
own melting away. Cleopatra returns to the image of a melting Antony when he eventually does 
die, crying out, ?the crown o?th? earth doth melt? (4.15.65). She uses the imagery of melting to 
capture Antony?s political defeat, even as she suggests that the earth itself is melting away into 
something totally different, never to be the same without the presence of her love.188 Moreover, 
Antony?s melting in the second half of the play marks a culmination of the water imagery that 
defines the character in other moments. At the end of his life, Antony finds himself figuratively 
 
 
187 See ?rack, n.2,? sense 3a in the OED, and Wilders, ed., Antony and Cleopatra, The Arden 
Shakespeare (New York: Bloomsbury, 2018), 255fn10. 
 
188 The melting away of Antony?s political authority parallels the dissolution of his Roman 
masculine identity. As Little, Jr. puts it, ?Antony seems almost to mock the rigidity and 
seriousness of Roman masculinity: for him, it is, or at least it becomes, transmutable and 
theatrical.? See Little, Jr., 107. 
 
113 
liquefied, transmuted into the water that Cleopatra earlier identified as the element he ?lived in? 
(5.2.89). In some ways, Antony?s melting subjectivity serves to create a contrast between his 
death and Cleopatra?s. While they both aspire to fire and air, only Cleopatra reaches these 
elemental domains at the end of the play, whereas Antony?s melting persona suggests a failure to 
escape the ?other elements? that Cleopatra claims to leave to ?baser life? (5.2.288?9).  
At the same time, despite Cleopatra?s ?fire and air? declaration, she too, like Antony, is 
enveloped in imagery of destructive flux at the end of the play. When she contemplates her fate, 
Cleopatra embraces the flux of the Nile as her preferred grave: 
...Shall they hoist me up 
And show me to the shouting varletry 
Of censuring Rome? Rather a ditch in Egypt 
Be gentle grave unto me! Rather on Nilus? mud 
Lay me stark naked, and let the water-flies 
Blow me into abhorring!? (5.2.54?9)189 
Revolted at the idea of her corpse being taken by Caesar and displayed as a trophy to the Roman 
masses, a defiant Cleopatra prefers to be strewn in ?a ditch? or ?on Nilus? mud? and bitten into 
decomposition by scavenging flies. These lines make a spectacle of Cleopatra?s disintegration 
back into the earth, and they illustrate how she imagines her death as a process of elemental 
mixture and flux, brought down into the most graphic material terms. They also provide a stark 
reminder to readers that political rulers are just as susceptible to the ravages of time and material 
 
 
189 The speech continues after these lines, and Cleopatra changes her mind again, deciding she 
would rather be strung from a pyramid on chains. 
114 
obliteration as anyone else. The power of queens and kings can?t transcend the elements that 
form its basis, nor their eventual flow back into one another and the world. 
 The flux in Antony and Cleopatra, therefore, informs the play?s political dimension in 
significant ways, because it undermines notions of subjectivity as stable and firm. As Adelman 
explains, ?by its merging and blending of all things, the play questions the very concept of 
identity?our lovers lose their boundaries and absorb everything into themselves.?190 For many 
critics, this dissolution of identity within the play?s universe is accompanied by an elevation of 
feeling over order and a particular emphasis on the disruption of gender boundaries. Marilyn 
French writes that  
both the masculine and feminine world share the characteristics of flux, uncontrollable 
shift and alteration. Although a masculine structure like the Roman Empire may outlast 
generations, the single permanency that exists within the play is one of feeling.191 
In other words, Shakespeare calls on flux in order to emphasize the mercurial quality of human 
feeling and subjectivity over the rigidity of Rome?s hierarchies. Similarly, Mack writes that the 
play?s movement between perspectives ?reveals itself as flux, the restless waxing and waning of 
tides, of moons, of human feeling. Especially of human feeling.?192 As Shakespeare puts the 
world in flux, he destabilizes the ruling order and rejects the coldness of imperial calculation. An 
Empedoclean view of the elements as interpenetrating substances, on view in Antony and 
 
 
190 Adelman, Common Liar, 145. 
 
191 Marilyn French, Shakespeare?s Division of Experience (New York: Summit Books, 1981), 
336. 
 
192 Mack, ?Introduction,? 18. 
 
115 
Cleopatra, provides a foundational energy for the play?s dissolution of boundaries imperial and 
sexual. 
 Shakespeare?s depiction of the world in flux is part of what makes Antony and Cleopatra, 
as Carla Mazzio writes, ?Shakespeare?s most defiant critique of the logic of the square.?193 
Drawing on ?early modern commentaries on the relationship between squares, cubes, and men,? 
Mazzio explains how ?the square, perfect in the classical sense of ?whole and complete,? offered 
a model of consistent, self-contained masculinity, with entry and exit restricted, that could easily 
offset concerns about the dependent, fluid, permeable, or changeable aspects of selfhood.?194 The 
interpenetration of Empedocles? four elements helps explain why Shakespeare finds elemental 
imagery, such as the figure of Antony as a dolphin cresting the water?s surface, a valuable 
analogic framework for exploring, dissolving, and reconstituting a character?s identity. In other 
words, despite the four elements? status as a four-part system, the ability of the elements to melt 
into one another prevents the elemental framework from advancing what Mazzio calls ?the 
quadratic measure of man.?195 At the same time, Mazzio suggests, Shakespeare represents 
Antony?s fluid identity in a way that fortifies, rather than weakens, his masculine status. He is a 
?god-like figure in a world marked by imagery of circles, spheres, curves, and elemental 
fluidity? whose exposure to ?liquid curves? makes him ?become more[,] not less, a man.?196 This 
 
 
193 Mazzio, ?Circling the Square: Geometry, Masculinity, and the Norms of Antony and 
Cleopatra,? in Staged Normality in Shakespeare?s England, ed. Rory Loughnane and Edel 
Semple (N.p.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 39. 
 
194 Ibid., 36.  
 
195 Ibid., 56. 
 
196 Ibid. 
 
116 
is indicative of the play?s Empedoclean mood: Shakespeare moves between a view of gender as 
both fluid and distinct, analogous to the motion of the elements under Love and Strife. Elemental 
flux captures Antony?s movement between a firm and dissolved identity. At the end of the play, 
his political identity has been destabilized, leaving the sense that all that remains is his status as a 
human being, in love with Cleopatra. Shakespeare puts imperial identity into flux, while 
highlighting human emotion, and particularly love, as a more significant and lasting form of 
subjectivity. 
 It is telling that Shakespeare gives such prominence to boundary-dissolving flux in a play 
about Rome?s transition from a republic to an empire. As Andrew Hadfield points out, while 
other dramatists produced plays centering around the story of Antony and Cleopatra, 
?Shakespeare was the only English dramatist who staged the complete story of the end of the 
Roman republic from the triumph of Julius Caesar to the victory of Augustus, the first proper 
Roman emperor.?197 On the one hand, the play?s background of flux analogizes this transition, 
using imagery of material effluence to underwrite the ceaseless flow of history. On the other 
hand, Shakespeare?s reliance on images of flux suggests a more incisive political critique, a 
questioning of imperial pageantry and might that interrogates the trappings of privilege and 
power against the backdrop of a world in perpetual change and intermixture. While the play 
dissolves imperial might into the dung of the earth, it centers human emotion and love as 
qualities worth preserving. Recall the analogy from Plutarch that I considered at the beginning of 
this section, which says that imperial rulers are, ?like as the elements (according to Empedocles 
 
 
197 Hadfield, Shakespeare and Republicanism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 
221.  
117 
opinion)...euer at strife together.?198 While the play?s battle scenes put this analogy into action, 
the frame of its larger setting works in just the opposite direction, evaporating distinctions of 
rank and gender to put empire?s reliance on rigid identity in high relief. In short, Shakespeare 
puts elemental flux on display to undermine imperial strife with the boundary-weakening effect 
of Empedoclean Love. 
 Shakespeare?s use of elemental flux in Antony and Cleopatra thus performs a significant 
political function. It is an avenue for disintegrating the grandeur of imperialism in a story about 
the rise of imperialist Rome. In other words, Shakespeare senses the political value of 
Empedoclean materialism, which he uses to explore what it means that great empires are merely 
elaborate constructions, built of the same elemental fabric as the rest of the world. In Coriolanus 
(premiered ca. 1610), one of his other Roman plays, Shakespeare calls attention to class concerns 
by opening the drama with a food riot staged by a group of starving plebeians, people who are 
more willing to die by revolt than to die from lack of food.199 According to James Holstun, ?the 
desperate resolve of Shakespeare?s plebians announces the economically motivated movement of 
previously voiceless persons out of the crisis-wracked private sphere of customary labor into the 
public sphere of political debate and revolutionary struggle.?200 Holstun is not writing in relation 
to Shakespeare?s elementalism, but his observation about Coriolanus shows how Shakespeare 
does not hold an idealistic view of Roman history, and found it to be fertile soil for staging 
 
 
198 North, trans., Lives, 943. 
 
199 See Shakespeare, Coriolanus, ed. Peter Holland (New York: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare, 
2016), 1.1.1-23. 
 
200 Holstun, Ehud?s Dagger: Class Struggle in the English Revolution (New York: Verso, 2000), 
372. 
 
118 
questions of social inequality, class conflict, and political revolution.201 Antony and Cleopatra, if 
less obviously than Coriolanus, also reveals the revolutionary side of Shakespeare?s politics, 
melting imperial hierarchies back into the ?clay? that forms the common sustenance of all things.  
 Of course, the elemental flux of Antony and Cleopatra also speaks to the political 
conditions of Shakespeare?s own environment. Andrew Hadfield reminds readers that ?English 
literature?especially drama?emerged as a discipline in the late sixteenth century within a 
culture of political argument.?202 English theater, in other words, infiltrated an environment of 
intense disagreement over who held the right to rule others. ?The over-riding political issue of 
the time,? Hadfield explains elsewhere, ?was the question of sovereignty and the legitimacy of 
the monarch.?203 The urgency of this question was exacerbated by the fact that the two major 
royal dynasties of Renaissance England?the Tudors and the Stuarts?each ?had no undisputed 
right to rule, and there were numerous other claimants to the throne.?204 Moreover, the transition 
between these two houses occurred in 1603, around the time Shakespeare was writing Antony 
and Cleopatra. Shakespeare?s political environment, that is, was undergoing a major shift in 
state of its own as he developed his theatrical representation of the fall of Rome?s republic into 
imperialism.  
 The political turbulence of Shakespeare?s day has led scholars to look for parallels 
between the rulers in Antony and Cleopatra and English monarchs. For instance, Hadfield notes 
 
 
201 Perhaps Shakespeare?s greatest deconstruction of an idealistic perspective of Rome occurs in 
Titus Andronicus. 
 
202 Hadfield, Shakespeare and Republicanism, 7. 
 
203 Andrew Hadfield, Shakespeare and Renaissance Politics (London: Bloomsbury, 2004), 1.  
 
204 Ibid. 
119 
that Cleopatra shares certain characteristics with Elizabeth, namely a mutual ?androgyny? and 
?love of regal display.?205 In contrast, while Gary Willis recognizes that ?the one real thing that 
is shared by Elizabeth and Cleopatra is a dominant motive of love,? he argues that these ?loves 
are of a very different kind.? Whereas Elizabeth upheld an ?ideal of sprezzatura,? Willis 
continues, Cleopatra ?was a continuous volcano of excess.?206 It?s telling that Willis reaches for 
the volcano in his characterization of Cleopatra. His elemental language continues when he adds 
that ?Elizabeth?s love was a reassuringly steady (if stylized) rain, by contrast with the dramatic 
thunderstorm of Cleopatra?s love.?207 Pitting Elizabeth?s ?rain? against Cleopatra?s eruptions and 
?thunderstorm[s]? allows Willis to express the differing degree and manner of the two queens? 
affective demeanors. Ultimately for Willis, the comparison of Cleopatra to Elizabeth is 
?misguided,? but he finds Mary I to be a more fitting analogue for the Egyptian queen.208 For 
me, these comparisons are interesting not for their potential to reveal one of the play?s characters 
as a hidden portrait of a Renaissance monarch, but for the way they more broadly suggest 
 
 
205 Hadfield, Shakespeare and Republicanism, 227. 
 
206 Gary Willis, Making Make?Believe Real (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014), 66?
7. 
 
207 Ibid., 67. 
 
208 Willis observes that both Mary and Cleopatra were ?princesses of royal blood who reached a 
throne over opposition from their subjects. Both made alliances with menacing foreign powers, 
Cleopatra with Rome, Mary with Spain. Both were famous for their sexual charm, which made 
them dangerous to men and destructive of themselves. Both were active centers of intrigue. Both 
were defeated along with their troops, Cleopatra fleeing from Actium and Mary from Langside. 
Both ended up as captives, Cleopatra of Octavian, Mary of Elizabeth, and both died in that 
captivity. See Willis, 150. 
 
120 
Shakespeare was imaginatively drawing English royals into Antony and Cleopatra?s world of 
elemental flux and imperial dissolution.  
 This is not to say Antony and Cleopatra reveals Shakespeare to be calling for the 
overthrow of the English monarchy, but rather that he develops a narrative that destabilizes 
imperial power by emphasizing its imbrication in the shifting flux of elemental change. To put it 
in another way, Shakespeare?s play becomes a potential philosophical avenue toward reconciling 
Jacobean absolutism with shifting gravities of power and influence. According to Hadfield, 
Shakespeare appears ?to have recognized the stability James brought,? though he nevertheless 
remained ?interested in republican issues throughout his writing career,? particularly in its final 
years.209 ?His later plays,? Hadfield adds, ?all show an absorbing interest in the question of the 
prerogative of the monarch and the problem of creeping tyranny, an issue central to republican 
thought.?210 But if, as Hadfield claims, republicanism ?is one of the key problems that defined? 
Shakespeare?s career, and, as I have shown, elemental analogy is one of Shakespeare?s preferred 
methods for imagining political transformation, how might these two things relate more 
specifically? 
 Empedoclean elementalism, with its movement between the one and the many, can 
analogize the relationship between elevated political rulers and the subjects they amass. Should 
 
 
209 Hadfield, Shakespeare and Republicanism, 206 & 205. Within Antony and Cleopatra, ?the 
representative of the republic is the son of its great warrior hero, Pompey, the defeated opponent 
of Julius Caesar in the Pharsalia.? See Hadfield, Shakespeare and Republicanism, 228. 
 
210 Ibid., 205. Hadfield?s description of early modern republicanism is helpful here: 
?Republicanism took many forms in early modern Europe. The Latin term res publica literally 
meant ?the public thing,? but was most frequently translated as the ?common weal? or 
?commonwealth.? Accordingly, ?republicanism? was either directly or indirectly a central feature 
of English political life from the early sixteenth century onwards.? See Hadfield, Shakespeare 
and Republicanism, 8. 
121 
rulers? dominion, in order words, be based on their categorical distinction from other human 
beings, as the doctrine of divine ordination has it, or alternatively, upon their dedication to the 
common good? This latter, republican emphasis on commonwealth is grounded in a sense of 
universal material needs that fuses various social interests into political priority. The 
simultaneous constructionism and essentialism afforded by Empedoclean thought provides a 
basis for Shakespeare to think about this question in foundational terms, to move between 
visions of monarchy as the elevation of innately distinct people over everyone else, and as a 
political artifice erected atop an elemental substructure that both constitutes and disintegrates the 
right to sovereign rule. 
 Admittedly, this connection between republicanism and elemental mutability is a rather 
abstract formulation. However, it shows how Empedocles? mixed ontology resonates outward to 
influence questions of political import, especially ones about the ability of sovereign rulers to 
claim hierarchical distinction from the broader populace. That Shakespeare probes such 
questions through images of elemental melting and flux in Antony and Cleopatra demonstrates 
that Empedocles? reputation as an anti-tyrannical political reformer, while an obscure 
biographical detail, is nonetheless reflected in early modern instantiations of his materialist 
philosophy. And as I noted at the end of Chapter One, Montaigne refers to Empedocles? 
reputation as a refuser of the crown in his essay ?Of Pedantry,? demonstrating that the political 
legacy of Empedocles, while not a major aspect of his biography, was certainly in the air during 
Shakespeare?s day.211     
Finally, acknowledging Shakespeare?s Empedoclean dimension also illustrates that 
 
 
211 See Montaigne, ?Of Pedantisme,? in Florio?s Montaigne, Volume I, 128.  
 
122 
the blurry ontology of plays like Antony and Cleopatra isn?t necessarily the result of 
indecision on the part of Shakespeare or his critics, but the product of a specific humanistic 
influence that prioritizes multivalent epistemology as a feature, not a defect. And it 
emblematizes the way Shakespeare is invested in putting opposed perspectives in flux with 
each other, refusing to resolve them with an either/or reductivity. As Adelman holds, ?it is 
this movement of perspectives, rather than the revelations of a psychodrama or the 
certainties of a morality, which is most characteristic of Antony and Cleopatra.?212 
Empedoclean poetry and its resurgences in early modern culture are part of a generative 
perspectival flux, one that helps give voice to the play?s materialist consideration of 
imperial power and immortal longing.
 
 
212 Adelman, 30. 
123 
Chapter Three: 
Milton?s Empedoclean Materialism in Paradise Lost  
Introduction 
The French Huguenot Guillaume de Salluste, Sieur Du Bartas published a set of 
serialized poems describing the creation of the world, collectively titled the Sepmaines, in the 
late 1570s and 80s. Translated into English by Joshua Sylvester as Du Bartas His Divine Weekes 
and Workes (1590?1608), Du Bartas? cosmological poetry is often cited as an early influence on 
Milton, who would go on to write his own poetic cosmogony in Paradise Lost (1667).213 A 
moment in the Sepmaines paints Empedocles as a foremost sage, and illustrates his significance 
in the history of materialism, the flux between his notion of effluence and the atomist theories of 
Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius. Encapsulating a proximity of Empedocles and Lucretius 
that will reemerge in the poetic ontology of Paradise Lost decades later, the passage comes when 
the narrator directly addresses Lucretius, asking him to explain the invisible magnetic power of 
the compass:  
Mais Lucrece, di-moy, quelle vertu cach? 
Tourne tousjours vers l?ourse une aiguille touchee 
Par l?eymant tire-fer ? Vray?ment si tu le peux, 
D?un laurier tousjours-verd je ceindray tes cheveux, 
Te confessant plus docte es secrets de nature, 
Et que ton Empedocles, et que ton Epicure.  
 
 
213 Teskey refers to Du Bartas? Sepmaines as Milton?s ?immediate predecessor on the theme? of 
divine creation, but one defined by a ?quaint encyclopedism? that Paradise Lost far surpasses. 
See Teskey, 25. 
124 
 
[But say (Lucretius) what?s the hidden cause 
That toward the North-Star still the needle draw?s, [sic] 
Whose point is toucht with Load-stone? loose this knot, 
And still-green Laurell shall be still thy Lot: 
Yea, Thee more learned will I then confess, 
Then Epicurus, or Empedocles.]214  
Du Bartas invites Lucretius to say more about how the magnet works, presenting it as a knotty 
problem whose resolution promises poetic acclaim. Specifically, Du Bartas wants to know why 
the magnetic compass points toward Polaris in the night sky, fascinated by the seemingly 
invisible sympathy between the needle?s point and the astral north. If Lucretius can untangle this 
problem, Du Bartas would offer him the ?Laurell? of literary renown, and make him more wise 
than even his predecessors Epicurus and Empedocles. The promise of the laurel crown illustrates 
Rapin?s assumption that solving a scientific problem would bring literary prestige, highlighting 
an ancient marriage of philosophical and poetic expression that is inseparable from the Epicurean 
 
 
214 Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas, Les ?uvres de Guillaume de Saluste seigneur du Bartas 
(Geneva, 1582), pp. 101?2, and Du Bartas, Du Bartas his Deuine Weekes and Workes 
translated: and dedicated to the Kings most excellent Maiestie by Iosuah Syluester (London, 
1611), 85. On the reception of Du Bartas in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, see 
Anne Lake Prescott, ?The Reception of Du Bartas in England,? Studies in the Renaissance 15 
(1968), esp. 144?8. Prescott observes how, though later seventeenth-century critics were 
unimpressed by Du Bartas, for a time he was admired in England as a model of the divine poet. 
Stephen M. Fallon notes that ?the young Milton prized Joshua Sylvester?s du Bartas.? See 
Fallon, Milton Among the Philosophers: Poetry and Materialism in Seventeenth-Century 
England (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 146. According to Boswell?s study Milton?s 
reading material, Milton?s Library, there is high certainty that Milton read Sylvester?s translation 
of Du Bartas. See Boswell, #512. I will be referring to Boswell?s catalogue throughout the 
chapter, as I describe further when discussing my methodology below. 
125 
tradition after Lucretius. Du Bartas? French version emphasizes Empedocles? understanding of 
the secrets de nature. The sense that Empedocles can unlock secrets might be echoed, for French 
readers, in the ?cles? of ?Empedocles? name, which textually resembles the word cl?s (keys).215 
In any case, the association of Empedocles, Lucretius, and poetic preeminence alludes to their 
shared tradition of using verse to explore materialist understandings of reality, a tradition in 
which Milton later participates. It also gestures toward Lucretius? praise of Empedocles? style, a 
theme I will exfoliate below when discussing the biographical reception of Empedocles.     
When Du Bartas poses the magnetic problem to Lucretius in light of Empedocles? 
wisdom, he also refers to both poets? philosophical contributions to the topic. For example, 
Passannante points out that, ?as Lucretius himself reminds us, the magnet only looks as if it 
works without touching, and what might appear at first as an unmediated phenomenon unlocks a 
story that is all about mediation (i.e., the mediation of atoms).?216 Lucretius? attention to the 
magnet as an object whose mysterious operations reveal a submerged atomic reality is 
interwoven with the history of Empedoclean and Democritean teachings on effluence, for as 
Derek Collins explains, "Empedocles elaborates a theory of effluences (????????) to explain the 
magnet?which is then taken over by Democritus and integrated into his explanation of the evil 
eye.?217 In other words, Democritus applies the Empedoclean theory of effluence to the 
 
 
215 See ?clef, cl?, subst. f?m.,? I.A in TLFi : Tr?sor de la langue Fran?aise informatis?, ATILF-
CNRS & Universit? de Lorraine, http://www.atilf.fr/tlfi. 
 
216 Passannante, The Lucretian Renaissance: Philology and the Afterlife of Tradition (Chicago: 
The University of Chicago Press, 2011), 7. Lucretius recalls seeing a magnet in Samothrace in 
De Rerum Natura, VI.1042?55. And see Richard Wallace, ? ?Amaze Your Friends!? Lucretius 
on Magnets,? Greece & Rome 43, no. 2 (Oct., 1996): esp. 178?80. 
 
217 Derek Collins, ?Nature, Cause, and Agency in Greek Magic,? Transactions of the American 
Philological Association 133, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 37fn89.  
126 
superstitious concept of the evil eye in order to materialize it. Collins refers to a fragment in 
which Empedocles asserts that ?...........there are effluences from all things that have come to be? 
(?????? ??? ?????? ????? ????????, ???? ?????????), which helps sets the stage for the atomist 
insights articulated by later thinkers including Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius.218  
It?s challenging to say exactly how Du Bartas is approaching Lucretius when he poses his 
question about the compass in the Sepmaines, his attitude falling somewhere between one of smug 
self-assurance that Lucretius won?t be able to adequately answer his request, and philosophical 
admiration for the movement of ideas between Lucretius and Empedocles as masters of capturing 
the extraordinary scale and dynamism of matter?s history in verse. As Jean-Claude M?hlethaler 
puts it, ?Du Bartas?refuse la philosophie atomiste en la personne de D?mocrite. Mais son 
attitude ? l??gard de Lucr?ce est beaucoup plus nuanc?e.?219 Du Bartas? apparently high regard 
for Empedocles in the passage from Sepmaines I cited above helps to draw out the contours of 
his nuanced attitude toward Lucretius. In other words, even if Du Bartas rejects the atomism at 
the heart of Lucretius? poem, he appreciates his Empedoclean poetic acumen for using language 
to probe the limits of material knowledge, as well as the inchoate atomism at the heart of 
Empedocles? theory of effluence.  
This chapter proposes that Milton was poetically inspired by the interplay of 
Empedoclean and Lucretian poetry and physics that the preceding example reveals, and that 
 
 
218 See Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK89, and Laks and Most, V.540. I discussed this fragment 
at length in Chapter One. Milton was almost certainly familiar with this fragment through his 
reading of Plutarch?s Moralia, as my analysis in the Appendix shows. 
 
219 Jean-Claude M?hlethaler, ?Po?sie et Savoir au XVe Si?cle,? in Po?tiques de la Renaissance: 
Le mod?le italien, le monde franco-bourguignon et leur h?ritage en France au XVIe si?cle, 
edited by Perrine Galand-Hallyn and Fernand Hallyn (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 2001), 208.   
127 
Paradise Lost turns to Empedoclean imagery and philosophy to help voice a Lucretian vision of 
monist materialism. Specifically, I suggest that Milton finds philosophic value in the blur created 
by an Empedoclean perspectival motion that moves between images of dualistic and monistic 
possibility. Empedoclean visions of dualistic transcendence are attractive to Milton, for they 
offer a common ground between the sacred perspectives of early modern England, even as 
Empedocles? broader philosophy provides an avenue for absorbing these dualistic digressions 
into a materialist register. To put it differently, Empedocles functions as a philosophical and 
poetic bridge to Lucretian materialism, and Milton finds his poetry useful for jostling the reader 
between dualistic and monistic perspectives?conventionally oppositional viewpoints that the 
poem sets out to collapse into one. Milton?s reliance on Empedoclean and Lucretian imagery is 
perhaps most succinctly expressed in the poem?s description of the four elements and their 
?embryon atoms,? which points to a unifying reality that brings elemental difference into 
harmony.220 Ultimately, the chapter suggests that the poetry of Empedocles affords a significant 
intervention in the long debates about the poem?s materialism, lessening the seemingly wide 
chasm between Stephen Fallon and N. K. Sugimura?s conflicting accounts of Milton?s 
metaphysical orientations.221  
Finally, I hope to show how Milton?s Empedoclean imagination underlines the value of a 
flexible ontological framework when reading Paradise Lost. Empedocles and Milton speak to 
 
 
220 I discuss this phrase and the larger passage at length later in this chapter. See Milton, 
Paradise Lost, 2.890?907, and below. 
 
221 See Stephen M. Fallon, Milton Among the Philosophers: Poetry and Materialism in 
Seventeenth-Century England (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), and N. K. Sugimura, 
?Matter of Glorious Trial?: Spiritual and Material Substance in ?Paradise Lost? (New Haven: 
Yale University Press, 2009). I engage with both of these studies in detail as the chapter unfolds. 
128 
the philosophical conundrum of body?s relation to mind, but they are also both poets?alive to 
the power of ambiguity and the fluid experience of embodying thought in words. Keeping this 
poetic identity in view helps show the limitation of thinking about Empedocles and Milton in the 
framework of a rigid ontology, which can flatten out the nuances of the spiritual-philosophic 
visions the two writers achieve. In this vein, I also suggest in the chapter?s conclusion that 
Milton?s Empedoclean materialism can complicate Stanley Fish?s contention that Milton?s 
central purpose is to subject readers to a series of perceptive examinations, testing their ability to 
recognize and reject Satanic manipulations of reality as uncomplicatedly, dualistically evil.222 In 
contrast, the flexible ontology brought into view by an Empedoclean perspective plays a crucial 
role in Milton?s labile articulation of materialism, which invites readers toward a monism so all-
encompassing that even expressions of dualistic contradiction become assimilable within the 
embrace of materialism?s monistic orbit. In other words, Milton?s vitalist monism is so radical 
that it accommodates images of dualistic transgression within its materialist vision. It?s as if 
Milton recognizes that the dualistic imagination, itself an ontologically material phenomenon, is 
fundamentally composed of the same substance as everything else under the sun and beyond. In 
a word, contemplations of material transcendence and incongruity are themselves materially 
grounded phenomena, and thus they cannot, as Fish insists, be discarded or dualistically 
sidelined along the lines of a perfectly airtight moral, interpretive, or philosophical schema. To 
do that, in fact, would violate the radical spirit of monism?s revolutionary potential.     
 
 
222 Fish advances this argument in his classic monograph, Surprised by Sin: The Reader in 
?Paradise Lost? (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1967), at 153, for instance, and more 
recently, in Versions of Antihumanism, esp. at 24. 
129 
As the argument below unfolds, I will orient my discussion of Milton?s Empedoclean 
materialism to contemporary accounts of Cartesian dualism, showing how even as early modern 
writers frequently speak of Empedocles and Descartes in the same breath, Empedocles offers 
something to Milton that Descartes does not: a materialist philosophy with flashes of dualism-in-
motion, one that absorbs even thought itself back into a monistic frame of reference. Rather than 
using dualistic declarations to drive home the divide between matter and mind, as Descartes 
does, Empedocles deploys dualism to express his feeling of alienation from matter?s innate 
divinity. Empedocles thus offers Milton an alternative to Cartesian dualism that entertains 
dualistic possibility while resolving toward materialism, an inspiration that provides significant 
poetic value to Milton as he delivers his own materialist theodicy in Paradise Lost. Moreover, 
disagreements over the precise nature of Milton?s metaphysics are bound up with the way 
readers of Empedocles? work are still debating whether he should be properly regarded as a 
materialist, pluralist, or dualist.223 The central thesis of the chapter is that Empedocles? 
ambivalent metaphysics is reflected in the idiosyncratic materialism of Milton?s Paradise Lost.  
As I?ve been suggesting, a crucial part of Milton?s attraction to Empedoclean philosophy 
is its emphasis on oneness, the way it moves between two visions by way of elemental inter-
sympathy. To illustrate this, let?s return to the beginning of the ?double tale? fragment: 
????? ????? ???? ??? ??? ?? ?????? ????? ????? 
?? ???????, ???? ?? ?? ????? ?????? ?? ???? ?????. 
 
 
 
223 The most conventional view of Empedocles today is as a pluralist, though Simon Tr?panier 
argues that even Empedocles? notion of the ?????? can be assimilated into a monistic reading of 
his poetry. See Tr?panier, ?From Wandering Limbs to Gods: ?????? as Substance in 
Empedocles,? Apeiron 47, no. 2 (2014): 172?210. 
130 
[I shall tell a double tale. For at one time [they] [the elements] grew to be one alone 
from many, and at another, again, [they] grew apart to be many from one.]224  
The interpretation of Paradise Lost that unfolds below suggests that Milton takes inspiration 
from this movement between the one and the many, analogizing the unifying potential among the 
four elements to the collapse between body and soul that becomes possible through the lens of 
his monistic spirituality. This point will become more evident when I exfoliate the Empedoclean 
imagery within Raphael?s materialist manifesto in book five of the poem. The central value of 
Empedocles? poetry to Milton is its invitation to turn difference into similarity, its insistence on 
making unlike things appear the same by fluidly alternating between them.  
 This insistence is crystallized in Empedocles? principle of like-to-like (and the related 
like-by-like), which Milton mentions by name in Paradise Lost during the conversation between 
Sin and Death in book ten. The well-known episode has garnered much attention for its 
ontological inconsistencies. Sin is jealous of her father Satan?s freedom of movement, and she 
tells Death, her son, that she feels a growing power within her, an extension into a wider domain 
that elevates her to a semi-angelic status and operates on the principle of like-to-like. Sin flexes 
her wings, finding a newfound sense of freedom in 
whatever drawes me on, 
Or sympathie, or som connatural force 
Powerful at greatest distance to unite 
With secret amity things of like kinde 
 
 
224 See Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK 17.1?2, and Laks and Most, V.410. The two lines I cite 
here are quoted in Simplicius? commentary on Aristotle?s Physics. The doxography of DK17 is 
complex, as this is the longest extant fragment. For a fuller analysis of the fragment?s ancient 
transmission and Miltonic reception, see Appendix, DK17. 
131 
By secretest conveyance. (10.245?9)  
The potential Empedoclean resonance of the lines is pronounced, from the direct reference to the 
idea of like-to-like through the image of a powerful ?sympathie? that unites ?things of like 
kinde,? to the way this sympathy operates by a ?secret amity,? evoking the Empedoclean idea of 
Love (or Friendship) and its explanation of invisible phenomena like the magnet.225     
Simply put, the idea of like-to-like suggests that similar substances are attracted to one 
another, based on ?the inner tendency of the roots [or elements] for like to join with like,? as 
Myrto Garani explains it. 226 Empedocles puts the idea of like-to-like on display in fragment 
DK109. In the most precise terms, this fragment describes the principle of like-by-like, a theory 
of perception. But it shows the principle of like-to-like at work, for it encapsulates the way like 
substance drives Empedocles? thought: 
 ???? ??? ??? ????? ????????, ????? ?? ????, 
 ?????? ?? ?????? ????, ???? ???? ??? ???????, 
 ??????? ?? ??????, ?????? ?? ?? ?????? ?????. 
 
 [?By earth we see earth; by water, water; 
 
 
225 Seth Lobis provides a reading of Sin?s magical sympathy through the lens of action at a 
distance. See Seth Lobis, The Virtue of Sympathy: Magic Philosophy, and Literature in 
Seventeenth-Century England (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015), esp. 141?9. As I 
show later in this chapter, the idea of like-to-like returns in Milton?s account of the Genesis 
creation story, making it challenging to neatly deduce Milton?s disapproval of sympathetic 
philosophy on the grounds that Sin embraces the idea. 
 
226 Garani, 49. For a further example of Empedocles? association with like-to-like, see Aristotle, 
?Eudemian Ethics,? in Aristotle: Athenian Constitution, Eudemian Ethics, Virtues and Vices, 
trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952), 1235a10?12 [198?478], 
and Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 
Press, 1934), 1155a32?b8. Milton knew these texts?see Boswell, #77. 
132 
by aither, shining aither; but by fire, blazing fire; 
love by love and strife by baneful strife?].227  
The lines describe perception as a process of elemental sympathy, in which our ability to see fire 
is activated by the fire or heat contained within us, and so on for water, earth, ?ther, Love, and 
Strife. The first part of the fragment leans toward a monistic perspective, attributing the mental 
activity of perception to material mechanisms like earth, water, and fire; but the latter part 
suggests that extra-elemental substances like Love and Strife also exist within us, guiding our 
perceptions of these forces we encounter outside ourselves. Moreover, like-to-like operates by 
the power of Love, which can transform erstwhile elemental combatants into sympathetic 
companions, until Strife takes over and tears them apart. As Garani explains, ?only under Love?s 
impact are dissimilar roots [elements] made more alike and mutual desire is born within 
them.?228 In other words, Empedocles? system posits not only a general principle that like 
substances attract, but also that substantially different matter can be coaxed into a homogenizing 
sympathy.229  
 
 
227 See Laks and Most, V.540, and Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK109. Milton likely came 
across this fragment through his reading of Aristotle, who cites it in On the Soul, at 404b8?15, 
and in Metaphysics, at 1000a18?b20. See Boswell, #72 & #81. 
 
228 Garani, 48. Garani cites fragments DK21, line 8 and DK22, lines 4?5, to substantiate this 
point. It?s hard to say whether Milton would have encountered these fragments, which are cited 
by Simplicius in his commentary on Aristotle?s Physics and in Theophrastus? De Sensibus (see 
Appendix). These texts do not appear in Boswell?s study. However, as I noted above, Milton 
almost certainly encountered fragment DK109, which shows like-to-like at work. 
 
229 Jessica Wolfe has shown how early modern thinkers including Angelo Poliziano saw Homer 
as ?anticipat[ing] Empedocles?s philosophy of concord and discord.? Wolfe?s work reveals how 
these Pre-Socratic concepts, and particularly the idea Strife, were developed as a Homeric 
inheritance, one that had already been at work in literary texts before Empedocles? time. As 
Wolfe explains, ?the allegorical interpretation that proved most compelling to Homer?s 
Renaissance readers is the one that regards various episodes in the Iliad and Odyssey as 
133 
 Though it might seem like an obscure concept, the notion of like-to-like appears in other 
early modern poetry, notably in Du Bartas? Sepmaines. Du Bartas imagines the principle of like-
to-like at work in his description of the creation of the world. He writes that anyone who has 
seen a blacksmith use fire to separate alloyed bars of metal into their constituent parts will 
understand how the elements behaved at the beginning of the world:   
Il comprend qu?aussi tost que la bouche de Dieu 
S?ouvre pour assigner ? chasque corps son lieu, 
Le feu contre le feu, l?eau contre l?eau se serre, 
L?air se va joindre ? l?air, & la terre ? la terre. 
 
[   ?when the mouth Diuine 
Op?ned, (to each its proper Place t?assigne,) 
Fire flew to Fire, Water to Water slid, 
Aire clung to aire, and Earth with Earth abid]. 
Du Bartas? and Sylvester?s lines evoke the movement of elemental substances according to a 
principle of likeness, illustrating an Empedoclean motion of matter that pairs divine agency with 
 
 
illustrations of the contrary yet complementary forces of philia and eris (or neikos), a concept 
central to the pre-Socratic cosmology of Heraclitus and Empedocles. This interpretation was 
commonplace in antiquity: Plato, Aristotle, and Plutarch all discuss episodes from Homeric epic 
that illustrate, allegorically, pre-Socratic cosmological principles.? Wolfe?s study identifies a key 
link between Empedoclean cosmology and Homer that was recognized by ancient and 
Renaissance writers alike. But whereas Wolfe focuses specifically on the force of Strife and its 
deep entanglement with ancient and early modern literary history, I?m attempting to show how 
early moderns also developed an appreciation for a perspectival movement between dualistic and 
monistic viewpoints that can be characterized as distinctively Empedoclean. See Wolfe, Homer 
and the Question of Strife from Erasmus to Hobbes (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2015), 
21. 
134 
the operation of materially centered forces. Moreover, the passage is another important artifact in 
Milton?s youthful exposure to poetic representations of Empedoclean philosophy. 
 Despite the importance of Empedocles in Milton?s childhood reading, as Du Bartas? 
writing makes clear, and the palpable presence of Empedoclean physics throughout Paradise 
Lost, the critical opportunities of an Empedoclean Milton have received surprisingly little 
attention. The first reader to comment on the poem?s Empedoclean allusion appears to be the 
editor Patrick Hume, who in 1695 annotated Milton?s reference to the philosopher with a 
summary of Empedocles? life, thought, and legacy as a volcanic fool.230 Ettore Bignone?s study 
Empedocles (1910) mentions Milton?s allusion, but only in passing.231 Moving to the more 
recent past, Sacvan Bercovitch briefly addresses Milton?s Empedoclean allusion in a 1968 article 
that is one of the only pieces of mid twentieth-century scholarship to directly consider the 
question of Empedocles? relationship to the English Renaissance I can locate.232 In the twenty-
first century, Drew Daniel reintroduced the question of an Empedoclean Milton in a 2014 essay 
that considers Milton?s allusion to the philosopher?s death alongside the spirit of Empedocles? 
 
 
230 Hume?s annotation follows the trend of associating Empedocles with Lucretius. It reads: 
?Empedocles; The Scholar of Pythagoras, a Philosopher and a Poet, born 
at Agrigentum in Sicily: He wrote of the nature of Things in Greek, as Lucretius did in Latin 
Verse. He stealing one night from his Followers, threw himself into the flaming ?tna, that being 
no where to be found, he might be esteemed a God, and to be taken up amongst them into 
Heaven; but his Iron Pattens being thrown out by the fury of the burning Mountain, discovered 
his defeated Ambition, and ridiculed his Folly.? See Hume, Annotations on Milton?s ?Paradise 
Lost? (London, 1695), 117.                
 
231 See Ettore Bignone, Empedocles (Milan: Torino, 1916), 495. 
 
232 See Bercovitch, ?Empedocles in the English Renaissance,? 67?80.    
 
135 
combinatorial ontology.233 While these rare studies have offered invaluable starting points for the 
inquiry, none have given sustained attention to the relationship between Milton and Empedocles? 
unusual materialisms, or the potential for Empedocles to mediate between the dualistic and 
monistic moods that inform the elaborate analogic performance of Paradise Lost. 
 Milton?s marginalia in his copy of the Greek poet Aratus indicates that he read Henri 
Estienne?s Poetae Graeci Principes (1566) and Thesaurus Graecae Linguae (1572), books that 
each make numerous references to Empedocles and his poetic approach.234 From Milton?s 
engagement with these texts alone, not to mention his prolific knowledge of classical languages, 
scholars can be fairly confident that Milton would have had a good picture of Empedocles? 
relevance to a range of philosophical and poetic questions.235 Estienne not only quotes some 
Empedoclean fragments but points Milton to the ancient sources which transmitted them. Yet 
Empedocles? presence in the English Renaissance, as I?ve already shown in the preceding 
chapters, was far more extensive than a relegation to one or two esoteric volumes. To the 
contrary, Empedocles was one of the earliest and most widely redistributed Pre-Socratic thinkers 
 
 
233 See Daniel, ?The Empedoclean Renaissance,?, esp. 292?5. 
 
234 See for instance Estienne [Henrico Stephanus], Poetae Graeci Principes Heroici Carminis 
(Geneva, 1566), 115 & 487, and Thesaurus Graecae Linguae (Geneva, 1572), 143, 236, 351, 
400, 426, 450, 521, 607, 712, 735, 828, 945, 1019, 1414, and 1624. For Milton?s marginalia on 
Estienne, see Maurice Kelley and Samuel D. Atkins, ?Milton?s Annotations of Aratus,? PMLA 
LXX (1955), 1090?1106, and Kelley, ?Additions to: Milton?s Library,? Milton Quarterly 10.3 
(October 1976): 93?4. 
 
235 Nicholas McDowell?s recent biography covering Milton?s youth explains the young poet?s 
virtuosic classical knowledge: ?Milton?s 1645 Poems display his ability to write verse in four 
languages (English Latin, Greek, and Italian) and translate from a fifth (Hebrew). There is a 
Greek epigram in the 1645 Poems, with the Latin title Philosophus ad regem, which is another 
example of a moral theme put into verse, probably done towards the end of Milton?s school 
career, perhaps when he was in the eighth and final form at St. Paul?s and had been translating 
out of, and into, Greek for several years.? See McDowell, Poet of Revolution, 55.      
136 
in European intellectual history, persistently appearing in texts across antiquity, the Middle 
Ages, and Renaissance.  
Both the doxography of Empedocles and the contents of Milton?s personal library are 
subjects that have garnered attention on their own, but to my knowledge, almost no work has 
been done to integrate the two bodies of knowledge. When I first began this study of Paradise 
Lost, I realized that any serious investigation of the poem?s Empedoclean potential would need 
to be built on a precise understanding of Milton?s specific philological avenues to Empedocles. 
Therefore, I developed a table that cross-references every doxographic transmission point of 
Empedocles? fragments (as documented by Inwood) with the catalogue of Milton?s reading 
material offered in Jackson Campbell Boswell?s Milton?s Library (1975), which contains a list of 
about 1500 literary works that Milton likely read or owned, based on evidence throughout his 
writings. The results of this analysis, included as an Appendix, form a useful visual ?map? of 
Milton?s Empedoclean reading, along with indications of how much confidence one can place in 
each part of the fragments? unique reception history. In other words, the table provides a useful 
reference for quickly assessing Milton?s potential relationship to any given fragment, as well as a 
visual snapshot of the big picture. The analysis in this appended table, to which I refer in the 
footnotes throughout the chapter, scaffolds my interpretative decisions with philological clarity 
and rigor: each time I mention an Empedoclean fragment, I will indicate the likelihood of 
Milton?s exposure to it, as well as the probable circumstances. Of course, no list like Boswell?s 
could achieve a perfect picture of Milton?s reading, and thus the same is true of my efforts to 
chart Milton?s view of Empedocles. But, as I hope this chapter shows, Milton?s repeated 
glimpses of Empedocles came to influence Paradise Lost in surprisingly significant ways, ones 
that speak directly to ongoing debates at the center of the poem?s critical reception. 
137 
The argument that unfolds below begins by briefly outlining the thematic resonance 
between three myths: Empedocles? divinely inspired leap into Etna, Satan?s self-deifying 
rebellion and plummet into hell, and Adam and Eve?s original sin of longing for divine 
knowledge, which instigates their own Fall. I then consider the broader biographical tradition 
surrounding Empedocles? volcanic suicide before turning to Milton?s direct allusion to the fable 
in the Limbo of Vanity episode of Paradise Lost. I show how even as the passage parodies the 
apocryphal, suicidal Empedocles who leaps into the volcano, Milton turns to aspects of 
Empedocles? actual philosophy to give voice to the critique, particularly the principle of like-to-
like. Thus, I suggest that Milton?s presentation of Empedocles tells a kind of double tale, 
lampooning the fictive idiot invented by Diogenes Laertius, but in a way that implicitly 
illustrates core aspects of Empedoclean thought?in turn rendering a subtle poetic justice to the 
Sicilian philosopher. Moreover, I argue that Milton?s depiction of Empedocles in Limbo 
encapsulates the blurry ontological contours of the poem?s ultimately materialist vision, as it 
impels readers to think dualistically and monistically at once. Readers will come to see how 
Milton?s allusion to Empedocles in Paradise Lost, far from being just an antiquated oddity 
amidst the great heap of the poem?s allusive eruptions, is an aspect that courses throughout its 
entire ethos, melding with the poem?s very material texture and making a potent fuel for Milton?s 
metaphysical and stylistic transits. In the following section, I engage more directly with the 
Empedoclean ramifications of the debate between Sugimura and Fallon by providing a fresh 
interpretation of Raphael?s materialist analogies as expressions grounded in the transformative 
power of Empedoclean effluence. The chapter concludes by arguing against the rigid dualism of 
Fish?s hermeneutics of trial, which threatens to drown out the aesthetic innovation of Milton?s 
Empedoclean double vision. 
138 
Falling for Divine Longing 
 Empedocles and Milton share a status as epic poets whose verse combines visions of 
materialist philosophy with divine contemplation. A few years after Milton?s death, the French 
Jesuit scholar Ren? Rapin penned a description of Empedocles that captures both his mystical 
and materialist appeal:    
Empedocle composa une Physique en vers, selon les principes de Pythagore, dont 
 Lucrece parle comme d?un miracle, & dont Aristote & Diogene La?rce font mention.   
 
[Empedocles composed a Natural Philosophy in Verse, according to the Principles 
 of Pythagoras, of which Lucretius speaks as of a miracle, and whereof 
 Aristotle and Diogenes Laertius make mention.]236 
Rapin represents Empedocles as a Pythagorean philosopher-poet beloved by Lucretius. 
Empedocles? Pythagorean associations, which I explored in Chapter One in my discussion of 
Plutarch?s ?Isis and Osiris,? assist Rapin in drawing out Empedocles? religious appeal. 
Moreover, as Rapin sees it, Empedocles? poetry doesn?t merely accord with Pythagorean 
doctrine; it can make Lucretius see miracles, an ironic presentation of a poet who created a 
damning vignette of brutal religious sacrifice, and who wrote, tantum religio potuit suadere 
 
 
236 See Ren? Rapin, Reflexions sur la philosophie ancienne et moderne, et sur l?usage qu?on en 
doit faire pour la Religion (Paris, 1676), 184, and Reflexions upon ancient and modern 
philosophy, moral and natural. Treating of the Aegyptians, Arabians, Gretians, Romans, &c. 
philosophers; as Thales, Zeno, Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, Aristotle, Epicurus, &c. Also of the 
English, Germans, French, Spanish, Italian, &c. As Bacon, Boyle, Descartes, Hobbes, 
Vanhelmont, Gassendus, Galilens, Harvey, Paracelsus, Marsennus, Digby, &c. Together with 
the use that is to be made thereof (London, 1678), 180. 
139 
malorum [So potent was Superstition in persuading to evil deeds].237 For Rapin, Empedocles? 
materialist versifying is an avenue to spiritual apotheosis, exemplifying an ancient tradition, 
admired by the young Milton, that aimed for divine transformation through the utterance of 
poetry. 
 In other words, Empedocles? decision to express his natural philosophy in verse is bound 
up with his reputed longing for immortality. Nevertheless, Empedocles? writing is a key part of 
the materialist poetic tradition, for ?no Epicurean had used verse? before Lucretius, and there is a 
tradition of regarding Empedocles as the ?last significant Greek thinker? to use poetry rather than 
prose.238 When he chooses to put his thought into hexameters rather than prose, Empedocles both 
partakes in a philosophical poetic practice later extended by Lucretius, and betrays his longing 
for deification through the transformative power of divine poiesis.239  The unwieldy convergence 
of materialist and d?monic contemplation that finds expression in Empedocles? poetic identity is 
crucial for understanding the punitive framing of the discredited story of his suicide, in which the 
 
 
237 See Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, I.62?101. Empedocles? own poem includes an image 
of ritual sacrifice in DK137, in a moment that illustrates Empedocles? Pythagorean 
vegetarianism by analogizing the slaughter of an animal for human consumption to the dreadful 
scene of Iphigenia?s murder of Agamemnon. Rapin?s figuration of Lucretius as charmed by 
Empedocles? verse nods to a passage in De Rerum Natura that praises Empedocles as ?an 
illustrious? man, ?sacred and wonderful and dear,? who ?seems hardly to be born of mortal 
stock.? See discussion below, and Lucretius, I.727?33. But see also I.734-829, which critique 
aspects of Empedocles? poem. 
 
238 See Jackson P. Hershbell, ?Empedocles? Oral Style,? 351. On Epicurus? opinion of poetry and 
Lucretius? response to it, see Martin Ferguson Smith, ?Introduction,? in Lucretius: De Rerum 
Natura, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), xlix. 
 
239 Despite his poetic approach, commentators don?t always consider Empedocles a poet. See for 
instance Douglas E. Gerber, trans., ?Scholiast on Dionysius of Thrace,? qtd. in Greek Elegiac 
Poetry: From the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 
1999), 35?6. 
 
140 
philosopher takes a fall for his desire for immortal status. Thus, when Milton invokes 
Empedocles in Paradise Lost, he pithily nods to the sins of Lucifer and of Adam and Eve, whose 
moral shortcomings are answered with retributive falls.  
In the prose ?Argument? that opens book three of Paradise Lost, Milton summarizes the 
sin of Adam and Eve like this: ?Man hath offended the majesty of God by aspiring to God-
head.?240 Here and throughout the entire work, Milton characterizes Adam and Eve?s 
transgression as a sin of ambition to divine status, one they absorb from Satan?s influence as they 
come to regard the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge as material ?of Divine effect / To open Eyes, 
and make them Gods who taste,? as Eve tells Adam of the Tree?s ?sciential sap? (9.865?6; 
9.837). The sin of aspiring to divine rank is a central theme in Paradise Lost, and the nature of 
this offense thematically unites the Fall of humankind from prelapsarian ease and the fall of 
Lucifer and the rebel angels from heaven. In other words, the fallen angels? revolution against 
the vertical hierarchy of heaven prefigures the original sin of humankind. As David Quint puts it, 
Paradise Lost tells the story of two falls, which its reader is asked to compare and 
 contrast. There is the unending fall of Satan and his followers, and there is the Fall?and 
 spiritual regeneration?of Adam and Eve.241  
Against this backdrop, Milton?s direct allusion to the legendary volcanic plunge of Empedocles 
in book three appears as a microcosm of the poem?s preoccupation with divine longing and its 
 
 
240 Milton, ?Paradise Lost,? pp. 415. 
 
241 David Quint, Inside Paradise Lost: Reading the Designs of Milton?s Epic (Princeton, 
Princeton University Press, 2014), 6. 
 
141 
consequences, and affords Milton a comparative example, from the deep history of philosophy, 
of overleaping ambition rewarded with an experience of descent.   
Quint shows how Milton?s depiction of the two central falls in Paradise Lost?of the 
rebel angels and of humankind?draws on the ancient myths of Phaethon and Icarus. Both these 
figures hold an ambitious heliotropism that is rewarded with a punitive fall. The climactic 
plunges of these tales signal a moral logic in which forbidden upward striving resolves 
symmetrically to its opposite, to crestfallen humiliation. When Phaethon and Icarus aspire to the 
sun, the gods punish them by striking down their soaring flights and bringing them literally down 
to earth, an illustration of the risks of hubris and unbridled intensity. I propose that Empedocles? 
death, understood as a fiction invented by ancient biographers that serves to undermine specific 
tenets of his philosophy, is an important addition to these ancient downcast figures that help 
animate Paradise Lost, ?a poem in which falling is depicted as the failure of aspired flight.?242 
But unlike the myths of Phaethon and Icarus, Milton invokes Empedocles? fall by name.243  In 
other words, the myth of Empedocles leaping headfirst into the volcano to prove his immortality 
encapsulates, on a miniature scale, the transgressions of divine aspiration committed by Lucifer, 
Adam, and Eve in Paradise Lost. The resonance comes to the fore in the way Lucifer finds 
himself ?Hurld headlong flaming from th? Ethereal Skie / With hideous ruins and combustion,? 
 
 
242 Quint, Inside Paradise Lost, 63.   
 
243 As Quint acknowledges, ?Milton mentions neither Icarus nor Phaethon by name? (63). I am 
illuminating the narrative synthesis of Milton?s allusion to Empedocles with the broader trope of 
descent as punishment for divine longing that Quint traces to Icarus and Phaethon. The trope of 
divine longing is as old as literature itself, occurring not only in Greco-Roman stories of 
Phaethon and Icarus, but reaching back even further to The Epic of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh is a 
source that, while it did influence key narratives in the Hebrew Bible, was a text unavailable to 
Milton. See The Epic of Gilgamesh, trans. Benjamin R. Foster (New York: Norton, 2019): tablet 
XI.  
142 
lines that might just as well describe Empedocles? mythic suicidal plunge into Mount Etna 
(1.45?6). 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Going Down in Flames 
In this section, I set the scene for Milton?s allusion to Empedocles in the Limbo of Vanity 
episode of Paradise Lost by considering its literary predecessors in works such as Horace?s Ars 
Poetica (ca. 15 BCE) and Dante?s Inferno (ca. 1314). This will equip us for the following 
section, where I explore Milton?s version as an intervention within Empedocles? biographical 
tradition. The literary genealogy I trace reveals how, though he invokes the myth of Empedocles? 
volcanic death, Milton pulls Empedocles out of Dante?s hell. In so doing, Milton relies partially 
on Horace?s account, yet introduces a significant revision that pays tribute to Empedocles? actual 
philosophy. Ultimately, I demonstrate how Milton?s depiction of Empedocles partakes in a 
tradition?initiated by Lucretius and extended by seventeenth-century writers such as Athanasius 
Kircher and the Rapin?of reevaluating Empedocles? relationship to Mount Etna, resisting the 
volcanic entrapment of Diogenes Laertius? infamous account. In Laertius? account, readers will 
recall, the volcano spews out one of Empedocles? bronze sandals after he dives inside, exposing 
the ignorance of his self-deification in a grand debunking.244 In other words, while a cursory 
reading of the Limbo of Vanity scene might suggest a dismissive attitude toward Empedocles on 
 
 
244 See Chapter One, where I also discuss Laertius? account, and Laertius, Lives, 8.2.69. 
  
143 
Milton?s part, my analysis demonstrates that he hedges on the matter of the Sicilian 
philosopher?s guilt, implying that Empedocles is not quite as damnable a figure as the myth of 
his volcanic suicide had led many to believe.  
 In Paradise Lost, Milton gestures toward Empedocles? hazy legacy and ontology by 
placing him in ?Limbo,? in a ?Paradise of Fools? (3.495?6). When he labels Empedocles a fool, 
Milton participates in a longstanding tradition of invoking Empedocles? fictional suicide as an 
exemplary act of idiocy, of immortal grandeur denied?a tradition I examined in my discussion 
of Legrand and Garzoni in Chapter One.245 While the Legrand and Garzoni texts were published 
well before Milton?s birth, allusions to Empedocles? unreal volcanic death continued during and 
after Milton?s lifetime, in works such as Jonson?s News from the New World (1620) and Rapin?s 
Reflexions (1676).246 As these examples will demonstrate, Empedocles? leap into Etna is usually 
stewing with implicit commentary on his relationship to materialism: while some assert that an 
overabundance of natural philosophy drove Empedocles mad, others blame the suicide on his 
divine ambition. This range of responses reflects the protean quality of Empedocles? textual 
afterlife, the motley moods and perspectives he comes to embody across the long arc of his 
reception history. Depending upon the context in which early modern readers learned of 
Empedocles, they might encounter radically different versions of the Sicilian poet. Some writers, 
like Dante, emphasize Empedocles? materialist leanings, while others, like Horace, satirically 
cackle at his infamous longing for material transcendence.   
 
 
245 I considered the tradition of the foolish Empedocles in Chapter One in my discussion of 
Tomaso Garzoni?s The Hospital of Incurable Fools, Erected into English (1600), and Jacques 
Legrand?s The Book of Good Maners (1487). 
 
246 I discussed Jonson?s masque in Chapter One. Rapin?s Reflexions was translated into English 
in 1678. 
144 
The ancient Greek ?biographer? Diogenes Laertius is the major progenitor of the myth of 
Empedocles? jump into Etna, as I noted previously in Chapter One.247 But the Roman poet 
Horace later crafts his own account, one that became an influential contributor to Empedocles? 
reputation in early modern Europe. In his Ars Poetica, Horace riffs on Laertius? outrageous 
image of Empedocles? volcanic embarrassment, using it to exemplify the figure of the mad poet. 
Horace writes: 
?Siculique poetae 
narrabo interitum. Deus immortalis haberi 
dum cupit Empedocles, ardentem frigidus Aetnam 
insiluit. 
 
[I?ll tell the tale of the Sicilian poet?s end. Empedocles, eager to be thought a god 
immortal, coolly leapt into burning Aetna.]248 
Horace plays on dual senses of frigidus as both ?cold? and ?lacking in ardour or passion? to 
portray Empedocles as insanely nonchalant about his inflammatory downfall, dramatizing the 
legendary poet?s detachment from the material result of his volcanic plunge.249 To put it in more 
 
 
247 Here I?ve resorted to scare quotes because, as Chitwood?s illuminating work showed us 
previously in these pages, ancient biographical practices have a much different standard of 
accuracy than the modern term ?biography? usually connotes. See Diogenes Laertius, Lives, 
8.2.69, and Chapter One. 
 
248 See Horace, ?Ars Poetica? in Horace: Satires, Epistles, and Ars Poetica, trans. H. Rushton 
Fairclough (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1929), lines 465?6 (pp. 488?9). It?s 
clear Milton read the Ars Poetica, as he mentions it directly in ?Of Education? and ?The Second 
Defense,? among other texts. See Boswell entry #789. 
 
249 See ?frigidus, a.,? senses 1 & 8d in The Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University 
Press, 2012), pp. 808. See also sense 1c, which reveals that ?frigidus? was sometimes used to 
145 
playful terms, Horace?s caricature depicts Empedocles as cool with his own burning: paradoxical 
human folly expressed in the language of elemental difference. Furthermore, Horace?s syntactic 
juxtaposition of hot and cold (ardentem frigidus) enacts a pairing of opposites that inverts 
Empedocles? principle of like-to-like, or the idea that similar substances are attracted to one 
another. In other words, when Horace shows readers a figuratively cool Empedocles pulled into 
Etna?s heat, he abstractly illustrates an attraction of opposites that undermines a core principle of 
the philosopher?s work. The lines deliver a double sting, mocking Empedocles? divine pretension 
and manipulating his death into a contradiction of his philosophy.250 As we will see later, this 
passage from Ars Poetica lies just beneath the surface of Milton?s allusion in Paradise Lost, 
which is partially a translation of Horace?s lines. Aside from the intricacies of Horace?s 
ontologically inspired wordplay, the heart of the passage is its mocking attitude toward 
Empedocles? longing for immortality, its portrait of the philosopher as a mad poet going down in 
flames on account of his supernaturally supercharged ego. 
 Another Roman writer who charges Empedocles with supernatural stupidity is the natural 
historian Pliny the Elder, who genuinely died from a volcano, inhaling the toxic fumes of Mount 
Vesuvius? eruption in 79 CE after sailing closer to get a better look in the name of science.251 
 
 
describe ?the supposed composition of the body or soul out of cold elements,? as in Lucretius, 
3.299.  
 
250 I discuss like-to-like in more detail when I examine Milton?s version of the story, later in this 
section. 
 
251 Pliny the Elder had been stationed nearby on naval duty at the time of the eruption. Pliny the 
Younger recalls his uncle?s death in a letter to Cornelius Tacitus, in the hope that it will bring the 
elder Pliny ?immortal fame? (immortalem gloriam). See Pliny the Younger, Letters, Volume I: 
Books 1?7, trans. Betty Radice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), VI.xvi. And 
see Robert M. Wilhelm, ?Pliny and Vergil,? in The Classical Outlook 53, no. 4 (Dec. 1975): 40?
1. 
146 
When Pliny alludes to Empedocles in his Natural History (Naturalis Historia) (ca. 79 CE), he 
doesn?t mention Empedocles? volcanic death. But he critiques the philosopher for his 
metaphysical teachings, grouping him with several other Greek thinkers he accuses of seeking 
esoteric, occult teachings abroad: 
certe Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, Plato ad hanc discendam navigavere exiliis 
verius quam peregrinationibus susceptis, hanc reversi praedicavere, hanc in arcanis 
habuere.  
 
[Certainly Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus and Plato went overseas to learn it 
[magic], going into exile rather than on a journey, taught it openly on their return, and 
considered it one of their most treasured secrets.]252  
The passage goes on to suggest that these philosophers accepted a ridiculous ?magic? that 
embarrasses even fans of their other writings. Thus, even as Pliny?s critique provides further 
evidence of Empedocles? imbrication in the history of materialism, associating him with the 
seminal atomist Democritus, it also reveals how this association does not equate to an 
assumption of uncomplicated skeptical rationality; despite their materialist tendencies, 
Empedocles and Democritus find themselves lumped together with the idealist philosophers 
Plato and Pythagoras.253 Clearly, Like Horace, Pliny emphasizes Empedocles? flirtations with 
material transcendence, writing it off as superstitious flim-flam. 
 
 
252 The passage calls out Democritus especially strongly for fetishizing magic. Pliny the Elder, 
Natural History: Books 28?32, trans. W. H. S. Jones (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 
Press, 1963), XXX.9?11. 
 
253 Ibid., XXX.10?11. The passage also hearkens back to the international influences on 
Empedocles? writings, a topic I explored in my discussion of Empedoclean effluence and 
147 
While Horace and Pliny ridicule Empedocles as an attention seeker obsessed with 
divinity and magic, in the Middle Ages, Dante regards Empedocles as a near materialist in the 
Divine Comedy, in an episode that has long been recognized as an influence on Milton?s Limbo 
of Vanity. Empedocles shows up in a cluster of Pre-Socratic philosophers whom Dante witnesses 
in the First Circle of Hell (Limbo):  
Democrito che ?l mondo a caso pone, 
D?ogen?s, Anassagora e Tale, 
Empedocl?s, Eraclito e Zenone. 
 
 [Democritus, who assigns the world to chance, 
Diogenes, Anaxagoras, and Thales, Empedocles, 
Heraclitus, and Zeno.]254 
The company Dante surrounds Empedocles with further demonstrates Empedocles? connection 
to ancient philosophers interested in understanding the world through the possibilities of material 
intermixture. As Pliny does in Natural History, Dante yokes Empedocles to the atomist 
Democritus, who submits ?the world to chance? (?l mondo a caso pone).255 At the same time, 
 
 
Egyptian mythology in Plutarch?s ?Of Isis and Osiris? in Chapter One. For an illuminating 
discussion of Pliny?s condemnation of magi, see Bernd-Christian Otto, ?Towards Historicizing 
?Magic? in Antiquity,? Numen 60, no. 2/3 (2013): esp. 327?8. 
 
254 Dante Alighieri, Inferno, trans. Robert M. Durling (New York: Oxford University Press, 
1996): 4.136?8. 
 
255 Dante?s charge about Democritus leaving the world to chance reflects a distortion of the 
philosopher?s teachings on fortune. As Lowell Edmunds explains, ?fortune, which Democritus so 
disparaged, had the last laugh on the laughing philosopher? when the fragmentation of his work 
obfuscated his emphasis on necessity. See Lowell Edmunds, ?Necessity, Chance, and Freedom 
in the Early Atomists,? Phoenix 26, no. 4 (Winter 1972): 342. In contrast to Dante, Cicero?s De 
148 
observe how Dante leaves the volcano out of this vignette, even though the fiery imagery 
associated with Empedocles? mythic leap might be a fitting addition to the literary tour of hell 
Dante envisions in the Inferno. In addition, consider the difference between Dante?s 
representation of Empedocles as a quasi-atomist and Horace?s lambasting of the philosopher?s 
divine coolness. It?s another moment in this study that highlights Empedocles? nuanced position 
at the intersection of materialism and idealism. Horace and Pliny invite readers to laugh along at 
Empedocles as an example of the d?monic poet gone mad, skewering the idealism inherent in 
Empedocles? desire to prove his immortality; in contrast, Dante implies a materialist outlook to 
Empedocles by way of association.   
 If Horace and Pliny emphasize Empedocles? idealist longings, and Dante his materialist 
leanings, the seventeenth-century Rapin does both at the same time when he reflects on 
Empedocles? connection to Lucretius. For instance, consider how Rapin describes Empedocles in 
his Reflexions, published four years after Milton?s death: 
Empedocle eut le genie profonde & ?lev?, Lucrece le compare aux plus grands hommes 
 de l?antiquit?: mais les fum?es de sa bile jointes ? une application trop forc?e, & ? une 
 ?tude trop opini?tre, & luy noircirent si fort l?imagination, & luy altererent tellement le 
 cerveau, qu?il devint furieux: & dans l?acc?s de sa fureur, il se jetta dans le Mont-
 
 
Fato (On Fate) makes the opposite association?viz., when the character Chrysippo groups 
Democritus and Empedocles under that category of philosopher ?who deemed that everything 
takes place by fate in the sense that this fate exercises the force of necessity?the opinion to 
which Democritus, Heraclitus, Empedocles and Aristotle adhered? (?qui censerent omni ita fato 
fieri ut id fatum vim necessitatis afferret, in qua sententia Democrtius, Heraclitus, Empedocles, 
Aristoteles fuit?). See Cicero, ?De Fato,? in Cicero: De Oratore, Book III: De Fato, Paradoxa 
Stoicorum, De Partitione Oratoria [Cicero IV], trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard 
University Press, 1942), XVII. 
149 
 Vesuve, dont les flammes le devorerent. Horace pretend qu?il chercha ? s?immortaliser 
 par une si belle hardiesse. 
   
[Empedocles had a lofty and high genius; Lucretius compares him to the greatest of the 
Ancients; but the vapours of Melancholy meeting with an overstrained Application, and a 
too headstrong study, so sullied his imagination and altered his brain, that he became 
mad; and in the fit of his rage threw himself into Mount Aetna, where he was devoured 
by flames. Horace pretends that he endeavoured to render himself immortal by such a 
fair piece of boldness.]256   
Rapin?s characterization immediately registers Empedocles? liminal ontological status, for it 
cites the Epicurean poet Lucretius? praise for Empedocles as evidence of his possessing ?a lofty 
and high genius? (le genie profonde & ?lev?)?a phrase that gestures toward Empedocles? 
reputation as a wise philosopher of encyclopedic learning and his poetic exploration of 
supernatural phenomena like the d?mon. It?s helpful here to recall that, while for today?s 
readers, ?genius? usually connotes ?an exceptionally intelligent or talented person,? this modern 
meaning is largely a product of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.257 It?s more likely that 
Rapin and his 1678 English translator mean ?genius? (le genie) in its primary sense, as ?a 
supernatural being,? or similarly, ?a quasi-mythological personification of something 
 
 
256 See Rapin, Reflexions, 81, and Reflexions upon ancient and modern philosophy, 80?1. Note 
that Rapin mistakes Mount Vesuvius for Mount Etna in the French text I quote above, an error 
that the English translator emends. It?s as if Rapin confused the myth of Empedocles? death in 
Etna with the story of Pliny?s death in Vesuvius. 
 
257 ?Genius, n.? in the OED, sense 8b. The earliest usage of this sense cited by the OED is in 
1711.  
 
150 
immaterial.?258 Thus, for Rapin to speak of Empedocles? ?genius? would conjure up images of 
attendant spirits, d?monic transmigration, and supernatural possibility for seventeenth-century 
readers, even as the moment centers this divine aura as an object of praise by one of the most 
famous materialists in history.259 Moreover, Rapin?s remark that Empedocles possessed a genius 
that was ?lofty and high? (profonde & ?lev?) winks at the philosopher?s climb up Etna, one that 
becomes more obvious at the end of the passage, when ?he was devoured by flames? (les flames 
le devorerent). However, the English translator?s ?lofty and high? doesn?t fully capture Rapin?s 
witty profonde & ?lev?, for while ?lofty and high? conveys Empedocles? longing for spiritual 
ascension and his scaling of Etna, profonde & ?lev? registers both the philosopher?s upward 
longing (?lev?) and the material consequences of it, his entombment deep (profonde) within 
Etna.260 
Ultimately, Rapin?s association of Empedocles with Lucretius may be something of a 
backhanded compliment, for he implicitly draws on Lucretius? reputation as a mad materialist 
driven to suicide, a fiction propounded by St. Jerome, as I discussed in Chapter One. Rapin, in 
 
 
258 ?Genius, n.? in the OED, senses I & 4 respectively. The French historical dictionary Tr?sor de 
la langue Fran?aise confirms that ?le genie? follows a similar etymological development as 
?genius? does in English, with a primary meaning of ?divinit?, ?tre surnaturel ou all?gorique? 
(sense I), and only later accruing the meaning ?aptitude, facult?? (sense II). See ?g?nie, subst. 
masc.,? in TLFi : Tr?sor de la langue Fran?aise informatis?, ATILF-CNRS & Universit? de 
Lorraine, http://www.atilf.fr/tlfi. 
 
259 Rapin?s sketch of Empedocles? ?genie? might also allude to Lucretius? and Empedocles? self-
fashioning as vatic poets with prophecies about matter?a point I referred to in Chapter One. 
And see Passannante, Catastrophizing (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2019), 203.  
 
260 I am gesturing toward the triple meanings of ?profound? (profonde) as describing ?non-
physical depth,?  ?physical depth,? and ?intellectual depth.? See ?profound, adj.? in the OED, 
senses A.I, II.3.a, and A.I.1.a, respectively. And see ?profonde, adj.? in the TLFI, senses A.1.d, 
B.1, and C.1, and ??lev?, senses 2.B and 2.C.  
151 
other words, creates a portrait of Empedocles as inspired to investigate matter to the point of 
insanity. The result is a sketch of Empedocles akin to a mad scientist?his brain is ?altered,? his 
imagination ?sullied? from ?too headstrong study.? In Rapin?s telling, Empedocles landed 
himself in the volcano from studious overexertion, not the claim that he was a god. This is a key 
difference that distinguishes Rapin?s description from Diogenes Laertius? account. Rapin 
imagines Etna devouring Empedocles to reflect on the risks of being consumed by the quest for 
knowledge, not divinity. This becomes clear at the end of the passage, when Rapin chides 
Horace for ?pretend[ing]? that Empedocles? suicide was motivated by ?immortal? longing, 
instead of excessive philosophizing, as Rapin sees it. Rejecting the accusations of Diogenes 
Laertius and Horace, Rapin wants to interpret Empedocles? purported suicide as the cause of bad 
philosophy rather than bad religion.  
In other words, Rapin only acknowledges Empedocles? divine reputation through the 
filter of Lucretius? praise, refusing to see the jump into the volcano as an act of inspired 
spirituality. When he notes that Lucretius holds Empedocles in high regard, Rapin is gesturing 
toward a moment about halfway through book one of De Rerum Natura, when Lucretius writes: 
carmina quin etiam divini pectoris eius 
vociferantur et exponunt praeclara reperta, 
ut vix humana videatur stirpe creatus. 
  
[Moreover, the poems of his [Empedocles?] divine mind 
utter a loud voice and declare illustrious discoveries, so that  
152 
he seems hardly to be born of mortal stock].261 
The passage reveals how Rapin is not exaggerating when he refers to Lucretius? divine regard for 
the Sicilian poet. Notice how Lucretius? divine representation of Empedocles is tied to his status 
as a poet?it?s ?the poems of his divine mind? that push him to the limits of mortality, 
emblematic of the d?monic poetic tradition of antiquity that Milton is known to have found 
inspirational in his youth. Beyond the playfulness of Lucretius? ?divine? portrait of Empedocles, 
the celebration of Empedocles? poetic imagination it accompanies is reflected throughout the rest 
of Lucretius? poem, which uses analogy to represent various aspects of its Epicurean atomism. 
Lucretius is thus acknowledging Empedocles? role in bringing literary analogy into the domain 
of natural philosophy. Analogy is everywhere in Empedocles, whether he?s likening seeds to 
eggs, elements to gods, eyeballs to lanterns, or the sea to the sweat of the earth, to name a few 
examples.262 And Empedocles? love for analogy surfaces not only as practice but also as theory, 
for he directly endorses it as a means to discuss natural philosophy in fragment DK9.263 It?s not 
difficult to see how the interplay of Empedoclean and Lucretian analogy inspires Milton in 
Paradise Lost, a poem that repeatedly turns to elemental imagery to articulate its materialism.264 
In the same part of De Rerum Natura that I?ve been considering, Lucretius refers to the 
violence of Etna, but not in reference to the well-worn myth about Empedocles jumping into the 
 
 
261 Lucretius, trans. Rouse, I.731?3.  
 
262 See, respectively, DK79, DK6, DK84, & DK55. 
 
263 I discuss this fragment (DK9) briefly in Chapters One & Two. The fragment was available to 
Milton through Holland?s translation of Plutarch?s Moralia, a text I discuss in detail in Chapter 
One.  
 
264 I discuss Milton?s use of Empedoclean imagery in Raphael?s explanation of materialism later 
in this chapter. 
153 
volcano. Instead, Lucretius takes Empedocles outside of Etna, using the gurgling might of the 
mountain?s eruptions as a metaphor for Empedocles? cultural reputation. Describing 
Empedocles? native home of Sicily, Lucretius writes: 
hic est vasta Charybdis et hic Aetnaea minantur 
murmura flammarum rursum se colligere iras, 
faucibus eruptos iterum vis ut vomat ignis 
ad caelumque ferat flammai fulgura rursum. 
quae cum magna modis multis miranda videtur 
gentibus humanis regio visendaque fertur, 
rebus opima bonis, multa munita virum vi, 
nil tamen hoc habuisse viro praeclarius in se 
nec sanctum magis et mirum carumque videtur. 
 
[Here is wasteful Charybdis, and 
here Etna?s rumblings threaten that the angry flames are gathering 
again, that once more its violence may belch fires bursting forth 
from its throat, and once more shoot to the sky the lightnings of its 
flame: which mighty region, while it seems wonderful in many ways 
to the nations of mankind and is famed as a place to see, fat with 
good things, fortified with mighty store of men, yet it seems to have  
contained in it nothing more illustrious than this man, nor more 
154 
sacred and wonderful and dear.]265 
Divorced from its broader context in De Rerum Natura, Lucretius? tribute to Empedocles reads 
like an ancient travel brochure for Sicily, highlighting the renown of the ?famed? island, ?fat 
with good things? and a ?mighty store of men.? Sicily may have the dramatic, personified 
pyrotechnics of towering Etna, whose ?throat? bursts with star bound fire?but Empedocles was 
the island?s main attraction, ?nothing more illustrious? than him.266 Notice how, even as 
Lucretius takes Empedocles outside of the volcano, he virtually sanctifies him, acknowledging 
the poet?s esteemed status by deeming him superlatively ?sacred and wonderful and dear.? In so 
doing, Lucretius both pays homage to Empedocles? physical model of the universe and alludes to 
the philosopher?s own suggestion of a divine self-image, his self-professed reputation as an 
immortal god (???? ????????). In part, Lucretius? commendation is a way to acknowledge 
Empedocles? influence on his own materialism; despite key differences on topics such as the 
void, which Lucretius goes on to explain, Lucretius? monist vision of atomic mixture draws 
partly on Empedocles? conception of effluence, a proto-atomic idea that posits tiny, similar 
particles streaming off all things, regardless of their differing elemental compositions.267  
 
 
265 Lucretius, trans. Rouse, I.722?30. 
 
266 In part, Lucretius? reference to Empedocles? ?illustrious[ness]? nods to a moment in Laertius? 
Lives, when Empedocles is described as a splashy dresser who ?don[s] a purple robe and over it a 
golden girdle?and again slippers of bronze and Delphic laurel-wreath. He had thick hair, and a 
train of boy attendants.? Even here, we see Empedocles taking on a godly aura, attended by 
Cupid-like figures in the tradition of Venus?a perhaps unsurprising way for Laertius to depict a 
philosopher who devoted such poetic and philosophic weight to the power of Love (???????). 
See Diogenes Laertius, Lives, trans. Hicks, 8.2.73. 
 
267 Of course, Lucretius? main inspiration is the writing of Epicurus. But, as I have been 
demonstrating throughout this dissertation, Empedoclean effluence serves as something of a 
bridge to atomic thinking for many early moderns, including Milton. On effluence, see 
Empedocles, DK89. On Lucretius? use of effluence, see Garani, esp. 18?19 &114?15.  I discuss 
155 
Beyond Lucretius? use of Empedoclean analogy and the idea of effluence, his praise of 
the Sicilian philosopher in De Rerum Natura establishes a divergent biographical tradition from 
the one initiated by Diogenes Laertius and echoed by Horace and other ancient writers.268 He 
rescues Empedocles from the volcano, turning the tables on the moral logic embedded in the 
standard account. Whereas Laertius and Horace use Etna?s material greatness as a foil for the 
flimsy claims of Empedocles? divine status, Lucretius regards even magnificent Etna as beneath 
the ?sacred? heights of the illustrious Sicilian poet. The volcano devours Empedocles? divine 
credibility in the hands of Laertius and Horace; but for Lucretius, the volcano helps support, 
rather than deny, the existence of Empedocles? ?divine mind,? if only figuratively speaking, and 
with a bit of irony thrown into the mix.269      
In the seventeenth century, the German Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher similarly works 
to dismantle the legacy of Empedocles as a fool. In Mundus Subterraneus (1665), first printed in 
a partial English translation in 1669, Kircher refashions Empedocles? volcanic death as a 
martyrdom for natural explorers. Kircher??a polymath who invented a type of calculating 
machine, explained a form of symbolic logic, constructed an early camera obscura and 
calculated the speed of a swallow?s flight??was himself drawn to Etna?s flames, travelling to 
the famous mountain in the 1630s, directly witnessing the volcano erupt whilst conducting 
 
 
effluence at length in Chapters One and Two, and in the next section of the present chapter. For 
Lucretius? ?refutation? of Empedocles, see De Rerum Natura, I.734?829. 
 
268 I discussed Lucian?s representation of a post-mortem Empedocles in Icaromenippus, and 
Jonson?s engagement with it, in Chapter One.  
 
269 Lucretius, trans. Rouse, I.731 
156 
research he would later publish in Mundus.270 Notice how Kircher attempts to restore some 
dignity to the legacy of Empedocles: 
And here [at Mount Etna] some report, or rather fable, that Empedocles affecting Divine 
Honour, departing from his company secretly by night, leapt in at the mouth of this 
Mountain, that he might be reputed an Immortal God; as Horrace witnesses?But wiser 
men more rightly relate him, to have perished only; as a curious and ventrous Observator; 
going about to search out this Fiery Lake, and thereby to have fallen into some pit, or 
ditch, and consumed in the Burning.271 
Kircher revises the account of Empedocles? demise, accepting that the philosopher died in Etna, 
but rejecting the assertion that he did so to prove his divinity. Kircher?s intervention occasions 
readers to think of Empedocles? death like Pliny the Elder?s: as an unfortunate consequence of 
fieldwork, as a marker of commitment to study of the natural world. He wants to give 
Empedocles the benefit of the doubt as a fellow natural explorer, converting a tale of self-
important suicide into a mark of scientific dedication. Intriguingly, the cited passage appears to 
be added by Kircher?s English translator, as I cannot locate the Latin equivalent of this passage 
 
 
270 Gillian Furlong, Treasures from UCL (UCL Press, 2015), 119. On Kircher?s witnessing of the 
eruptions of Etna and Vesuvius in the 1630s, see Paula Findlen, ?Introduction,? in Athanasius 
Kircher: The Last Man Who Knew Everything, ed. Paula Findlen (New York: Routledge, 2004), 
esp. 20?1.  
 
271 See Kircher, The vulcano's, or, Burning and fire-vomiting mountains, famous in the world, 
with their remarkables collected for the most part out of Kircher's Subterraneous world, and 
exposed to more general view in English : upon the relation of the late wonderful and prodigious 
eruptions of ?tna, thereby to occasion greater admirations of the wonders of nature (and of the 
God of nature) in the mighty element of fire (London, 1669), 40.  
 
157 
in Kircher?s original.272 Therefore, while staying very much within the spirit of Kircher?s work,  
the English translator augments the description of Etna and Empedocles found in the original 
Latin, suggesting that the topic of Etna was of particular interest for the translator and his 
prospective readers in seventeenth-century England.   
 The English translation of Mundus elaborates on its claim that Empedocles was merely 
an observer of Etna by proposing that, based on Kircher?s account of the violence at the 
mountain?s summit, Empedocles would never have been able to jump inside the volcano to begin 
with. The translator writes that  
the story of Empedocles the Sicilian Philosopher?s throwing himself down head-long 
[into Etna]?is by some call?d into question. For it is impossible to be approach?d, by 
reason of the violent Wind, the suffocating Smoak, and the consuming Fervour (yet he 
might approach too near, and perish).273 
The passage applies rational scrutiny to the story of Empedocles? volcanic suicide, using natural 
observations about Etna to debunk the fantasy that the Sicilian philosopher dove into it. It?s more 
likely, this moment suggests, that Empedocles died of smoke inhalation after approaching ?too 
near? as an observer. In other words, Kircher?s translator uses the material details of Etna?s fiery 
peak to erase the immaterial longing embedded in the story of Empedocles? suicide, locating it 
 
 
272 The only commentary on Empedocles? death I can find in Kircher?s Latin version occurs in a 
passing remark, when Kircher notes, ?tum tempore Heronis, quo & Empedoclem montis 
observatorem periisse historri? tradunt? (?also in the time of Hero, when Histories deliver, that 
even Empedocles, an observer of the Mountain, then perished?). This still revises the myth, 
calling Empedocles an ?observer? of the mountain, but is far less extensive than the version in 
the English translation. See Kircher, Mundus Subterraneus (Amsterdam, 1665), 4.188. 
 
273 See Kircher, The Vulcano's, 41?2. On the reception of Mundus Subterraneous by 
seventeenth-century natural philosophers, see Passannante, Catastrophizing, 149?54. 
158 
more firmly within the language of natural philosophy and making the whole affair just a bit less 
incendiary.  
 As I?ve shown, the transformations of Empedocles? volcanic legacy reflect his unstable 
ontology, his ?double tale? that fuses together materialist and idealist contemplation.274 Since his 
poetry slides freely between visions of ontological materialism and dualism, the way writers treat 
his death speaks to their own philosophic and religious ideologies, with some blaming his death 
on immortal longing, others describing it as a symptom of natural philosophy and too much 
materialist education. For this reason, Milton?s treatment of Empedocles in Paradise Lost can 
contribute significantly to the centuries-long debates about the poem?s high tolerance for 
ontological ambiguity, and its passionate but complicated articulation of vitalist materialism. 
Having described the backdrop of Empedocles? biographical tradition within Milton?s literary 
universe, I turn now to Milton?s intervention in this tradition in Paradise Lost, and the way its 
ontological poetics speaks to recent debates about the poem?s materialism.  
 
 
 
Empedocles in Limbo 
Milton?s depiction of Empedocles in Limbo emblematizes the interplay of dualistic and 
monistic ideation of Paradise Lost. On the one hand, the allusion implies a critique of dualism as 
it mocks Empedocles for believing he had transcended mortality, and it subtly submits his ghost 
to the quasi-materialistic terms of his own philosophy, specifically the principle of like-to-like. 
 
 
274 Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK17.1?2. Simplicius? commentary on Aristotle?s Physics cites 
these lines, at 1257.25?161.20. It?s unclear if Milton read this work, though Simplicius is 
mentioned in other works Milton read. See Boswell, entry 1311. 
159 
On the other hand, the critique is communicated by depicting Empedocles as a ghost in Limbo, 
which relies on a dualistic frame, as it imagines Empedocles outside of history, time, and matter; 
after all, Satan encounters Empedocles before the Fall, when Adam and Eve are the only humans 
on earth. Consider how strange the scenario is: Satan, on his way to ensnare the first human 
beings?who are not yet parents?encounters the ghost of their offspring (Empedocles), 
confined to Limbo for an act supposedly committed in the fifth century BCE, long after the days 
of the Old Testament. This represents Milton?s conviction that God is immortal and atemporal, 
meaning that he has already understood and intervened in all of human history. At the same time, 
it playfully gestures to Empedocles? interest in immortality, portraying him as autonomous in 
relation to time and matter, even retrospectively it would seem. Thus, I will show, even as 
Milton?s allusion castigates Empedocles for the idiocy of his fabled jump into the volcano, it 
renders him a kind of poetic justice by way of a clever philosophical joke. 
The myth of a suicidal Empedocles is a convenient trope for underscoring the rebellion of 
Satan and the rebel angels, for these characters suffer from delusions of divine grandeur and are 
portrayed as casting themselves into hellfire to prove it. In fact, Milton implies in Paradise Lost 
that the rebel angels live inside a volcano after their descent from heaven, one of many occasions 
when he uses analogy to temporarily reframe mythological settings in earthly terms. The 
volcanic dwelling of Satan and his followers comes into focus in book one, when Milton?s epic 
voice describes Satan as enormous,  
in bulk as huge 
As whom the Fables name of monstrous size, 
Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr?d on Jove, 
Briareos or Typhon, who the Den  
160 
By ancient Tarsus held? (1.196?200) 
Milton compares Satan?s body to ?Briareos or Typhon,? both Titans who were rumored to be 
buried under Mount Etna after threatening a divine hierarchy. As Roy Flannagan glosses these 
lines, ?the implication is that the rebel angels are monstrous and distorted beings and that they 
live in a fiery, chaotic, disruptive place like a volcano.?275 Moreover, the passage?s nod to 
?Typhon? and ?Titanian? evokes a fragment in which Empedocles analogizes a special kind of 
air to ?Titan? (?????), in a further example of Empedocles? comparison of elemental substances 
to immortal gods.276 Milton?s emphasis on Satan?s volcanic abode thus invites readers to ponder 
Empedocles? legacy in the background, considering that Milton?s allusive choices here point 
directly to Etna, that mythic tomb of Satan, Titans, and Empedocles. The image conveys a 
flaming subterranean image of hell, and the volcano?s sporadic, devastating, and unpredictable 
destructive power metaphorizes evil itself, bringing mythology and theology down to earth.  
Satan deepens the impression of hell?s volcanic setting when he declares that his journey 
to the Garden will mark the fallen angels? ?first eruption? from hell (1.655?6).277 Like the 
dormant volcano, its lava simmering deep within the earth, Satan broods below until he achieves 
a violent eruption. The image is particularly effective within the context of seventeenth-century 
 
 
275 Roy Flannagan, ed., The Riverside Milton (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998): 360fn74. 
Literary representations of Briareos and Typhon, as Flannagan points out, reach back to Hesiod.  
 
276 See fragment DK38 in Laks and Most, V.475, and Empedocles, trans. Inwood. It?s likely 
Milton encountered this fragment in his reading of Clement?s Stromateis, which cites it at 
5.48.2?3. See Boswell #414. The resonance between the lines from book one of Paradise Lost 
quoted above and fragment DK38 are further heightened by the fact that some scholars have read 
Empedocles ?Titan? (?????) as referring specifically to ?Typhon? (?????). See W. Drummond, 
?On the Science of the Egyptians and Chaldeans,? in The Classical Journal for March and June, 
1820: Volume XXI, 35?56 (London: A. J. Valpy, 1820), 44.  
 
277 ?Thither, if but to pry, shall be perhaps / Our first eruption, thither or elsewhere? (1.655?6). 
161 
Europe, an age interested in the destructive power of volcanoes, not least because of Mount 
Etna?s eruptive activity in the 1630s and the many violent eruptions of Mount Vesuvius 
throughout the century.278 Milton lends all the destructive force of the volcano to Satan as he 
launches himself out of hell and into Limbo on his journey to earth, equipping him with volcanic 
power in a scenario that leads to his rendezvous with Empedocles.  
  Before he reaches earth, Satan traverses ?the bare Convex of this Worlds outermost 
Orb,? and he witnesses Empedocles amidst an array of ill-fated characters from the history of 
philosophy and the Bible.279 Milton?s Limbo?a ?sterile void of false theology and philosophy,? 
as Catherine Gimelli Martin writes?contains people judged by God as unworthy of heaven, but 
also as too foolish or naive in their wrongdoing to be consigned to the racks and wheels of hell?s 
eternal torments.280 In other words, the Limbo of Vanity is a space of moral liminality, a quality 
reinforced by its placement within the structure of Milton?s poem. Satan traverses Limbo in 
between the two major falls central to the plot of Paradise Lost, the fall of the rebel angels and 
the Fall of humankind. In other words, Empedocles sits at a crossroads of moral and ontological 
experience within the poem. 
As Satan propels himself out of the volcano, Milton remembers Empedocles? fall into the 
volcano. The fallen angel, erupting (as it were) into Limbo, encounters the ghost of Empedocles 
 
 
278 For a discussion of seventeenth-century academic interest in Etna and Vesuvius, see Jane E. 
Everson, ?The Melting Pot of Science and Belief: Studying Vesuvius in Seventeenth-Century 
Naples,? in Renaissance Studies 26.5 (Nov. 2010), esp. 691-8.  
 
279 The quoted phrase is from the opening prose argument to book three. See Milton, ?Paradise 
Lost,? pp. 415. 
 
280 See Martin, The Ruins of Allegory: Paradise Lost and the Metamorphosis of Epic Convention 
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998), 23. 
162 
drifting across a ?windie Sea of Land,? a phrase whose pithy elemental mixture already begins to 
hint at the Empedoclean composition of the region (3.440). He sits among a paradise of 
blunderers:  
Others came single; he who to be deemd 
A God, leap?d fondly into ?tna flames, 
Empedocles, and hee who to enjoy Plato?s Elysium, leap?d into the Sea, 
Cleombrotus, and many more too long,  
Embryo?s and Idiots, Eremits and Friers 
White, Black and Grey, with all thir trumperie. (3.469?75)  
Notice how Milton points to Empedocles? divine posturing as the specific violation that 
determined his conscription to this Limbo?he fell into Etna ?to be deemd / A God.? This 
emphasis on Empedocles? ambition to godhead and its attendant plunge is a pithy allusion within 
the thematic universe of Paradise Lost, as it broadly encapsulates Satan?s aspiration to supersede 
God, and the rebel angels? subsequent fall from heaven; and it foreshadows the Fall of Adam and 
Eve, whose longing for divine knowledge entices them to ingest the forbidden fruit. Unlike 
Rapin, who attributes Empedocles? purported madness to an overcommitment to study of the 
natural world, Milton hews closer to Laertius? original charge that Empedocles? desire to prove 
his divinity inspired his jump. Yet the fact that Milton moves Empedocles out of hell (? la Dante) 
and into Limbo might betray his knowledge that the suicidal Empedocles was fiction. In other 
words, Milton relocates Empedocles out of hell, and in so doing impels the reader to ask if he 
was so guilty of divine self-regard as others had made him out to be.   
Milton?s winking adverbial qualifier suggesting that Empedocles jumped ?fondly? into 
the volcano portrays the philosopher as foolishly infatuated, pulled toward Etna?s boiling depths 
163 
at the level of appetitive attraction. ?Fond??which can mean desirous, foolish, or mad?
etymologically embodies the elision of infatuation and foolishness central to the myth of 
Empedocles? suicide.281 From this angle, the old philosopher is drawn by cosmic Love to fire, as 
if the fever of his divine enthusiasm drives him to the calefaction of Etna?s flames. This detail 
hints at how, rather than simplistically condemning Empedocles, Milton?s allusion processes the 
myth by gesturing toward material conditions that underlie it, and ones that operate by principles 
Empedocles himself articulated. As Milton does this, he moves between dualistic and monistic 
frames, presenting Empedocles as an unextended ghost, punished for fetishizing material 
transcendence, only to soften Empedocles? crime by describing it as an effect of material 
circumstances. Therefore, one can see how even as Milton critiques the foolishness implicit in 
Empedocles? legendary death, he also subjects Empedocles to the conditions of the philosophical 
system he created, suggesting a redemptive attitude toward the philosophy. 
In a similar vein, a religious tract by Thomas Pierce published a decade before Paradise 
Lost imagines a suicidal Empedocles filled with lusty fire:   
But do ye not seriously think your Friend Empedocles was a fool, for having thrown 
 himself headlong into burning Aetna? should not the terrible report of that scorching 
 mountain have cool?d his lust of ambition, and have flatted his appetite to the imaginary 
 fame of an Apotheosis?282  
Empedocles is charged with a hot ?lust of ambition? and an ?appetite? for public recognition. 
While these terms may call to mind the appetitive physics of Empedocles? system, they are much 
 
 
281 See ?fond, noun,? in the OED, senses A.1.a, 2, and 4. 
 
282 See Thomas Pierce, The Sinner Impleaded in his Own Court (London, 1656), 324?5.  
164 
less forgiving of the philosopher than Milton. Whereas Milton portrays Empedocles as madly 
and appetitively drawn into Etna, Pierce makes Empedocles more individually responsible for 
his actions, asserting that he should have ?cool?d his lust? to overcome any pull he felt toward 
that ?scorching mountain.? In other words, Pierce thinks Empedocles should have put mind over 
matter, whereas Milton?s ?fondly? leaping Empedocles somewhat relinquishes the philosopher 
from personal condemnation by casting his jump, at least partially, as an outcome of a material 
process. 
In his depiction of a floating, ethereal Empedocles suspended in Limbo, Milton tells a 
double tale, skewering the philosopher for his supposed plunge into Etna?inspired by immortal 
aspiration, self-infatuated, and foolish?and at the same time drawing on Empedocles? natural 
philosophy for poetic inspiration as he gives voice to the critique. This cameo of Empedocles in 
book three of Paradise Lost embodies in miniature the poem?s elaborate ontological vision, a 
moment that captures the text?s alternating representation of a monist and dualist universe. 
Empedocles floats into the poem, a disembodied entity whose appearance in the ?ther of Limbo 
impels readers to imagine incorporeal substance, even while that belief is highlighted, in the 
same moment, as foolish. True, it is not Empedocles? belief in the soul that Milton?s epic voice 
specifically castigates, but rather his Satanic declaration of divinity: ?he who to be deemd / A 
God, leap?d fondly into ?tna flames?? (3.470, emphasis mine). Nonetheless, the moment 
carries an implicit critique of the mythic Empedocles? belief in incorporeal substance, since that 
belief is a central aspect of the legendary suicide: the tale of his fiery death parodies the idea that 
Empedocles thought he could transcend the limits of matter, a notion inscribed in his otherwise 
165 
materially inclined philosophy through references to d?mons in exile from the elements and 
expressions of Pythagorean metempsychosis.283   
In the passage from the Limbo of Vanity I cited above, note how Milton pairs the 
reference to Empedocles? fiery descent with an allusion to Cleombrotus, another figure from 
classical antiquity believed to have taken a fall in pursuit of incorporeal bliss. Milton?s charge 
that Cleombrotus, ?to enjoy Plato?s Elysium, leap?d into the Sea? takes inspiration from the 
Greek scholar-poet Callimachus, who claims that Cleombrotus threw himself into the ocean after 
reading Plato (3.472). In his Epigrams, Callimachus writes, 
????? ????? ?????? ??????????? ??????????? 
????? ??? ?????? ??????? ??? ?????, 
????? ????? ???? ??????? ?????, ???? ???????? 
?? ?? ???? ????? ?????? ????????????. 
 
 [Farewell, O Sun, said Cleombrotus of Ambracia and leapt from 
 a lofty wall into Hades. No evil 
 
 
283 For Empedocles on the transmigration of souls, see fragments DK112, DK117, and DK146, 
all fragments to which Milton had at least some access, through Diogenes Laertius? Lives of the 
Eminent Philosophers, Vol. 2 (at 8.54, 8.61?2, 8.66, and 8.77, for example). For Empedocles on 
d?mons, see DK115. This fragment was likely available to Milton because of its relatively 
widespread doxographic footprint. Plutarch, for instance, refers to DK115 in three separate 
essays within the Moralia, a text Milton refers to in his own work (see Boswell #1153). Plotinus 
also refers to this fragment in his Enneads as confirming Empedocles? belief in a ?law for souls.? 
See Plotinus, Enneads 4.8.1, 17?22, qtd. in Inwood, The Poem of Empedocles, CTXT-10 (d). 
While for the Cambridge Platonists Plotinus was as much a founding figure as Plato, there is no 
direct evidence Milton read the founder of Neoplatonism. Nevertheless, Kurt Spellmeyer argues 
that Milton?s writing shows elements that ?arise from a demonstrably Plotinian tradition.? See 
Spellmeyer, ?Plotinus and Seventeenth-Century Literature: A Prolegomenon to Further Study,? 
in Pacific Coast Philology 17, No. 1?2 (Nov. 1982), 50?8. On the Cambridge Platonists and 
Plotinus, see Patrides, ? ?The High and Aiery Hills,? ? esp. 2?4. 
166 
 had he seen worthy of death, but he had read one writing of Plato?s, 
 On the Soul].284  
Callimachus renders Plato a bad influence whose writings led Cleombrotus to his own kind of 
Empedoclean madness. As for Plato himself, he mentions Cleombrotus only briefly, in the 
Phaedo, to note his absence at the death of Socrates.285 Both Cleombrotus and Empedocles serve 
as ancient fools seduced to death by the idea of incorporeal substance and its promises, and in 
this way, Milton?s pairing of the two figures creates a further embodiment of the Empedoclean 
principle of like-to-like. The passage offers Cleombrotus and Empedocles in proximity, two 
entities coupled by the posthumous tales of their philosophically motivated suicides leaping into 
elements.286  
When one takes into account the philosophical subtleties of Milton?s allusion to 
Empedocles?the way it suggests two views of reality, one in which Empedocles appears as a 
 
 
284 Callimachus, ?Epigrams,? in Callimachus: Hymns and Epigrams, Lycophron, Aratus, trans. 
A. W. Mair (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955), XXV. Pseudo-Lucian, too, 
draws on the suicide of Cleombrotus as an example of the dangers of superstition, in his dialogue 
Philopatris (ca. 360 BCE). The character Critias admits to Triepho: ???? [???] ???? ??????? 
??????? ?? ??? ??????? ????????????, ?? ?? ????????? ???, ? ???, ??? ?? ??? ??????????? 
?????? ??? ??????????? ???????? ??? ???? [?But I would have cast myself headlong over a 
precipice in my dizziness, if you hadn?t called out to me, my good fellow, and stories would have 
credited me with the leap of Cleombrotus?].  See Lucian, ?The Patriot,? in Lucian VIII, M.D. 
MacLeod, ed. Jeffrey Henderson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), 1. 
 
285 See Plato, ?Phaedo,? in Plato I: Euthyphro. Apology. Crito. Phaedo. Phaedrus, trans. Harold 
North Fowler (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 59C.  
 
286 On Milton?s pairing of Cleombrotus and Empedocles, see Joseph Horrell, ?Milton, Limbo, 
and Suicide,? The Review of English Studies 18, no. 72 (Oct. 1942): esp. 418?24. Horrell notices 
how the pair of figures ?took the ultimate leap, one into one element, one into another, [and] are 
the only persons to appear by name in Milton?s Limbo.? Horrell briefly refers to Empedocles? 
philosophy, but in a general way, and does not comment on the passage?s literary enactment of 
the principle of like-to-like. 
167 
foolish, chided ghost, the other in which materially oriented aspects of his philosophy underwrite 
the critique, winking at Milton?s greater awareness of Empedocles? philosophical 
contributions?it becomes possible to read his apparent dismissal of Empedocles as a quite 
different move, as participating in the long project, begun by Lucretius, of emending the Sicilian 
philosopher?s volcanic legacy.  
This emendation becomes even clearer in view of the considerable intertextuality the 
Limbo of Vanity shares with other works, which reveals the uniqueness of Milton?s treatment of 
Empedocles. The episode is suspended in a rich web of textual interplay, as Quint points out, 
noting that Milton?s version parodies a similar scene in Ludovico Ariosto?s Orlando Furioso 
(1516), which itself parodies the section of Dante?s Inferno I discussed above.287 Martin notes 
Milton?s ?inversion of Dante?s epic schema? through his placement of Limbo outside rather than 
inside hell.288 This inversion is particularly significant with respect to Empedocles, because he is 
the only one of the Pre-Socratic figures that Milton retains from Dante?s poem: we don?t find 
Democritus and Zeno, Heraclitus or Thales hanging out in Milton?s Limbo. In fact, Empedocles 
 
 
287 See Quint, 112. Kendrick sees Milton?s Limbo of Vanity as ?Ariostan parody redone in a 
more popular carnivalesque vein than was typical of Orlando Furioso.? See Kendrick, 234. 
Ariosto?s version does not include Empedocles. See Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso: A New 
Verse Translation, trans. David R. Slavitt (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 
XXXIV.70?91. On Milton?s limbo in comparison with Dante and Ariosto?s limbo, see Catherine 
Gimelli Martin, Ruins of Allegory (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998), esp. 23 and 359?
60fn25. Eighteenth-century writers like Alexander Pope, who creates his own mock version of 
Milton?s Limbo of Vanity in ?The Rape of the Lock,? further expand the episode?s intertextual 
web. See Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock. An heroi-comical poem. In five canto's 
(London, 1714): V, and Flannagan, ed., The Riverside Milton, 429fn123. In addition, Dryden 
alludes to the Limbo of Vanity in Mac Flecknoe (1682). On this point, see King, esp. 208. Note 
that Empedocles does not appear in Dryden?s or Pope?s treatment of the Limbo of Vanity. 
 
288 Martin, Ruins, 23. Dante places limbo in the first circle of hell. Milton places Limbo between 
hell and earth, somewhere in celestial space. 
168 
is the only Pre-Socratic philosopher mentioned by name anywhere in all of Paradise Lost.289 
Milton leaves these other figures to drift in Dante?s hellish Limbo, but goes out of his way to 
relocate Empedocles into a higher cosmic habitat, even if it is populated by so-called ?Idiots? 
(3.474).    
Another reason Milton may decide to preserve Empedocles out of all Dante?s chided Pre-
Socratics for his version of Limbo is that one Renaissance interpretation of Empedocles? 
philosophy assigned saw it being assimilated to the Christian idea of purgatory, as I showed in 
Chapter One. Recall the passage from Holland?s translation of Plutarch?s Moralia that claims 
Empedocles? d?monic transmigration was a process of moral restoration, an exile imposed  
?untill such time as being thus in this purgatory chastised and clensed, they recover againe that 
place estate and degree which is meet for them and according to their nature.290 Thus, 
Empedocles? own poetry lends itself to ideas of purgatorial improvement that make him a fitting 
occupant of Limbo.  
 I am not the first reader to suggest that Milton?s Limbo of fools is as much about 
forgiving or restoring its ill-fated occupants as it is about condemning them. The cantankerous 
eighteenth-century editor Richard Bentley, for instance, complains about Milton?s suggestion 
that the Limbo of Vanity is currently empty, ?now unpeopl?d, and untrod? (3.467). Bentley finds 
this ridiculous. He annotates the line: ?Now unpeopled?,? comfortable news indeed. He has made 
 
 
289 But don?t take this to mean that Milton had no awareness of non-Empedoclean Pre-Socratic 
materialisms: despite this erasure of Democritus, Heraclitus, and other materialists from Limbo, 
Milton seems to translate Lucretius in places, for example at 2.910?11, as Flannagan and Quint 
observe. See Flannagan, 407fn231, and Quint, esp. 125?6. See also Philip Hardie, ?The Presence 
of Lucretius in ?Paradise Lost,? in Milton Quarterly 29, no. 1 (Mar. 1995): esp. 13?17. 
 
290 Holland, ?Of Isis and Osiris,? in Morals, 1297. The passage cites Empedocles, DK115.9?12. 
In the prior section, I explored how Plutarch cites this same fragment in ?Of Exile.? 
169 
full Amends for all the Stuff foregoing. No Fools in this Age: even the present Eremites and 
Friars have better Quarters than their Predecessors.?291 Bentley pushes against what he sees as 
the progress narrative of Milton?s representation of Limbo, its apparent success, and thus 
dissolution, as a purgatorial operation. To be fair to Bentley, Milton?s assertion that Limbo is 
currently uninhabited is a puzzling detail, for it seems to contradict the otherwise atemporal, 
immortalized quality he gives to the region? a quality I?ve already discussed when noting how 
Satan meets distant descendants of Adam and Eve, like Empedocles, Cleombrotus, and all the 
other occupants of Limbo for that matter, during a journey that occurs before the two original 
lovers have children. In other words, Milton?s assertion that Limbo is now ?unpeopl?d? seems to 
contradict the temporal logic he otherwise constructs around the region, exemplifying one of the 
poem?s most compelling and challenging traits, its movement between perspectives that appear 
contradictory?its insistence that the reader hold together viewpoints that seem opposed. For 
instance, by suggesting that these figures once occupied a now vacant Limbo, Milton shows us 
two contrasting ethical judgments. Bentley?s bristling at Milton?s leniency registers his distaste 
at the poem?s persistent perspectival turbulence. Bentley simply won?t tolerate Milton?s 
Empedoclean double tale, and describes his editorial burden in another footnote to the same 
section as the need to ?tack together the broken Passage,? referring to a line he adds in an 
attempt to manipulate the temporality of Satan?s journey into a more orderly and sequential 
presentation.292 
 
 
291 Richard Bentley, ed., Milton?s ?Paradise Lost?: A New Edition (London, 1732), 97fn496. 
 
292 Ibid., 97fn498. 
170 
Similarly to Bentley, Samuel Johnson and Joseph Addison both decry Milton?s 
ontological audacity in the Limbo of Vanity. Johnson remarks that Milton?s ?desire for imitating 
Ariosto?s levity has disgraced his work with the Paradise of Fools, a fiction not in itself ill-
imagined, but too ludicrous for its place.?293 Where Johnson finds the episode ?ludicrous,? 
Addison deems it ?astonishing but not credible,? a ?Description of Dreams and Shadows, not of 
Things or Persons.? 294 For these eighteenth-century critics, the Limbo of Vanity emblematizes 
the frustrating ontology of Paradise Lost.  
The experience might aggravate some readers, but I think this defamiliarization of reality 
is precisely the point?to jostle the reader between dualist and monist viewpoints until the 
boundary line separating noetic and bodily experience fades entirely, flesh and soul brought into 
such flux that it becomes difficult to tell one apart from the other. This has two advantages for 
Milton. First, it allows him to portray the body as inherently spiritual, far different from the 
orthodox Augustinian view, which makes matter moribund. At the same time, this movement 
between perspectives helps express the vitalist aspect of Milton?s materialism. Putting it 
differently, the poem?s oscillation between dualist and monist visions of reality is a way for 
Milton to preserve the experience of thought as autonomous and unbounded within a materialist 
universe. The shuttling between perspectives that drives the poem allows Milton to sustain the 
feeling of unpredictable, protean liquidity that accompanies thought?s unrestrained movement. 
Paradise Lost, that is, develops an Empedoclean double tale, deploying visions of materialist and 
 
 
293 Samuel Johnson, ?Milton,? in The Lives of the Poets: A Selection (New York: Oxford 
University Press, 2009), 111. 
 
294 Joseph Addison, The Spectator, Volume IV (London, 1712), #315. 
171 
dualist possibility whose interpenetrating flux allows him to imagine materialism without 
determinism.295 
The appearance of Empedocles in Limbo surfaces a classic tension in Paradise Lost, one 
that lies between the poem?s occasional nods to a dualist ontology and its predominantly monist 
outlook. Milton?s movement between dualist and monist vantages embodies his challenge to ?the 
divide between matter and spirit [or soul],? which Fallon points out was ?a tenet of orthodoxy? 
in early modern culture.296 As Fallon argues, Milton makes Satan into a parody of Cartesian 
philosophy and its belief in a separated, nonextended plane of cognition (res cogitans) alongside 
the material world (res extensa).297 Satan?s exposure to Empedocles in Limbo broadly accords 
with Fallon?s interpretation of Satan as a parody of Descartes, as the passage critiques 
Empedocles? desire to transcend the physical, and Satan experiences Empedocles as a dualistic 
entity, even while Milton?s literary experimentation undermines belief in incorporeal substance 
by ornamenting the passage with subtle references to Empedocles? own philosophy. The scene 
offers a window into Satan?s dualistic perspective, which sees Empedocles as an immaterial 
ghost, and then begins to shatter that window using the principle of like-to-like, one of the most 
monistic aspects of Empedocles? thought. In so doing, the encounter with Empedocles in 
 
 
295 On Milton?s use of vitalism to preserve free will within a materialist framework, see Fallon, 
Milton Among the Philosophers, esp. 81, a passage I take up directly later in this chapter. 
 
296 John Rumrich and Stephen M. Fallon, ?Introduction? in Immortality and the Body in the Age 
of Milton, ed. John Rumrich and Stephen M. Fallon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 
2018), 2. 
 
297 Fallon writes that ?Satan?s first impulse is to deny the connection of inner and outer, the 
connection affirmed by Neoplatonist poets such as Spenser and dismantled by Descartes...In 
Cartesian terms, Satan admits alteration in his res extensa, but denies it in his res cogitans.? See 
Fallon, Milton Among the Philosophers, 203?5. 
172 
Paradise Lost reflects the traffic between dualist and monist visions in the broader poem, its 
?oscillation? or ?flicking on and off of hallucinatory moments in rapid succession, driven by 
some underlying contradiction,? as Gordon Teskey writes.298 The Empedoclean reading of 
Paradise Lost I have been developing helps illuminate the formal structure Teskey observes as a 
central feature of the poem.  
When one considers the dualistic digressions of Empedocles? poetry, it?s not hard to see 
why he is an attractive figure for Milton to position within a part of Paradise Lost that Fallon 
argues is a parody of Cartesian philosophy. Empedocles, with his self-identification as a d?mon, 
shares with Descartes the use of d?monic imagery when making philosophical inquiries about 
the relationship between matter and mind. Readers will recall from Chapter One my discussion 
of fragment DK115 (and Plutarch/Holland?s quotation of it) in which Empedocles claims to be a 
d?monic exile, banished from matter as punishment for some transgression committed in a past 
life.299 As I suggested, in Empedocles? poetry, a d?monic departure from elemental substance is 
represented as a banishment from divinity?as a retributive slog through time and matter that 
leads him to the rather self-pitying conclusion,  
??? ??? ??? ??? ????, ????? ?????? ??? ??????, 
?????? ????????? ???????. ? ? | ? ? ? | ? ?  
 
 
 
298 Teskey, 4. 
 
299 See Chapter One, and Empedocles, DK115. Milton certainly read DK115, given its 
appearance in Plutarch?s Moralia and Hierocles? writings. See Appendix, DK115, and Boswell, 
#762, #1048, and #1153. This is not the only fragment that mentions d?mons; see also fragment 
DK59, which there is less likelihood Milton read, as it appears only in Simplicius? Commentary 
on Aristotle?s De Caelo, at 586.5?26.  
173 
 [I too am now one of these, an exile from the gods and a wanderer, 
 trusting in mad strife.]300 
Of course, this is distinct from Descartes? own d?monic inquiry. In his Meditations de Prima 
Philosophia (1641), Descartes begins his investigation of the mind by asking how he can be sure 
an evil demon (genium?malignum) isn?t controlling his perception of everything, convincing 
him he exists when he does not.301 Descartes? solution to the eerie question is his famous 
argument in which he ventures that his very experience of thought proves his existence: 
Adeo ut, omnibus satis superque pensitatis, Denique statuendum sit hoc pronuntiatum, 
Ego sum, ego existo, quoties a me profertur, vel mente concipitur, necessario esse verum. 
 
[I must finally conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it 
is put forward by me or conceived in my mind.]302 
For Descartes, the articulation of one?s cognitive identity proves one?s existence, marking off a 
self from the great heap matter in which the mind is realized. In other words, Descartes begins to 
assert his freedom from a malicious demon by articulating his own consciousness, which he 
 
 
300 See Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK115.13?14, and Laks and Most, V.368. Plutarch quotes 
the fragment, as I discuss immediately below. Other doxographic moments include Plotinus, 
Enneads, at 4.8.1, 17?22, Celsus? Contra Celsum, at 8.53, Porphyry in Stobaeus at 2.8.42, and 
Hierocles? commentary on the Carmen Aureum, at 24.2?3. For a full analysis of Milton?s 
exposure to DK115, see Appendix, DK115. 
 
301 Descartes asks how he can know for certain that ?sed genium aliquem malignum, eundemque 
summe potentem & callidum, omnem suam industriam in eo posuisse, ut me falleret? (?some 
malicious demon of the utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to 
deceive me?). See Descartes, Meditations de Prima Philosophia, 1.23, in Adam, VII.22, and 
Cottingham, II.15. 
 
302 See Descartes, Meditations de Prima Philosophia, 2.25, in Adam, VII.25, and Cottingham, 
II.17. 
174 
regards as autonomous from the matter that gives it voice. Thinking, Descartes reasons, is the 
first step to freedom from his hypothetical d?mon.303  
Both Empedoclean and Cartesian d?monology share the dualistic possibility of 
materially transcendent experience, but with a significant difference. Descartes defeats the power 
of an evil d?mon by asserting the free movement of his thought against the threat of 
nonexistence. In contrast, Empedocles views his d?monic transmigration out of and across 
material forms as its own kind of imprisonment, a retributive exile from the material-elemental 
plane he regards with sacral reverence as the basis of everything, even thought.304 Thus, one 
could say that Descartes attempts to pull the mind outside of matter to assert his freedom against 
the threat of an imaginary d?mon, while Empedocles claims he has himself become a d?mon by 
way of his exile from matter, the way every element in turn leaves him on its doorstep. For 
Descartes, incorporeal ideation sets the mind free of matter?s deterministic threat; for 
Empedocles, incorporeal experience represents a departure from spiritual wholeness. Both 
philosophers therefore posit the dualistic experience of transcending matter, but develop 
contrasting attitudes about the value of incorporeal experience in relation to freedom. This is 
 
 
303 ?Ego sum, ego existo; certum est. Quandiu autem? Nempe quandiu cogito? (?I am, I exist?
that is certain. But for how long? For as long as I am thinking?). See Descartes, Meditations, 
2.27, in Adam, VII.27, and Cottingham, II.18. I say perception is the ?first step? of Descartes? 
escape from the d?mon because the argument that unfolds over the course of the Meditations is 
multifaceted: the argument ?I think, therefore I am? claims that the thinking self exists, but to 
gain full autonomy from the hypothetical d?mon?s possible distortions of perception, Descartes 
argues later, he must possess the knowledge that God exists. This highlights an even greater 
resonance between Cartesian and Empedoclean d?monism, as both philosophers position divine 
entities in flux with material mechanism. See Descartes, ?Third Meditation? and ?Fifth 
Meditation,? in Cottingham, II.24?36 & II.44?9. 
 
304 For Empedocles? analogy of the elements to gods, see esp. DK6, a fragment I discuss 
throughout these pages. I discuss Empedocles? attribution of thought to the four elements 
(DK107) in the following paragraphs and the introduction. 
175 
why Empedocles might give something to Milton that Descartes can?t quite offer, namely: 
dualistic ideation that longs for monistic reintegration, that asserts the mind?s desire for 
reabsorption into material substance as an avenue for augmenting, rather than destroying, free 
will.305   
However, despite the d?monic digressions and incorporeal ideations of Empedocles and 
Descartes, both philosophers are ultimately too materialist minded for the seventeenth-century 
clergyman and philosopher Joseph Glanvill. According to Glanvill, both Descartes and 
Empedocles exemplify the failure to explain the soul?s relationship to the body, which he 
describes as an ?utterly unconceivable problem.?306 For him, both thinkers are too mechanistic 
 
 
305 Despite their very different conceptions of d?monic dualism in relation to matter and noetic 
experience, Descartes nonetheless shares Empedocles? emphasis on the potential for elemental 
sympathy and unification. As he writes in Le Monde (The World) (written ca. 1633), ??les 
forms des Elemens doivent estre simples, n?avoir aucunes qualitez qui ne s?accordent ensemble 
si parfaitement, que chacune tende ? la conservation de toutes les autres (??the forms of the 
elements must be simple and must not have any qualities which do not accord so perfectly with 
one another that each contributes to the preservation of all the others?). See Descartes, The 
World, V.24?5, in Adam, XI.26, and Cottingham, I.89. For a useful summary of Cartesian 
dualism that compares and contrasts it with the thought of Plato and Aristotle, see Fallon, Milton 
Among the Philosophers, 22. 
 
306 Joseph Glanvill, Essays on Several Important Subjects in Philosophy and Religion by Joseph 
Glanvill, Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty, and Fellow of the R. S. (London, 1676), 4. A 
further example of a seventeenth-century text that compares Empedocles? and Descartes? 
understandings of the soul is found in a treatise by Robert Midgley, who writes: ?But if the Soul 
were not by its own substance extended through the whole body, and had its seat only in the 
Heart, as Empedocles would have it, or in the Speen and the Stomach, as Van Helmont places it, 
or in the Glaudula Pinealis of the Brain, according to Cartesius?it is certain, that all these parts 
which are taken to be the seat of the Soul, are divisible, and that they have distinct parts and 
figures; so the Soul, as it is indivisible, occupies a space or place which is divisible, whence I 
conclude, that the indivisibility does not hinder, but that a substance may have a certain 
indivisible extension, but divisible as to the place which it possesses, or that it may have Angles 
and figures, in respect of place, though its substance essentially remain one, simple, and 
indivisible.? See Midgley, A New Treatise of Natural Philosophy, Free?d from the Intricacies of 
the Schools Adorned With Many Curious Experiments both Medicinal and Chymical: As Also 
with Several Observations Useful for the Health of the Body (London, 1687), 113?15.  
176 
with respect to this issue, and he includes them in a long list of philosophical opinions on the 
matter he finds inadequate. Glanvill observes that Empedocles defines the soul as blood, a 
position frequently attributed to Empedocles in the early modern period. It?s grounded in a 
fragment which locates cognition in the heart:  
??????? ?? ????????? ?????????? ????????????, 
?? ?? ????? ??????? ??????????? ???????????? 
???? ??? ????????? ??????????? ???? ?????. 
 
 [ [the heart] nourished in the seas of blood which leaps back and forth 
and there especially it is called understanding by men; 
for men?s understanding is blood around the heart].307 
The fragment is another example of the materialist minded Empedocles, as it equates mental 
activity to a bodily substance. It might remind readers of a related fragment, DK107, in which 
Empedocles claims that the four elements are the material substructure of everything in the 
universe, including thought and feeling.308 Moreover, the fragment?s striking ?seas of blood? 
 
 
307 See Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK105, and Laks and Most, V.566. Milton may have come 
across this fragment in his reading of Porphyry?s On Styx, which appears in Stobaeus? Eclogae 
and cites the fragment at 1.49.53. See Boswell entry #1350, which lists Stobaeus? works as a 
likely candidate for inclusion in Milton?s library. On the doxographic tradition of this fragment, 
and of attributing the definition of the soul as blood to Empedocles, see Tr?panier, esp. 144?5. 
As I noted in Chapter Two, there is a separate tradition of claiming Empedocles defined the soul 
as a mixture of fire and air.  
 
308 I discuss fragment DK107 in the Introduction. Raymond B. Waddington offers a reading of 
blood as a representing of soul in Paradise Lost. See Waddington, Looking into Providences: 
Designs and Trials in ?Paradise Lost? (Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 2012), 151?68. 
Waddington does not directly comment on the idea?s resonance with Empedoclean philosophy. 
 
177 
remind readers of the human body?s imbrication in the larger material world, as it implicitly 
analogizes the steady pumping of blood through the heart to the endless cycles of the oceans? 
currents. But the comparison is multilayered, as the image of blood-as-seawater itself comes to 
analogize the experience of thought by the end of the passage. Even while aligning thought to 
natural substances, the choice of seawater helps Empedocles to capture the protean feeling of 
noetic experience. In other words, while the analogy of thought as oceanic blood attributes 
cognition to a bodily process, it maintains the sense that thought is powerful, dynamic, 
unpredictable, and free, and that despite its material causes within us, thought can feel like it 
comes from without us, like the steady beat of waves washing upon the shore of our embodied 
phenomenological experience. 
Glanvill does not appreciate this nuance, however. For him, the claim that the mind (or 
soul) is in the blood is just another attempt to provide a material mechanism for the soul, no 
better in his eyes than Descartes? claim that the soul is a ?Thinking Substance? that acts upon a 
specific part of the brain.309 Along with all the other philosophers he includes, Glanvill says 
Empedocles and Descartes both run into the same problem when they try to schematize body and 
soul: they fail to explain how the soul ?gives motion to unactive matter.?310 For Glanvill, the 
attempts of Descartes and Empedocles to define the nature of the soul only illustrate the 
intractability of the problem. Despite these two philosophers? associations with immaterial 
experience through concepts like res cogitans and the d?mon respectively, Glanvill nevertheless 
critiques them for parts of their thought he regards as overly materialist in tone, viewing them as 
 
 
309 Glanvill, Essays, 4. 
 
310 Ibid. 
178 
threats to the demarcation line between matter and soul. In contrast to Milton, Glanvill is 
reluctant to think about soul and body together, and certainly doesn?t want to entertain any 
perspectival blur:  
what the Cement should be that unites Heaven and Earth, Light and Darkness, 
viz. Natures of so diverse a make, and such disagreeing Attributes, is beyond the reach of 
any of our Faculties: We can as easily conceive how a thought should be united to a 
Statue, or a Sun-beam to a piece of Clay: how words should be frozen in the Air, (as 
some say they are in the remote North) or how Light should be kept in a Box; as we can 
apprehend the manner of this strange Vnion.311 
The passage scorns the idea of any middle ground between matter and soul, reinscribing the 
Augustinian division that had become a centerpiece of dualist Christian orthodoxy. Glanvill 
draws on the inert imagery of clay and statues to emphasize matter?s spiritual alienation from 
limitless immortality. His distaste for Descartes? definition of the soul exemplifies how 
Descartes was not always, as Fallon puts it, ?allied?with perennial Christian attacks on 
materialism.?312 To the contrary, Glanvill?s essay shows that Descartes was sometimes accused 
of an Empedoclean blurring of boundaries that threatened rather than reinforced a divine 
hierarchy of matter and spirit. 
Perhaps at its most radical, the poetically and philosophically generative blur created by 
Milton?s oscillation between dualist and monist viewpoints in Paradise Lost threatens to collapse 
 
 
311 Ibid. 
 
312 Fallon, Milton Among the Philosophers, 24. To be fair, elsewhere in Essays, Glanvill is more 
positive about other aspects of Descartes? philosophy. But he does not automatically find 
Descartes? explanation of res cogitans to be an adequate explanation of the soul. 
179 
even the boundary that delimits these two categories?that is, between dualism and monism as 
mutually exclusive modes of contemplating the world. In other words, the poem ultimately aims 
to bring readers into a monist vision of the cosmos, but has no qualms about occasionally turning 
to dualistic images of material transcendence in order to help them experience this viewpoint. In 
fact, as they do in Empedocles? poetry, these dualistic digressions help move the reader between 
different ways of knowing the world, making monism available by going through, rather than 
around, familiar fantasies of material transcendence. In the universe of Paradise Lost, 
Empedocles is not truly the airy spirit that a parodic Satan encounters in the Limbo of Vanity?
he?s a bodily presence that exerts itself against the myth of his dualistic immortal fervor as 
conveyed by an incendiary biographical tradition.  
 
 
 
From Elements to Atoms: Milton?s Empedoclean Materialism 
A convergence exists between the ontological ruptures of Paradise Lost and the ?double 
tale? of Empedocles? fragments. Both Milton and Empedocles seem to delight in confronting the 
reader with incongruities and insisting on their perspectival cohesion. As Empedocles tells 
readers,  
| ? ? ? | ? ? ? | ? ??? ???????? ????????? ?? 
 
 
[??????.from both there was one vision].313 
 
 
 
313 See Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK88, and Laks and Most, V.546. Milton may have read this 
fragment in Aristotle?s Poetics, which quotes it at 1458a4?5. And see Boswell, #85. 
180 
Fragments like this, paired with the self-admission to a ?double tale? in DK17 that I have been 
building on throughout these pages, point to Empedocles? potential self-consciousness about his 
pluralistic viewpoint of reality, the way he flashes between the material and immaterial in an 
ontological dialectic that insists on cohesion, on ?one vision? from a two-fold tale. The 
resonance of this model with Milton?s materialist perspectivism is striking, particularly 
considering the emphasis on oneness shared by the two poets, and the centrality of the analogic 
mode to both writers? work.314  
I already began to suggest this in the prior section, when I argued that Milton?s depiction 
of Empedocles in Limbo relies on both dualistic and monistic imagery as it subjects the 
philosopher to a clever joke, evoking Empedocles? own metaphysical system in the process of 
mocking his biography. In the remainder of the chapter, I broaden out to other moments in the 
poem where Empedocles? double vision flickers into view, where his inscrutability on matters of 
ontology helps lend expression to Milton?s own materialist vision. As I will show, Empedoclean 
perspectivism offers a powerful intervention in the stark critical divide over Milton?s fluctuating 
materialism, especially since Milton recognizes Empedocles? movement between the many and 
the one as a powerful analogy for bringing soul into corporeal form. Moreover, I reevaluate 
Raphael?s ?one first matter all? speech?often regarded as the central stalk of the poem?s 
materialist vision?demonstrating how Raphael?s words draw on Empedoclean poetry when they 
invoke ?springing? roots to describe a continuum of spiritual and material substance. Ultimately, 
I suggest that Milton?s materialist poetics generates an Empedoclean perspectival haziness 
whose fluid movement takes readers between elements and atoms, flesh and soul, dissolving 
 
 
314 I?ve already shown how Empedocles embraces the use of analogy for natural philosophy in 
fragment DK9. 
181 
these distinctions through the disorientation afforded by the blur. In so doing, Milton?s 
Empedoclean mode offers Adam and Eve an escape route from the stark binary choice 
represented by the forbidden Tree.  
Empedocles? philosophy of a material world composed of elements that cycle between 
states of unitive cohesion and fragmented heterogeneity helps to inspire Milton?s poetic 
vacillations between descriptions of the physical and immaterial. Paradise Lost is Milton?s 
attempt to blend together the duality of materiality and cognition that prevailed in the Cartesian 
intellectual milieu he inhabited, and Empedocles? pluralism helps Milton navigate and overcome 
this duality. Like the poem of Empedocles, Milton?s epic masterpiece urges readers toward a 
vision of ontological oneness, even while it occasionally indulges the language of dualistic 
speculation, as if to illustrate poetically a cognitive shift from a fragmented dualistic perspective 
to the cohesion of vitalist monism. Although Empedocles may only appear by name in the Limbo 
of Vanity episode, poetic vestiges of his philosophy are woven throughout Paradise Lost. For 
Milton, Empedoclean physics inspires a noetic malleability that blinks into visibility in the 
poem?s repeated shifts and vacillations. One way to understand Milton?s Empedoclean habit is as 
a bridge between the text?s seemingly oppositional representations of dualist and monist 
speculation. This Empedoclean bridge helps Milton and his readers move between the two 
perspectives without resolving categorically to either one. Milton puts spiritual and material 
phenomena into an Empedoclean dialectic that softens the boundary between the two, moving 
readers away from a binary logic that insists materialist philosophy must be purged of all soul?
and also away from its dualistic counterpart, the insistence on a hard and fast division between a 
luminous incorporeality and a dead, spiritless matter. Moreover, I propose that the Empedoclean 
perspectivism in Paradise Lost speaks in critical ways to divergent readings of the poem?s 
182 
ontologies, as captured in the variant interpretations of scholars such as Fallon and N.K. 
Sugimura.  
Fallon?s influential interpretation of Paradise Lost offers an illuminating account of 
Milton?s vitalist materialism, although I affirm that the Empedoclean perspectivism that informs 
this materialism can help further refine the philosophical picture of the poem. Fallon 
convincingly argues that ?Milton?s materialist monism treats spirit and matter as manifestations, 
differing in degree and not qualitatively, of the one corporeal substance. Milton?s spirit does not 
coexist with an alien matter; it contains matter.? Similarly, Fallon observes, 
the attempt to separate body from spirit is absurd from a monist point of view; it results 
 paradoxically in the despiritualization of the one substance. If there is only one substance, 
 and if body is conceived as separate from spirit, then the body must be dead and 
 spiritless.315 
Fallon?s shows how from Milton?s materialist perspective, dualism actually threatens to dilute 
the spiritual experience of living in the material world, evacuating corporeal substance of inner 
vitality. Moreover, Fallon suggests that ?Milton?s animist materialism allows him to forgo 
making a case for incorporealism without admitting a mechanism threatening to his conception 
of freedom of the will.?316 Empedoclean materialism, I suggest, can offer a parallel avenue to the 
preservation of free will within a materialist worldview, one that comes into view as Milton 
moves fluidly between materialist and dualist perspectives. Taking into account that Empedocles 
entertains the possibility of incorporeal experience while defining it as a departure from matter?s 
 
 
315 See Fallon, Milton Among the Philosophers, 102 & 92. 
 
316 Ibid., 107. 
183 
innate divinity (DK115), it?s possible to think in new ways about Milton?s ontological 
incongruities, which provide visions of material transcendence while circumscribing them within 
the limits of a spiritually charged materialist manifesto. 
 Empedoclean perspectivism also speaks to Sugimura?s interpretation of Paradise Lost, 
which offers a counterpoint to Fallon?s materialist reading. Sugimura emphasizes the dualistic 
aspects of the poem, drawing on Milton?s youthful interest in Platonism to suggest that his 
inclusion of figures like Chaos and Night undermines a strictly materialist reading of the 
poem.317 Sugimura resists what she sees as the ?orthodox picture of him [Milton] as a monist 
materialist,? arguing that the glimmers of material transcendence sprinkled throughout Paradise 
Lost should play a more central role in understandings of the poem?s ontology. Sugimura 
contends: 
 Against the bleached backdrop of the story of Milton?s monist materialism, there are 
 brilliant moments of opposition, such as when the intellect shimmers with immateriality 
 like the ?radiant forms? of Milton?s angels (PL V.457). These ethereal and liminal 
 substances emit a light that at times blazes but at other times softens to a mere flicker.318 
The differences here from Fallon are pronounced. Whereas Fallon suggests that Milton?s 
philosophy regards dualism as a threat to matter?s vitality, Sugimura regards monist materialism 
as a ?bleached? description of the poem?s ontology, occasionally obscuring Fallon?s own 
subtlety on this point. Furthermore, notice how Sugimura surfaces the language of ?flicker[ing],? 
picking up on the perspectival movement that Teskey defines as a cornerstone of Milton?s poetic 
 
 
317 See N. K. Sugimura, ?Matter of Glorious Trial?: Spiritual and Material Substance in 
?Paradise Lost? (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), xxiii. 
 
318 Ibid., xxiv. 
184 
approach, as I discussed in the Introduction, and to which I return below. Although Teskey and 
Sugimura do not consider the Empedoclean quality of this flickering, it?s interesting that their 
descriptions take on Empedoclean resonances of their own, even while not being about 
Empedocles per se. For example, putting aside Sugimura?s elemental language in the passage 
above (?ethereal,? ?blazes,? ?flicker?), she frames her interpretation of Paradise Lost?s 
ontological inconsistency in terms highly evocative of Empedoclean effluence: Sugimura argues 
that ?fluid intermediaries are present in Milton?s poetry and that these substances move 
respectively between poles of materiality and immateriality.?319 This could just as aptly describe 
the way Empedocles deploys the notion of material flux (or effluence) to suggest the elements? 
liquid mutability, analogizing a more fundamental transit between dualist and monist 
conceptions of reality. Thus, while I ultimately disagree with Sugimura that the poem?s ?fluid 
intermediaries? subtract from the idea of Milton?s materialism, her unintentionally Empedoclean 
critical vocabulary helps illustrate how the present critical stalemate reaches for Empedocles? 
distinctive perspectival motion as a potential solution. 
Recall that in Empedoclean ontology, ??????? (Love) is a force that draws the elements 
into a state of homogeneous unity, while its counterpart, ?????? (Strife), tears them apart.320 
These two forces occur within a cycle of alternating dominance over the world. Sometimes the 
world is a mass of unitive cohesion, and sometimes it is heterogeneous, fragmented. Empedocles 
explains it like this:  
??? ????? ?????????? ????????? ?????? ?????, 
 
 
319 Ibid., xvii. 
 
320 Empedocles, DK17.18?20. 
185 
?????? ??? ???????? ??????????? ??? ?? ??????, 
?????? ?? ?? ???? ?????? ????????? ??????? ?????. 
 
[And these things [the elements] never cease from constantly alternating,  
at one time all coming together by love into one,  
and at another time again all being borne apart separately by the hostility of strife.]321  
According to these lines, the interplay of competitive ??????? and ?????? during a given 
moment in history determines the particular material makeup of the world at that time.322 One 
might think of ??????? in Empedoclean cosmography as an inconstant gravity between the 
elements, and Strife as its inverse, a force that repels. The interplay of these forces is not random 
but occurs in an alternating cycle. As Denis O?Brien puts it, ?these two forces rule in turn. 
?????? makes the elements many, and so long as the elements are many they are moving. Love 
makes the elements into a single whole, the Sphere.?323 Empedocles? description of this sphere 
marks another moment in the fragments?like his analogy of the elements to the immortal gods 
 
 
321 See Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK17, lines 6?8, and Laks and Most, V.410. For a helpful 
introduction to Empedocles? system, see O?Brien, Empedocles? Cosmic Cycle. And see 
Waterfield, ?Empedocles of Acragas,? esp. 134?9, as well as Laks and Most, esp. V.319. 
 
322 Milton probably came across discussion and quotation of this fragment DK17 (which is more 
extensive than the three lines I have quoted above) in his reading of Aristotle?s Metaphysics at 
III.IV.1000a18?b20, Clement of Alexandria?s Stromateis at 5.15.4; Laertius? Lives of the 
Philosophers at 8.76; Plutarch?s ?Isis and Osiris? at 370e, and ?Dialogue on Love? at 756d (both 
in the Moralia). According to Boswell, it is very likely that Milton owned copies of or read all 
these works. There is less certainty, though still some possibility, that Milton read Aristotle?s 
Physics and Stobaeus?s Eclogae, both of which discuss the fragment (at 250b23?251a5 and 
1.10.11b, respectively). See Boswell, Milton?s Library, entries 81, 414, 493, 1153, 84, and 1350.   
 
323 O?Brien, Empedocles? Cosmic Cycle, 1. 
186 
in DK6?when an anthropomorphic view of matter rears its head. Indeed, the sway of ??????? 
eventually coaxes matter into euphoria, blends it into bliss: 
    ???? ???? ??????? ????????? ???? ???? 
 ? 
 ????? ???????? ?????? ????? ?????????? 
 ??????? ?????????? ????? ????????? ?????. 
 
 [There the swift limbs of the sun are not discerned, [nor] 
 ???????????????????. 
 Thus it is fixed in the dense cover of harmony, 
 a rounded sphere, rejoicing in its solitude.]324  
The fragment illustrates the homogenizing effect of Love by stressing how when Love dominates 
the elements, even the ?swift limbs of the sun? are indistinguishable within the exultant sphere 
that results from Love?s conglobing sympathy. Subjecting the mighty sun to Love?s dominance 
emphasizes Love?s all-encompassing power, which disperses the sun into the whole world.325 
Recalling the principle of like-to-like in his broader system, this happy globe reveals that in 
Empedocles? vision, not only do like substances attract, but also that unlike substances can 
ultimately become similar. In other words the sun, with all its concentrated, life-giving power, is 
 
 
324 See Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK27, and Laks and Most, V.448. Empedocles discusses the 
sphere created by ??????? in other fragments too, such as DK28. It is unclear whether DK27 & 
DK28 were readily available to Milton, though his knowledge of the concept becomes self-
evident in book seven of Paradise Lost, as I discuss immediately below.   
 
325 Empedocles writes in a different fragment that the happy glove of Love?s making is ?equal to 
itself on all sides and totally unbounded? [??? ? ?? ???????? ???? <???> ??? ?????? ???????]. 
I?m quoting from Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK28.1. And see Laks and Most, V.448. 
187 
collapsed into the material forms that usually depend it for energy and the rhythm of time; the 
image implies that rocks and sunlight might be fused into one, illustrating Empedocles? belief 
that all elemental substances are fundamentally similar.326 Moreover, the sun, a cosmic force 
whose movements generate the cycle of night and day, is circumscribed by this broader cycle of 
Love. This ability for the sun to be brought down to earth in Empedocles? system exemplifies his 
perspectival movement, his vacillation between thinking of the world as constituted by four 
elements, and by one substance. While this fusion into elemental similitude therefore gestures 
toward the possibility of monism, Empedocles tempers this through his personification of the 
sphere, which ?rejoic[es] in its solitude,? not to mention the way Love acts upon the elements as 
a seemingly external force. Matter itself is made indistinguishable, except perhaps for mental 
activity (joy), which appears to maintain some separation from the homogenized mass that 
expresses it.327 The image is therefore another moment that highlights Empedocles? ?double 
tale,? his ambivalent vacillation between materialist and idealist possibility.328  
Milton draws on the Lovely sphere of Empedoclean physics during Raphael?s description 
of creation in book seven of Paradise Lost. Raphael explains how God  
?founded, then conglob?d329 
 
 
326 See Empedocles, DK89, and Chapter One, where I discuss in detail the movement between 
the many and the one in Empedocles? physics.  
 
327 The personification present in the sphere?s ?rejoicing? has a counterpart in Empedocles? 
description of the world under ??????, which he casts as a condition of cosmic ?hostility.? See 
Empedocles, ?Fragments,? in The Poem of Empedocles, trans. Brad Inwood (Toronto: Toronto 
University Press, 2010), DK17.8. 
 
328 Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK17.1. 
 
329 The OED defines ?conglobe? as ?to gather or form into a ball or globe, or a rounded compact 
mass.? About 50 lines later, Raphael again returns to the image of conglobing matter, but this 
188 
Like things to like, the rest to several place 
Disparted, and between spun out the Air, 
And Earth self-ballanc?t on her Center hung. (7.239?42)  
Citing the Empedoclean (and Democritean) principle of ?like-to-like? by name, Raphael depicts 
God transforming the divided fecundity of chaos into a spherical whole, conceptualizing the 
process of creation as an elemental fusion followed by a process of division.330 Notice how 
Milton underwrites his description of divine creation in the terms of Empedoclean elemental 
gathering: God as a ?conglobing? Love. Although not as exultant as Empedocles? ?rejoicing? 
sphere, the detail that the Earth was ?self-ballanc?t on her Center? lends a subtle personification 
to the image (emphasis mine).  
As the account of creation in book seven progresses, its Empedoclean characteristics 
come into fuller view, particularly when the image of a joyful globe resurfaces a bit later. Milton 
describes how the young  
earth in her rich attire  
Consummate lovly smil?d; Aire, Water, Earth, 
By Fowl, Fish, Beast, was flown, was swum, was walkt 
 
 
time at a smaller scale, analogizing the formation of watery regions ?as drops on dust conglobing 
from the drie,? one element gathering spherically out of its dry antithesis. See Milton, ?Paradise 
Lost,? 7.292. 
 
330 On the principle of like-to-like, see Empedocles, DK109, and previous discussion in this 
chapter. Milton likely came across Aristotle?s quotation and critique of this fragment in 
Metaphysics at III.IV.1000a18?b20. It?s probable, though less certain, that Milton also read 
Aristotle?s On the Soul, which quotes this fragment at 404b8?15. See Boswell, Milton?s Library, 
entries #72 and #81. On the principle of like-to-like in Democritus and Leucippus, see Andrew 
Gregory, ?Leucippus and Democritus on Like to Like and Ou Mallon,? in Apeiron 46, no. 4 
(2013), esp. 447?52.   
189 
Frequent. (7.501?4) 
The passage personifies the earth into a smiling globe, a macrocosmic human delighted in its 
abundance of intermingling elements. The forms of the earth are distinct, but this is a vision of 
oneness nonetheless: the earth as a holistic entity that derives joy from the teeming voyages of its 
multiform inhabitants. Milton?s attention to these elemental conjunctions prior to the Fall 
reframes the imminent event as an experience of cosmic proportions. Far from being a simple 
breach of God?s dietary restrictions, this serves to preemptively reframe the Fall into a drama of 
universal scale, one that extends beyond the domain of human ethics and into the elemental 
fabric of Empedocles? cosmic cycle.  
True, images of sympathetic convergence and spherical formations of matter can be 
found in other, non-Empedoclean accounts of cosmic creation.331 Yet the proximity of the 
reference to like-to-like and the personified earth puts Milton?s account of creation in a 
particularly Empedoclean key. It would be reductive to say that Milton?s representation of 
Genesis is solely or categorically Empedoclean, but given that it marks another occasion when 
Milton directly mentions the idea of like-to-like, it?s possible to see the contours of an 
Empedoclean mindset emerging in Milton?s description of divine events like the Genesis story 
 
 
331 Consider for instance the related and controversial idea of action at a distance, another system 
of magical sympathy that was influential in early modern England. On action at a distance, see 
Lobis, The Virtue of Sympathy, esp. 4?6. Plato?s description of the creation of marrow in the 
Timaeus involves an idealized sphere. See Plato, ?Timaeus,? trans. Robin Waterfield, in Timaeus 
and Critias (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 73d. On Empedocles? associations with 
magical sympathy in the early modern period, see Lobis, 208?9; Mary Floyd-Wilson, Occult 
Knowledge, Science, and Gender on the Shakespearean Stage (New York: Cambridge 
University Press, 2013), 8?9, and Peter Kingsley, Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic: 
Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). 
190 
or, as I discussed earlier in the chapter, the movement of Sin from hell to earth.332 In other words, 
while there are alternative systems of magical sympathy that could be used to describe this 
moment in Paradise Lost, a distinctively Empedoclean sense of attraction by likeness cuts across 
Milton?s depiction of God and Sin, making it an especially apt philosophical hermeneutic lens 
for discussing the unusual ontology of Milton?s poem. 
Moreover, other seventeenth-century writers draw on Empedoclean physics to describe 
the Biblical account of creation, which helps contextualize Milton?s version. Consider this 
passage from Du Bartas? Sepmaines: 
 Ce premier m?de estoit une forme sans forme, 
 Une pile confuse, un meslange difforme,  
 D?abismes un abisme, un corps mal compasse, 
 Un Chaos de Chaos, un tas mal entases: 
 O? tous les elemens se logeoyent pesle-mesle: 
 O? le liquid avoit avec le sec querelle, 
Le rond avec l?aigu, le froid avec le chaud. 
Le dur avec le mol, le bas avec le haut. 
 
 
332 See ?The Book of Genesis,? in The Holy Bible, 1:3. Compare these lines with Empedocles? 
fragment DK90, which invoke imagery of sweetness and bitterness to describe the effects of 
Love. A further example of a seventeenth-century text that draws on the idea of the primordial 
sphere is Thomas Burnet?s Sacred Theory of the Earth. As H. G. Cocks explains, ?for Burnet, 
whose Sacred Theory of the Earth (1681?89) has long been considered one of the founding texts 
of sublime theorizing, the earth, as created by God, had originally been a perfect sphere that 
reflected its designer?s own perfection, and had only assumed its rugged appearance after the 
Deluge had carved out seas, mountains, and other mementos of human wickedness. The result, 
Burnet suggested, was that the earth, though productive of feelings of infinity, or in his terms, 
?greatness,? was no more than a wreck, its mountain ranges little more than ?great Ruins.?? See 
H.G. Cocks, ?The Discovery of Sodom, 1851,? Representations 112, no. 1 (Fall 2010): 5.  
191 
 
[The first World (yet) was a most formless Form,  
A confus?d Heap, a Chaos most deform, 
A Gulf of Gulfs, a Body ill compact, 
An vgly medly, where all difference lackt: 
Where th? Elements lay jumbled all together, 
Where hot and colde were jarring each with either, 
The blunt with sharp, the dank against the drie, 
The hard with soft, the base against the high; 
Bitter with sweet.]333 
The lines present an image related to Milton and Empedocles? happy, homogeneous sphere, but 
Du Bartas? version isn?t so joyful. For him, the undivided mass of primordial matter amounts to 
?an vgly medly, where all difference lackt,? and rather than casting this as a harmonious 
wedding of unlike substances, Du Bartas imagines a discordant and confused mess, the elements 
?jumbled all together? as hot and cold are ?jarring each with either.? The difference from 
Milton?s elegantly ?self-ballanc?t? globe is pronounced. This underscores how, whereas the 
monistic Milton views the globular similitude of God?s primordial matter in a positive light, Du 
Bartas is far more dualistic, viewing this undistinguished heap as confused and discordant, as 
severely in need of God?s dividing power. In Milton?s version, God infuses the ?fluid Mass? 
with ?vital virtue...and vital warmth,? even before he begins dividing up matter into elemental 
 
 
333 See Du Bartas, Les ?uvres de Guillaume de Saluste seigneur du Bartas (Geneva, 1582), pp. 
8, and Du Bartas, Du Bartas his deuine weekes and workes translated: and dedicated to the 
Kings most excellent Maiestie by Iosuah Syluester (London, 1611), 8. 
192 
categories, reflecting his vitalist materialism in which ?all corporeal substance is animate, self-
active, and free? (7.236?7).334 Still, God?s apparent subjective separation from the material mass 
that he infuses with ?vital warmth? prevents the scene from reducing totally to an airtight 
materialism. The passage reveals Milton?s mind in motion, as he moves between visions of a 
separated, incorporeal, immortal God and a sympathetic, materialist universe that is infused with 
an innate spiritual energy. Empedocles provides Milton a perspectival flux that puts material and 
theological contemplation into a consubstantial, electric dynamic.     
In other words, Empedocles? perspectival oscillation between incorporeal and elemental 
visions of reality helps animate his materialist theodicy. Empedocles muses on the possibilities 
of a universe constituted by elemental matter, while also implicating these material components 
within larger structures of potentially non-elemental constitution. However, because of 
Empedocles? frequently analogic style, it is hermeneutically challenging to determine the precise 
relationship of materialist and incorporeal ideation within the fragments as a whole, to determine 
whether Empedocles ultimately subjects his elements to incorporeal forces, or his incorporeal 
forces to elements. Instead, he puts them into a dynamic tension where neither seems to have 
primacy. This generates the ontological blurriness I?ve been describing throughout these pages, 
which becomes especially attractive for Milton?s poetic treatment of materialism in Paradise 
Lost.  
The useful blurriness I?m describing is perhaps best exemplified when Empedocles 
analogizes the four elements to the gods Zeus, Hera, Aidoneus and Nestis in fragment DK6, a 
fragment I have discussed throughout these chapters: 
 
 
334 Fallon, Milton Among the Philosophers: Poetry and Materialism in Seventeenth-Century 
England (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 81.    
193 
??????? ??? ?????? ???????? ?????? ?????? 
???? ????? ??? ?? ????????? ??? ???????? 
?????? ??, ? ???????? ?????? ???????? ????????. 
 
[First, hear of the four roots of all things, 
gleaming Zeus and life-bringing Hera and Aidoneus 
and Nestis, who moistens with tears the spring of mortals.]335 
Is Empedocles suggesting that these mythological figures amount to an allegory for humankind?s 
subjugation to material forces, that the real ?gods? are the four elements? Or does Empedocles? 
analogy move in the other direction, implying an innate divinity or vitality circumscribed by the 
material building blocks of nature? To put it differently, is Empedocles ultimately referring to 
elemental gods, or godly elements? My wish to assign a ?direction? to the analogy arises from a 
modern epistemology not in place during Empedocles? time, one that feels pressure to extract 
either an exclusively materialist or theological position from the comparison. According to 
Kathryn A. Morgan, DK6 is not a suggestion of ?anthropomorphic gods,? pointing out that in 
fragment DK134, ?Empedocles declares that god has no head, legs, or genitals, but is an 
ineffable ?holy mind,? which rushes through the entire cosmos with swift thoughts.?336 Here is 
DK134: 
 
 
335 See Laks and Most, V.400, and Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK6. ?Nestis? is an alternative 
name of Persephone. Milton surely encountered this fragment in his reading of Plutarch?s Lives, 
a text Milton mentions in several of his own works, and which quotes the fragment at 8.76. See 
Boswell entry 493. 
 
336 Kathryn. A. Morgan, Myth and Philosophy: From the Presocratics to Plato (New York: 
Cambridge University Press, 2000), 60?1.  
194 
???? ??? ???????? ?????? ???? ???? ????????, 
?? <???> ???? ?????? ??? ?????? ?????????, 
?? ?????, ?? ??? ?????, ?? ????? ?????????, 
???? ???? ???? ??? ????????? ?????? ??????, 
???????? ?????? ?????? ??????????? ??????. 
 
[For [it/he] is not fitted out in [its/his] limbs with a human head, 
nor do two branches dart from [its/his] back 
nor feet, nor swift knees nor shaggy genitals; 
but it/he is only a sacred and ineffable thought organ  
darting through the entire cosmos with swift thoughts.]337 
Like DK6, the fragment creates an indeterminate relationship between matter and divine 
substance. To Morgan?s point, the lines present god as a nonhuman entity who courses 
throughout the material world, a thought-substance ?sacred and ineffable? (???? ??? ?????????) 
that moves at lightning speed. These details lend Empedocles? description of god an incorporeal, 
impersonal feel, and yet notice how the lines also corporealize divine substance, describing it as an 
?organ? (????). Yet the ambivalence persists even in the etymology of ?????which carries 
anatomical meanings such as the heart or the area where the liver meets the diaphragm in the 
 
 
337 See Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK134, and Laks and Most, V.450. Milton may not have 
encountered fragment DK134, as there is little direct evidence that he read either Tzetzes? 
Chiliades or Ammonius? commentary on Aristotle?s De Interpretatione. Neither of these two 
texts, which are the main doxographic works for fragment DK134, appear in Boswell?s Milton?s 
Library. 
195 
chest, as well as idealist connotations depicting ???? as ?mind or soul.?338 Thus, while 
Empedocles may sustain elements of incorporeal speculation, his representation of gods is not 
merely anthropocentric, depicting divinity as interspersed with and moving throughout matter, as 
opposed to being straightforwardly separated from it. The fragment is yet another example of the 
dialectical motion that is endemic to the Empedoclean mood. And it displays how when 
Empedocles invokes sacred possibility, he dialectically conjures visions of a world made only of 
elemental materials. 
Milton appears to have been interested in Empedoclean elementalism?s pithy 
perspectivism long before he wrote Paradise Lost, as a moment in ?Il Penseroso? (1645) 
demonstrates. The speaker implores Melancholy and Contemplation to guide him in thought, and 
to 
    ...unsphear 
The spirit of Plato, to unfold 
What Worlds, or what vast Regions hold 
The immortal mind that hath forsook 
Her mansion in this fleshly nook: 
And of those D?mons that are found 
In fire, air, flood, or under ground, 
Whose power hath a true consent 
 
 
338 See ?????, ??????, ?,? senses A & B, in Franco Montanari, The Brill Dictionary of Ancient 
Greek (Boston: Brill, 2015, pp. 2306, column 1. And it?s interesting to think back to Empedocles? 
definition of the heart as mind in fragment DK105, which I discussed earlier in this chapter. 
 
196 
With Planet, or with Element.339 
While the first part of this passage invokes Plato as a guide to ?the immortal mind,? the latter 
portion shifts to Empedoclean language as Milton imagines ?D?mons? lurking in the four 
elements, also gesturing toward their celestial, zodiacal correspondences.340 For those of us 
familiar with the Empedoclean tradition, how can these lines not recall the Sicilian poet?s 
analogy comparing elements to divine substance in fragment DK6, or his philosophically 
innovative fragment DK115, where he declares himself an elemental d?mon banished from the 
inner sanctity of matter? This snapshot from ?Il Penseroso? is an example of Milton thinking 
about the relationship between matter and incorporeal substance much earlier in his career, and 
how he turned to Empedoclean terminology (?d?mons,? the four elements, the idea of magical 
?consent? or sympathy) to navigate the problem.  
But while this example from ?Il Penseroso? provides evidence for Milton?s Empedoclean 
resonances earlier in his poetic career, it doesn?t go very far to advance my claim that the later 
Paradise Lost espouses an Empedoclean materialism; for, as McDowell points out, Milton?s 
youthful attraction to dualistic ideation can be understood as an early phase in the poet?s 
philosophical journey, against which his later philosophy stands in relief. McDowell?s biography 
articulates a contrast between an ?enraptured, Platonic, and daemonic young Milton? and the 
?later Milton, who checked his early pagan energies with an increasingly sharp sense of human 
fallenness.?341 Similarly, Fallon notes that 
 
 
339 Milton, ?Il Penseroso,? in The Riverside Milton, lines 88?96.  
 
340 On elementalism?s zodiacal correspondences, see Frances Yates, The Occult Philosophy in 
the Elizabethan Age (New York: Routledge, 1979), 12.  
 
341 McDowell, Poet of Revolution, 156. 
197 
by the time he came to write the Latin prose Christian Doctrine and Paradise Lost in the 
 late 1650s and after, Milton had unequivocally repudiated the dualism of the early poems 
 and thus separated himself from the Neoplatonism then reigning at Christ?s, his 
 undergraduate college at Cambridge. Instead of being trapped in an ontologically alien 
 body, the soul is one with the body. Spirit and matter become for Milton two modes of 
 the same substance: spirit is rarefied matter, and matter is dense spirit. All things, from 
 insensate objects through souls, are manifestations of this one substance.342 
While I do not dispute the broad outlines of the stadial view of Milton?s philosophy that Fallon 
and McDowell describe, I aim to recast the evolution of Milton?s mindset from youth to maturity 
in a less stark light, deemphasizing the ?sharp sense of human fallenness? and ?unequivocal[?] 
repudiat[ion]? that McDowell and Fallon detect in the older Milton?s turn to materialism. To do 
this, I will now show how key passages expressing the vitalist materialism of Paradise Lost are 
informed by the Empedoclean perspectival blur. 
 A good place to observe Milton?s preoccupation with Empedoclean mixture and 
effluence in is in book five after Eve?s bad dream foreshadowing the Fall. In response to the 
nightmare, Adam and Eve vocalize a prayer that ?Flowd from their lips? (5.150, emphasis mine). 
The prayer centers the four elements and their cyclical transformations as divine intermediaries, 
reminiscent of the Empedoclean analogy of gods to elements I explored at the beginning of this 
chapter. Observe how Adam and Eve?s words imagine divine transaction through elemental 
movement and intermixture: 
Aire, and ye Elements the eldest birth 
 
 
 
342 Fallon, Milton Among the Philosophers, 80. 
198 
Of Natures Womb, that in quaternion run 
Perpetual Circle, multiform; and mix 
And nourish all things, let your ceasless change 
Varie to our great Maker still new praise.343  
Adam and Eve regard the flux of elemental change as a process of divine importance: the 
elements cyclically ?run? into a spherical whole, a ?multiform? unity. Adam and Eve recognize 
this process of mixture and ?ceasless? change as an avenue of communion with God. In general 
terms, their prayer can be read as an Empedoclean fusing of divine and elemental contemplation. 
Yet the potential resonance is stronger than this when one considers how Milton describes the 
elements running in a ?Perpetual Circle.? Empedocles uses the image of the circle (??????) 
repeatedly throughout his poetry to describe the elemental cycle produced by Love and Strife.344      
As their prayer unfolds, Adam and Eve progress from this abstract consideration of the 
four elements as divine to a more vivid meditation on specific elemental phenomena: 
His praise ye Winds, that from four Quarters blow, 
Breathe soft or loud; and wave your tops, ye Pines, 
With every Plant, in sign of Worship wave. 
Fountains and yee, that warble, as ye flow, 
Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise.  
Joyne voices all ye living Souls, ye Birds, 
 
 
343 Ibid., 5.180?4.   
 
344 For example, see Empedocles, DK17.13, and DK35.10. Direct evidence of Milton?s exposure 
to these specific fragments is somewhat limited, but see Appendix for an analysis of where he 
may have encountered them.  
199 
That singing up to Heaven Gate ascend, 
Bear on your wings and in your notes his praise; 
Ye that in Waters glide, and yee that walk  
The Earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep. (5.192?9)  
In these lines, Milton details how wind, water, and earth operate in unison as a response to divine 
inspiration. Observe how the passage?s elemental images seem to flow out of each other, 
beginning with the movement of breath from Adam and Eve?s mouths. They describe how winds 
cause trees to ?wave? their branches, a verb that signals a movement to watery description that 
continues with the image of ?Fountains? that ?flow.?345 Milton is clearly delighting in the poetic 
possibility of elemental plasticity. Flowing fountains take Milton for a moment back to breath as 
he imagines the airy effluence of birdsong, which serves as a unifying anthem for the joyful 
synchronization of elemental expression. Like the word ?wave,? the word ?glide? to describe the 
motion of fish in the penultimate line works as an elemental switch plate that draws the mind 
toward the analogous operations of water and air. In Adam and Eve?s vision, elemental 
effluences are a bridge to the divine, hinted at in the image of singing birds ?ascending? to 
heaven.346 The image captures Milton?s interest in a stepwise understanding of material-spiritual 
progress?which is an Empedoclean trope in its own right347?one that recurs later in book five 
during Raphael?s famous ?one first matter all? speech, a moment I take up in detail below. 
 
 
345 Ibid. 
 
346 Ibid., 5.196. 
 
347 On the gradual ascension of humans to gods, see Empedocles, fragment DK146 and DK147. 
Milton may have encountered these fragments in his reading of Clement?s Stromateis, which 
cites them at 4.150.1 and 5.122.3, respectively. See Boswell entry #414. 
 
200 
In their spontaneous prayer before the Fall, it?s as if Adam and Eve are describing a 
world under the power of an Empedoclean Love that is increasing its material dominance, one 
that has continued from the creation of the world, and which represented the reversal of the Strife 
cycle that culminated in the War in Heaven. In Adam and Eve?s prayer, Love is gaining 
momentum, yoking the elements into a synchronized movement, and yet it is not fully dominant, 
as the forms of nature it describes still possess individuated bodies. This is not Love at the peak 
of its cycle, which would in strictly Empedoclean terms amount to a total homogenization (as in 
Milton?s account of the conglobed matter that existed prior to God?s division of various forms 
that I discussed earlier). But the prayer gestures at a cosmic movement of these proportions. 
 If Milton?s account of creation and the spontaneous prayer of Adam and Eve gives 
readers of Paradise Lost an experience of the world under the increasing power of Love, the Fall 
itself represents the volta of the Empedoclean cycle, the point when Strife takes over in the 
poem?s self-acknowledged turn into tragedy and the period of ?alienation? that continues to the 
present in conventional representations of the myth.348 In other words, the typical understanding 
of the Fall presents the forbidden act as a stark and brutal transformation; Adam and Eve?s eating 
of the prohibited fruit marks a shift from a state of unitary pleasure to a world of separation, 
when nature fractures along with humanity?s relationship to it. But this is a view of the Fall more 
appropriately attributed to the character of Satan than to Milton, for Paradise Lost frames this 
dualistic interpretation of the Fall as a product of the Archfiend?s fractured vision. This is evident 
in Satan?s fetishization of the Tree?s scintillating, clashing chromatics: 
I was at first as other Beasts that graze 
 
 
348 Milton, Paradise Lost, 9.9. Milton acknowledges the turn in the book?s opening lines, viz. 1?
13.  
201 
The trodden Herb, of abject thoughts and low, 
As was my food, nor aught but food discern?d 
Or Sex, and apprehended nothing high: 
Till on a day roaving the field, I chanc?d 
A goodly Tree farr distant to behold  
Loaden with fruit of fairest colours mixt, 
Ruddie and Gold: I nearer drew to gaze. (9.571?8)  
Satan?s vision is inflected by Strife, beginning with his dualistic stratification of his lowly 
creaturely state from the idealistic promises of the Tree of Knowledge. This is a far cry from the 
vision of Adam and Eve?s prayer I looked at above, which places a divine charge in all who 
?walk / The Earth,? both those who ?stately tread,? and those who ?lowly creep.? Satan is 
challenging a plastic view of matter and introducing a separation between base and refined 
substance, between matter and soul. And note how Satan?s adoration of the Tree?s fruit lies in its 
motley presentation of ?fairest colours mixt, / Ruddie and Gold.? Satan delights in the Tree for 
its enticing, fractured assortment. The word ?mixt? here doesn?t mean ?blended together,?349 but 
rather, ?consisting of different or dissimilar elements or qualities; not of one kind.?350 In other 
words, Satan is emphasizing the Tree?s divisions, along with its separation from the rest of 
nature.  
 
 
349 ?Mixed, adj.2,? sense 2.b. in the OED. 
 
350 Ibid., sense 1. 
202 
 Although there is little direct evidence Milton read Empedocles? fragment DK23, it 
carries some resonance with Satan?s description of the variegated Tree. Empedocles offers an 
analogy to explain the mixture of elements, saying they blend together in different ways,   
?? ?? ?????? ??????? ????????? ??????????? 
?????? ???? ?????? ??? ?????? ?? ???????, 
???? ???? ??? ??????? ???????? ??????? ??????, 
??????? ???????? ?? ??? ????, ???? ?? ??????, 
?? ??? ????? ????? ??????? ??????????, 
??????? ?? ???????? ??? ?????? ??? ???????? 
????? ?? ??????? ?? ??? ?????????????? ????? 
??? ?? ????? ??????????? ?????? ?????????? 
???? ?? ?? ????? ????? ??????? ??????? ????? 
??????, ???? ?? ???? ???????? ??????, ?????, 
???? ????? ????? ????, ???? ???? ????? ???????. 
 
[As when painters adorn votive offerings,  
men well-learned in their craft because of cunning, 
and so when they take in their hands many-colored pigments, 
mixing them in harmony, some more, others less,  
from them they prepare forms resembling all things, 
making trees and men and women 
and beasts and birds and water-nourished fish 
and long-lived gods, first in their prerogatives.  
203 
In this way let not deception overcome your thought organ 
[by convincing you] that the source of mortal things, as many as have become   
  obvious?countless?is anything else, 
but know these things clearly, having heard the story from a god.]351   
Like Milton?s Satan does, Empedocles points out the many pigments of nature, including trees, 
and emphasizes his own access to divine knowledge. In Empedocles? case, the gesture to his own 
divinity serves to preserve a belief in incorporeality within his cosmic system. Empedocles tells 
readers not to foolishly believe that anything in nature has a cause outside of the material mixture 
of the elements, and says they should believe him on the basis of his own immortality. 
Empedocles is claiming that the blending of the elements?the palette of nature?explains all 
natural phenomena, including the possibility of immortality that links all the elements at a 
subterranean, atomic level. His lesson is therefore more ambiguous, more plastic than Satan?s, 
insisting on the paradox of a simultaneous dualism and materialism, as opposed to Satan?s 
clearly dualistic vision. Empedocles sees divine expression in the flux of all the elements; Satan 
hierarchizes matter with a hard line between the base and the rarified, a split that broadens out to 
a larger division between matter and soul in a parody of Cartesian dualism, as Fallon contends.352  
 
 
351 Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK23, and Laks and Most, V.402. There is little evidence Milton 
read Simplicius? Commentary on Aristotle?s Physics, which quotes these lines. See Inwood, The 
Poem of Empedocles, pp. 98. The Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth, however, did read 
Simplicius, as he attests repeatedly in The True Intellectual System, for example on pp. 5, 25, 
152, 170, 385, 558, 806, and 837. Thus, even if Boswell did not find direct evidence of Milton?s 
exposure to Simplicius? writing, the ancient writer was clearly in Milton?s intellectual orbit, 
given his familiarity with the work of the Cambridge Platonists through his time at the 
University.  
 
352 See Fallon, Milton Among the Philosophers, esp. 203?5. To be sure, the connection between 
this fragment and Milton?s description of Satan?s dualistic vision is rather tenuous. But the 
comparison helps further highlight the perspectival relativism shared by Empedocles and Milton. 
204 
 The parody lies in the contrast between Satan?s self-assurance of his own dualistic 
separation from matter and his actual embodiment as an elementally fragmented being. Not only 
is Satan not an incorporeal d?mon as he believes, he?s an entity defined by the destructive power 
of Strife, which divorces even the parts of his body from cohering. Although Satan thinks of 
himself as an airy spirit, he is in fact the opposite of rarefied; he?s refracted. The best illustration 
of this occurs in the Lake of Fire episode renders Satan an elementally discordant entity, with 
       eyes   
That sparkling blaz?d, his other Parts besides 
Prone on the Flood, extended long and large 
Lay floating many a rood. (1.193?6) 
Satan?s fiery eyes sit inside his towering head, which levitates above the Lake of Fire, to which 
domain the rest of his prone body remains confined. Milton amplifies the striking disjuncture of 
Satan?s head and body in this scene by emphasizing their differences as elemental distinctions: 
it?s as if Satan?s flaming eyes are repelled by the aquatic behavior of ?his other Parts? that ?lay 
floating? below.353 The picture of hell Milton creates for readers is a world under Strife, wherein 
Satan has been split into fractured segments of unlike substances.  
To readers of Empedocles? poetry, Milton?s description of Satan?s stratified body parts 
might recall a fragment that describes a primordial moment on earth ruled by Strife, a time when 
inchoate human forms shot forth from the ground as fragmented beings: 
? ?????? ??? ?????? ????????? ??????????, 
 
 
 
353 The description of Satan?s eyes may also take inspiration from Plato?s Timaeus, which posits 
that eyesight results from an inner fire that interacts with outward light with the pupils as the 
intersection points. See Plato, ?Timaeus,? 45b?c. 
205 
?????? ?? ????????? ????????? ??????? ????, 
?????? ?? ??? ???????? ??????????? ???????. 
 
[as many heads without necks sprouted up 
and arms wandered naked, bereft of shoulders, 
and eyes roamed alone, impoverished of foreheads.]354  
Somewhat similar to Aristophanes? description of human development in Plato?s Symposium, 
Empedocles paints an image in which human body parts must find their counterparts through the 
power of Love.355 Empedocles? image of disembodied heads, arms, and eyes is a vision of a 
divided world, but progressing toward unity under the gradual increase of Love?s dominance. 
Milton?s depiction of Satan?s fragmentary body in Paradise Lost runs in the opposite direction, 
portraying the material degradation of a once rarified celestial being (Lucifer) into an apotheosis 
of incoherent fracture.  
Images of material effluence heighten the dramatic effect of Satan?s bodily discordance 
by way of contrast, surrounding his isolated body parts with elements working in sympathetic 
flux with one another. Elemental effluence is an idea inscribed into the very name of the ?Lake 
of Fire? or ?burning lake,? an ancient Tartarean trope that Milton uses as the backdrop of Satan?s 
bodily partitioning. The lake swells with ?fiery waves? and is fed by ?veins of liquid fire? that 
 
 
354 Empedocles, ?Fragments,? in The Poem of Empedocles, trans. Brad Inwood (Toronto: 
Toronto University Press, 2010), DK57. Milton may have encountered this fragment through 
Aristotle?s discussion of it in On the Soul (at 430a28?30) and in De Caelo (at 300b25?31). See 
Boswell, Milton?s Library, entries #72 and #73. 
 
355 For Aristophanes? speech in the Symposium, see Plato, ?Symposium,? in Plato III: Lysis. 
Symposium. Gorgias, trans. W. R. M. Lamb (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925), 
73?246 [189C?194E].  
206 
transfer its wet flames into the earthy ?Plain? (1.184, 1.701, and 1.700). Terrifying as these 
images are, they remind readers of the consubstantial makeup of fire and water. Even these two 
oppositional elements can work in tandem. United by a similar material substructure, the Lake?s 
water exudes fire. The striking image of hot, dry fire streaming from cold, wet water illustrates 
an inter-elemental sympathy in contrast to Satan?s bodily fracture. Moreover, it registers 
Milton?s perspectival movement, making even hell itself into a representation of amicable flux, 
while Satan literally embodies fracture.  
When I say that Milton?s depiction of elemental effluence in the Lake of Fire speaks to 
his understanding of a consubstantial atomic reality beneath the four elements, I am not merely 
speculating. In book two, Milton represents the expanse of Chaos as populated by warring 
elements equipped with ?embryon atoms?:  
Before thir [Satan?s and Sin?s] eyes in sudden view appear 
The secrets of the hoarie deep, a dark 
Illimitable Ocean without bound, 
Without dimension, where length, breadth, & highth, 
And time and place are lost; where eldest Night 
And Chaos, Ancestors of Nature, hold  
Eternal Anarchie, amidst the noise 
Of endless Warrs, and by confusion stand. 
And time and place are lost; where 
For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four Champions fierce 
Strive here for Maistrie, and to Battel bring 
Thir embryon Atoms; they around the flag  
207 
Of each his Faction, in thir several Clanns, 
Light-arm?d or heavy, sharp, smooth, swift, or slow, 
Swarm populous, unnumber?d as the Sands 
Of Barca or Cyrene?s torrid soil, 
Levied to side with warring Winds, and poise 
Thir lighter wings. (2.890?907) 
These lines depict Chaos as an infinite expanse, populated by the four elements at war, who 
?strive...for Maistrie? in ?Battel.? This image of striving elements might remind us of the 
Plutarchan analogy of the Empedoclean elements as warriors that I considered in Chapter Two 
through my discussion of Shakespeare?s Antony and Cleopatra.  
But Milton?s addition of ?embryon atoms? as the elements? means of engagement with 
each other illustrates a rise in Lucretian understandings of matter over the course of the 
seventeenth century. The phrase generates a Lucretian and Empedoclean image of atomic 
elements: though the elements are the agents of war, they send their atoms to battle. The word 
?embryon? reaches back to Anaxagoras, whose embryology influenced materialism but 
nevertheless maintained a belief in the soul under the control of ???? (nous).356 The passage is 
thus a mixture of ancient influences Plutarchan, Anaxagorean, Lucretian, and Empedoclean. But 
it begins to appear distinctively Empedoclean when one remembers Nietzsche?s claim that 
Empedocles ?prepared the conditions for rigorous atomism: he went far beyond Anaxagoras.?357 
 
 
356 See Anaxagoras? fragment B4a, and Curd, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, 225.  
 
357 Friedrich Nietzsche, ?Empedocles,? in The Pre-Platonic Philosophers, trans. Greg Whitlock 
(Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 118.  
 
208 
Thus, this passage describing the four elements contesting each other with embryonic atoms 
captures in miniature the development of materialism from elements to atoms, a shift partially 
initiated by the theory of Empedoclean effluence I?ve explored repeatedly throughout these 
pages. To be brief, Empedoclean physics is the backbone of Milton?s monism, while Lucretian 
atomism is its flesh.  
Thinking back to Shakespeare?s use of Plutarch?s militaristic elementalism in Antony and 
Cleopatra, the view of Milton?s Empedoclean elemental atomism I have been discussing 
illuminates the deepening importance of Empedoclean thought to the intermingled histories of 
science and literature in seventeenth-century England. In Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare?s 
analogic play on the battle of the elements is dramatically fecund, but does not point readers to a 
Lucretian atomism like Milton?s?in spite of Shakespeare?s general atomic awareness elsewhere, 
as in Mercutio?s ?Queen Mab? speech for instance.358 By the latter part of the seventeenth 
century, Empedoclean Strife was no longer just a convenient metaphor for war, but a noetic 
stepping stone providing a crucial avenue to Lucretian atomism in the aftermath of England's 
own civil strife.  
 Keeping an eye on Shakespeare, consider Adam?s description in Paradise Lost of his 
waking up into consciousness after exuding from the earth: 
As new wak?t from soundest sleep  
Soft on the flourie herb I found me laid 
In Balmie Sweat, which with his Beames the Sun 
 
 
358 Queen Mab?s chariot is driven by a ?team of little atomi.? See Shakespeare, ?Romeo and 
Juliet,? in The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. Baker et al., 1104?45. Second edition. Boston: 
Houghton Mifflin, 1997), 1.4.57.  
209 
Soon dri?d, and on the reaking moisture fed. (8.253?6)  
The ?Balmie Sweat? on Adam might remind readers of Cleopatra?s own elemental birth as an 
effluence of the mud of the Nile in Antony and Cleopatra, as I discussed in Chapter Two. Adam 
himself exudes from the earth, and then a process of appetitive elemental exchange and 
transformation aids in his full realization. The sun (fire) dries the ?Balmie Sweat? that covers 
him. The image shows the effluence of one element (sunbeams) interacting with the effluence of 
other elements (the sweat of the herb and earth) to bring Adam into being.359 
  This last example highlights how Milton?s characterization of Adam?s creation may in 
some small way take inspiration from Shakespeare?s depiction of Cleopatra?s earthly emergence. 
But Milton?s Satan is another figure worth comparing to Shakespeare?s Cleopatra, and not only 
because of their shared Empedoclean aspiration to an exalted immortality.360 Milton?s Satan, like 
Cleopatra, expresses a fear of debasement in the language of unwanted material mixture: 
O foul descent! That I who erst contended 
With Gods to sit the highest, am now constraind 
Into a Beast, and mixt with bestial slime, 
This essence to incarnate and imbrute, 
That to the hight of Deitie aspir?d; 
But what will not Ambition and Revenge 
Descend to? Who aspires must down as low  
 
 
359 As Flannagan puts it, ?the sun helps creation by drying Adam.? See Flannagan, The Riverside 
Milton, 569fn72. 
 
360 One may hear the echo of Empedocles? upward ambition and plummeting suicide in Satan?s 
lament, ?But what will not Ambition...Descend to?? at 9.168?9 in the long quote immediately 
below.  
210 
As high he soard, obnoxious first or last 
To basest things.361   
Note Satan?s displeasure at how he is ?mixt with bestial slime.? This is close in sentiment to 
what Cleopatra expresses near the end of Shakespeare?s play during her own expression of 
?immortal longings.?362 Cleopatra laments the idea of a future version of herself portrayed by an 
actor who would share space with the unsophisticated, ?enclouded? in their ?thick breaths? / 
And forced to drink their vapour.?363 Both Satan and Cleopatra fancy themselves beyond the 
material plane, assumed to be too base for their egoic spiritual aspirations. Satan?s aversion to 
?bestial slime? aligns to his dualistic ethos, warning readers against the temptations of such a 
view. Whereas effluence and elemental transmutation are associated with divinity, Milton 
portrays resistance to elemental blending as Satanic. 
 The Fall is the moment that Adam and Eve stop being able to see the possibilities of 
elemental sympathy and transmutation. After the Fall, Milton emphasizes Eve?s aversion to 
elemental mixture, newly developed following Satan?s persuasive reframing of the fruit of the 
Tree of Knowledge. Whereas in her earlier spontaneous prayer with Adam, Eve saw a plastic 
divinity in all of the material world, after the Fall, Eve exhibits a Cleopatra-like fear of elemental 
mixture when she asks of the angel Michael  
      From thee   
How shall I part, and whither wander down 
 
 
361 Milton, Paradise Lost, 9.163?71. 
 
362 See Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, 5.2.279?80. 
 
363 Ibid., 5.2.208?12. I discuss these Shakespeare passages at length in Chapter One. 
211 
Into a lower World, to this obscure 
And wilde, how shall we breathe in other Aire 
Less pure, accustomd to immortal Fruits.364    
Eve has lost the liberated vision afforded by her prelapsarian monism, which would not have 
found such resistance to experiencing air. In other words, without Satan?s intervention, Eve 
might have seen the whole world as the Garden and sensed no threat from foreign vapors. 
Instead, her vision of the present overleaps itself into an aspiration for purity and immortality.  
 An additional elemental juncture between Paradise Lost and my exploration of Antony 
and Cleopatra in Chapter Two relates to how both texts personify the air. I discussed how even 
the air around Cleopatra?s barge in the River Cydnus is mesmerized by her Love, how she makes 
the very winds ?love-sick.? Prior to the Fall in Paradise Lost, Adam notes how, when he 
consummates his marriage to Eve, 
     the Earth 
Gave sign of gratulation, and each Hill; 
Joyous the Birds; fresh Gales and gentle Aires 
Whisper?d it to the Woods, and from thir wings 
Flung Rose, flung Odours from the spicie Shrub. (8.513?17)  
Just like it does for Cleopatra and Antony, the air holds erotic tension for Adam and Eve. 
?Gentle Aires??which refers simultaneously to birdsong and wind?emanate from the birds, 
and agitate an effluence of floral scent from the trees. Again, Milton gives us an image of 
elemental effluence as an expression of spiritual exaltation as he wafts the air throughout his 
 
 
364 Milton, Paradise Lost, 11.281?85. 
212 
verse. The air is enmeshed in a sympathetic relationship with music and scent, the three flowing 
amongst each other. This is precisely the sympathetic view of matter that Adam and Eve lose 
when they experience the Fall.   
 Moving away from these connections between Milton and Shakespeare?s representations 
of elemental drama, I want to consider how Raphael?s monist teachings in Paradise Lost rely on 
elemental effluence to make their point. Consider when Eve asks Raphael whether angels like 
him eat food, digesting it from ?corporeal to incorporeal? form (5.407?13). Raphael?s response 
draws on the four elements and their ?feeding? upon one another to explain how matter can 
rarify itself into increasingly ethereal substance: 
For know, whatever was created, needs 
To be sustaind and fed; of Elements 
The grosser feeds the purer, Earth the Sea, 
Earth and the Sea feed Air, the Air those Fires  
Ethereal, and as lowest first the Moon; 
Whence in her visage round those spots, unpurg?d  
Vapours not yet into her substance turnd. (5.414?20)  
The elements feed into one another, working their way up to lunar glow. In Raphael?s vision, an 
elemental spectrum emerges from base to rare as the earth exudes water and earth, which both in 
turn secrete air, sublimating into the celestial ?Fires? of heaven, or stars. The lines resonate with 
Empedocles? fragment DK38, which describes elemental interoperability in the language of 
213 
flux.365 Furthermore, notice how Milton?s passage points to the spots on the moon as an 
illustration of elemental rarefaction: these spots are ?Vapours? (air) from the earth that have not 
yet been incorporated into the ?substance? of moonshine. The image resonates with Jonson?s 
depiction of ?old Empedocles? wafting up and down on the surface of the moon as smoke and 
ash that I discussed in Chapter One.  
Raphael?s gesture to Empedoclean philosophy and myth happens just beneath the level of 
direct allusion. Moreover, Raphael?s monistic representation of the ghost of Empedocles as spots 
on the moon is a kinder interpretation of his infamous suicide, at least framing his afterlife within 
the material terms of Empedocles? own cosmic philosophy rather than within the moralizing, 
non-elemental vacuum of Christian Limbo. These contrasting views of Empedocles? ghost make 
sense in their respective contexts: while the perspective of severe Christian dualism parodied by 
Milton?s Satan might treat Empedocles as a pagan mystic to be excluded from the realms of 
heaven, Raphael?s unitary, monist viewpoint takes a less punishing attitude, weaving the ghost of 
Empedocles into the material fabric of a divine continuum. Raphael and Milton?s monism enable 
them to see spiritual value in all things, even the airy ashes of a pagan.      
 Raphael?s illumination of a materially fluid continuum stretching from the lowly slime of 
earth all the way up to star fire represents one of the poem?s most coherent explanations of 
Milton?s materialism, but his speech in book five is not the only place where Raphael resorts to 
Empedoclean imagery to make his case. In book eight, Adam asks Raphael a question similar to 
 
 
365 See Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK38, and Laks and Most, V.474. I discussed DK38 earlier 
in this chapter. Milton is likely to have read the fragment in Clement of Alexandria?s Stromateis, 
which quotes it at 5.48.2?3 (II.358.15?23). See Boswell entry #414.  
214 
Eve?s inquiry about angelic digestion I discussed above. Adam wants to know about the angels? 
sex lives, asking 
how thir Love 
Express they, by looks onely, or do they mix  
Irradiance, virtual or immediate touch? (8.615?17)   
Boiling it down to its core terms, Adam is asking whether the angels have sex corporeally or 
incorporeally, or through some mixture of the two. Adam uses mixture to frame a complicated 
question that hinges on the dualist/monist divide. Raphael?s answer defers again to elemental 
synthesis, this time with a nod to the Empedoclean idea of like-to-like: 
Easier then Air with Air, if Spirits embrace, 
Total they mix, Union of Pure with Pure 
Desiring. (8.626?8)  
The effortless mixture of air with air, drawn together through elemental kinship, analogizes 
angelic intercourse. Their ?Total? mixture gives these angels a fusion on the scale of 
Empedocles? elemental cycles, suggesting that their ?desire? leads to a homogeneous ?Union.? 
In short, Raphael challenges the duality of flesh and soul by linking the base carnality of human 
love to the cosmic force of Empedoclean Love.366  
 In the famous ?one first matter all? speech, Raphael analogizes a material continuum in 
Empedoclean language, explaining that matter rarefies  
 
 
366 Joad Raymond provides helpful context here, pointing out that ?in the 1640s and 1650s, 
?there was a surge of interest in angels. More people wrote about and spoke with them. Anxieties 
about religious and social fragmentation, political conflict, widespread apocalypticism, the 
breakdown of the Church, interest in the occult, and the growth in antinomian theology created a 
culture in which angels seemed to be more immediately present.? See Raymond, Milton?s 
Angels: The Early-Modern Imagination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 10. 
215 
Till body up to spirit work, in bounds 
Proportioned to each kind. So from the root  
Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves 
More aerie, last the bright consummate floure 
Spirits odorous breathes. (5.478?82)  
This passage is elemental in the way it invokes the word ?root,? which is another translation of 
the term Empedocles? uses for ?elements? (????????). And here, the emergence of spirit from 
matter is likened to the bursting growth of a tree, which amounts to a chain of effluence from 
root to stalk to leaf to flower. All of these substances differ ?but in degree, in kind the same,? 
gesturing back to the notion of elements united at the deepest level by a submerged atomic 
reality, a world built of tiny corpuscles that stream from all things. Moreover, Raphael?s use of a 
vegetative analogy to explain the innate spiritual vitalism of all matter creates a monistic 
counterpart to Satan?s dim dualism and the stark binary choice it foists onto the Tree. 
Several passages from Empedocles? long fragment DK17 beg to be paired with Raphael?s 
speech. The first explains how the elements are united by an underlying sameness:   
????? ???? ????? ?????, ??? ???????? ?? ?????? 
????????? ?????? ???? ??? ??????? ???? ?????.  
 
[But these very things [the elements] are, and running through each other  
they become different at different times and are always, perpetually alike.]367 
 
 
367 See Empedocles, trans. Inwood, DK17.34?5, and Laks and Most, V. For Milton?s exposure to 
DK17, see Appendix, and Boswell, entries #81, 84, 414, 882, 1153, & 1350. 
 
216 
Like the continuum of vegetative rarefaction in Raphael?s speech, these lines posit the 
interdependence of seemingly distinct material bodies. The elements are implicated in a plastic 
interoperability, so that they while they might be ?different at different times,? they are 
nonetheless ?perpetually alike.? Later in the same fragment, Empedocles explores this idea in 
terms that are more specific to Milton?s imagery in Raphael?s speech, drawing on the springing, 
shooting growth of plant life to analogize a unifying spiritual reality: 
...........???????]???? ??? ??? ?????? 
?????..????? ???]??? ?? ???? ?????, 
?? ?? ????? ??? ?? ?? ??? ?? ???? ??? ?? ?????? ???????? 
??????? ?? ????????? ??? ?????? ??? ???????? 
????? ?? ???????? ?? ??? ???????????????? ????? 
??? ?? ???? ??????????? ??????? ????????. 
 
[...........we come together into one cosmos, 
?????..to be many from one,  
From which all things that were, that are, and will be in the future 
Have sprung: trees and men and women 
and beasts and birds and water-nourished fish, 
and long-lived gods first in their prerogatives.]368  
 
 
368 Empedocles, DK17.36?41. 
 
217 
All matter has ?sprung? from the ?one,? including ?trees?(???????).369 Similarly to Raphael, 
Empedocles goes on to invoke ?root bearing? and ?vine-mounting? imagery to explain how the 
elements comprise all of the cosmos, urging the reader, ?from these stories carry to your thought 
organ proofs that are not false.?370 Empedocles and Raphael thus use the same method to 
convince listeners of monistic possibility: an analogy of vegetative growth as a depiction of 
effluence, designed to create a perception of matter as primary and homogeneous.  
After the Fall, one can see Adam reaching back to Raphael?s monist wisdom as he 
attempts to resist the effects of Strife, and when he does so, he recalls the Empedoclean image of 
the elements working their way up to celestial fire. This comes in book ten, when Adam 
expresses to Eve the headstrong wish that 
No more be mention?d then of violence 
Against our selves, and wilful barrenness,  
That cuts us off from hope. (10.1041?3) 
Adam resolves to avoid a personalization of Strife and ponders how the requirement to work for 
sustenance may not be so bad after all. To illustrate this, Adam imagines a plastic power that 
unites his future acts of labor to the Empedoclean elemental ladder he learned from Raphael. 
This restores some of the hope that appeared to vanish as Adam and Eve assimilated to the 
conditions of their expulsion. Adam actually seems to find joy thinking about the labor that will 
sustain and protect them from the cold, 
     Which bids us seek 
 
 
369 Ibid., DK17.39.  
 
370 See Empedocles, DK17.65?9.  
218 
Som better shroud, som better warmth to cherish 
Our Limbs benumm?d, ere this diurnal Starr 
Leave cold the Night, how we his gather?d beams 
Reflected, may with matter sere foment, 
Or by collision of two bodies grinde 
The Air attrite to Fire, as late the Clouds 
Justling or pusht with winds rude in thir shock 
Tine the slant Lightning, whose thwart flame driv?n down 
Kindles the gummie bark of Firr or Pine 
And sends a comfortable heat from farr,  
Which might supplie the sun: such Fire to use? (10.1067?78)  
As Flannagan helpfully glosses these lines, Adam is reflecting on the ?newly necessary 
technology of producing fire [new because of the Fall], either by focusing sunlight with a 
parabolic mirror or magnifying glass on tinder or by friction?the rubbing of sticks together or 
the striking of flint on steel.?371 Notice how the lines suggest a cycle that informs the movement 
of energy between the sun (or ?diurnal Starr?) and earth. One can harness the fire of the sun by 
concentrating sunbeams or striking flint, Adam intuits, and he analogizes these elemental 
processes to the emergence of lightning from the clashing winds of the sky. In turn, lightning 
strikes fire onto earth, blazes whose heat ?might supplie the sun: such Fire to use.? Milton?s 
analogy helps illustrate the plastic process of elemental change he describes. And these processes 
of fire emerging from air, which cause ?the Air [to] attrite to Fire,? yield ethical wisdom, too; 
 
 
371 Flannagan, The Riverside Milton, 656fn340. 
219 
Flannagan suggests that one should ?perhaps keep in mind the moral process of attrition,?372 
suggesting again Milton?s investment in the idea of elemental effluence as a useful figure for 
spiritual experience. And more broadly, Adam?s recollection of Raphael?s monist perspective 
helps him to soothe the sting of work.373  
 Milton?s possible suggestion, in the long passage I cited in the last paragraph, of the 
attrition of air into fire as an analogy for the spiritual act of attrition, is unsurprising given the 
importance of these two elements to Biblical expressions of divine power. The Bible is brimming 
with figurative uses of fire and wind as representations of divine power, but a few highlights 
stand out. For instance, the ?Book of Job? relates how Job?s flock was ?burnt vp,? when ?the fire 
of God is fallen from heauen...consum[ing] them.?374 And there is the line in the Book of Acts, 
mocked by Chaucer in ?The Pardoner?s Tale,? in which ?suddenly there came a sound from 
heauen as of a rushing mighty wind,? where the wind is figured as a pneumatic messenger of the 
deity.375  
These Biblical images show how the figurative use of the elements isn?t necessarily 
enough, on its own, to suggest a specifically ?Empedoclean? mindset. But the cyclical nature of 
Milton?s representation of elemental change?in the above example, air births lightning, igniting 
a forest, whose flames ?supplie the sun??alongside the way both Milton and Empedocles use 
 
 
372 Ibid. 
 
373 Adam acknowledges that ?with labour I must earne / My bread,? but asks, ?what harm?? 
(10.1054?5). 
 
374 ?The Book of Job,? in The Holy Bible, 1:16. 
 
375 ?The Book of Acts,? in The Holy Bible, 2:2. And one should keep in mind the dual sense of 
the Greek word pneuma, which can mean both breath and spirit.   
220 
analogy as a vehicle for exploring ontological flux, allow one to see Milton?s elemental 
experimentation as at least partially Empedoclean and not merely Biblical or Aristotelian.376  
Another helpful piece of context lies in contemporaneous theological debates about the 
constitution of the soul, particularly a disagreement between the Cambridge Platonist Henry 
More and the Puritan theologian Richard Baxter. A provocateur, Baxter had identified the soul 
with fire in ways that upset More?s Platonic dualism. According to David S. Sytsma, Baxter 
thought that More?s ?Platonist speculations?were the result of overconfidence in rational 
speculation beyond supernatural revelation, and contained ?a mixture of Platonisme, Origenisme 
& Arrianisme, not having all of any of these, but somewhat of all.? ?377 Note Baxter?s frustration 
with More?s ?mixture? of philosophical traditions, which illustrates the boldness of the 
Cambridge Platonists? intellectual concoctions. The debate between Baxter and More shows how 
Milton?s depiction of fiery attrition in Paradise Lost appears in a philosophical context that was 
raising questions about the relationship between divine and elemental substance. For Baxter, 
Biblical metaphors linking fire to divine power become fuel for bold philosophical ideas?
leading him to the radical notion that fire is the substantial form of the soul. Baxter?s proposal, 
like Empedocles? analogy of the gods to elements in DK6, puts spiritual and material substance 
into dynamic interplay.    
 Having seen how Raphael and Adam rely on Empedoclean cosmopoetics to explain their 
monist philosophy, and the potent metaphorics of fire in particular, I want now to look at some 
 
 
376 See Milton, Paradise Lost, 10.1073?78, quoted in full in the preceding pages.  
 
377 Sytsma, Richard Baxter and the Mechanical Philosophers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 
2017), 127. Sytsma is quoting from Baxter?s Treatises (MS 61) (London: Dr. Williams?s Trust, 
1959), IV.87, fol. 228r. On More and Baxter?s debate about the soul as fire, see Sytsma, esp. 65?
6. 
221 
more examples of elemental transformation in Paradise Lost. I already explored the Lake of Fire 
episode, which amounts to the poem?s most dramatic illustration of elemental mixture and 
fragmentation. But just as significant to Milton?s materialist theodicy is the blending of water 
and air. 
 Consider, for instance, the pneumatic explanation for the healing of Satan?s wounds 
following the War in Heaven offered by Milton?s epic voice in these lines: 
 ...for Spirits that live throughout 
Vital in every part, not as frail man 
In Entrailes, Heart or Head, Liver or Reines, 
Cannot but by annihilating die; 
Nor in thir liquid texture mortal wound  
Receive, no more then can the fluid Aire. (4.344?9)  
Milton describes how Satan, as a plastic ?Spirit? who inhabits the texture of all creation, is 
immune to death, saving total annihilation. Moreover, Satan and similar entities are incarnated in 
a ?liquid texture? that is impervious to ?mortal wound[s].? Milton analogizes the protection 
afforded by Satan?s aqueous constitution to the invulnerability of the ?fluid Aire? to injury.378 
But note that this invulnerability does not equate to total autonomy from material entanglement, 
a point Milton emphasizes through the monistic description of Satan as a spiritually interwoven 
entity, one of those ?Spirits that live throughout / Vital in every part.? Liquid air is not a holder 
 
 
378 Empedocles explores the interplay of water and air in fragment DK111, which describes 
???????? ?????????????, ?? ?? ?????? ??????????? [?tree-nourishing streams which dwell in the 
air?]. Milton almost certainly would have encountered this fragment in his reading of Diogenes 
Laertius? Lives of the Philosophers, which quotes the fragment in full at 8.59. Milton may also 
have come across Clement of Alexandria?s much briefer discussion of this fragment in the 
Stromateis at 6.30.1?3, another text Milton almost certainly read. See Appendix, DK111. 
222 
of the soul for Milton: it is a material substance which illustrates Satan?s status as a cosmic force, 
a dispersed being who, like any Empedoclean mixture, will never truly die.379 
 In another example, taken from Adam?s recollection to Raphael of his earliest memories, 
a divine presence whisks up Adam, spiriting him away to Eden over ?Fields and Waters, as in 
Aire / Smooth sliding without Step? (8.301?2). Here, Milton expresses God?s smooth 
conveyance of Adam over a landscape?s wet and dry features by analogizing his movement to a 
frictionless passage through air. This calls to mind Raphael?s earlier description of birds? easy 
passage through the sky, in which ?the Aire / Floats, as they pass, fann?d with unnumber?d 
plumes? (7.430?1). The language of floating air shows how the idea of effluence subtly 
allegorizes the motion of God, in a further instance of Milton?s Empedoclean double vision. 
 The mixture of air and water opens a rich imaginal terrain for Milton, as it taps into the 
history of pneumatic speculation about the relation between breath, blood, and spirit. This is a 
sweeping tradition in its own right, but Plotinus is a key figure. As John Dillon explains, Plotinus 
developed the idea of the ? ?pneumatic vehicle? (pneumatikon okh?ma) of the soul.? This concept 
?seems?to be an attempt to address the problem which Descartes is addressing later with the 
pineal gland.?380 What makes Plotinus? pneumatic medium of the soul so attractive to the 
Cambridge Platonists is its importance in ?establish[ing] a radical break between soul and body,? 
though this is of course the antithesis of Milton?s goal in Paradise Lost, which is why, in the 
examples cited in the preceding paragraphs, Milton invokes liquid air not as a substance of 
 
 
379 Cf. Empedocles, DK8, which I discuss in detail in Chapter One and at other points throughout 
these pages.   
 
380 John Dillon, ?Plotinus, the First Cartesian?,? in Hermathena 149 (Winter 1990): 26?7. For 
Plotinus on Empedocles, see esp. Enneads IV.8.35, I.9.5?10, VI.1, VI.7.20, and II.4.7.  
223 
incorporeal conveyance, but rather as an illustration of bodily change.381 Milton?s fluid images of 
Satan?s airy healing and God?s effortless conveyance of Adam over the landscape thus inverts 
many longstanding dualistic associations absorbed by pneumatic ideation.  
Arguing in the severest terms for Milton?s monism or dualism is somewhat reductive, as 
Milton designs the text to appeal to dualistic thinkers, subtly moving them toward monistic 
possibility. Sugimura reflects on the need for nuance when interpreting Milton?s ontology, 
pointing out that ?no one philosophic system can be said to dictate the movement of Milton?s 
mind,? taking into account the dualism of his early writings and the Platonic digressions of 
Paradise Lost.382 And when Sugimura says that ?it is an error to say that Milton believes in 
either monism or dualism,? she could be describing an openness to pluralism he inherited in part 
from Empedocles.383 In my view, Milton?s true posture toward materialism is like that of 
Empedocles: deeply rooted in Pythagorean dualism but drifting toward monistic possibility. 
Thus, in the final analysis, Fallon?s reading of Paradise Lost as an expression of materialism 
holds true. But the text?s Empedoclean aspects help add to the story of how Milton arrived at 
monism from an initially dualistic mindset, and, odd as it might sound beyond the remit of the 
Empedoclean tradition, how Milton could be thinking about material transcendence as a partner 
to materialist contemplation rather than as an enemy to it.     
Finally, the Empedoclean perspectivism of Paradise Lost can help scholars fortify 
interpretations of the poem that resist the rigid ontological program of Fish?s approach.  
 
 
381 Ibid., 27. 
 
382 Sugimura, ?Matter of Glorious Trial,? xvi.   
 
383 Ibid. 
224 
As I mentioned earlier in this chapter and in the dissertation?s general introduction, Fish 
develops a hermeneutics of trial in response to Milton?s Empedoclean ontological flux in 
Paradise Lost, a reaction that reproduces the very materialism/idealism opposition that I?ve 
argued Milton uses Empedoclean contemplation to distort. As Fish sees it, the poem?s 
perspectival vacillations are carefully designed to assess readers? Christian righteousness, 
judging their ability to spot and reject the disordered thinking of a Satanic worldview. ?Milton?s 
poetry,? Fish claims, ?not only exercises one?s intelligence and perception, but tests it.?384 Fish 
writes of Milton?s ?strategy? in the poem, one ?where he plays God to us readers and invites us 
down the paths of error in the hope that by resisting them we may become wiser by the 
experience he has provided.?385 While Fish fashions his reading as self-evident from the moral 
logic of Milton?s Christianity, this rhetorical move obscures how his response to the poem?s 
Empedoclean perspectivism is itself an ontological statement, one that Fish doesn?t take into 
account when he neatly divides the poem?s good experience from bad. Thus, Empedocles can 
remain critically useful even when we broaden out from the philosophical debates of Milton?s 
time, influencing not only how we understand early modern forays into materialist philosophy, 
but also how readers navigate the fraught waters between materialism and idealism today.   
 
 
 
 
384 Fish, Versions of Antihumanism, 34. 
 
385 Ibid., 33. 
225 
Conclusion 
Even though the importance of Empedoclean perspectivism to Milton?s monism has 
received little attention, the link is unsurprising when one considers Milton?s fluency with 
classical Greek and the centrality of oneness to Empedocles? philosophy. Nietzsche?s description 
of Empedocles helps illustrate the connection. He writes that ?Empedocles? entire pathos comes 
back to this point, that all living things are one; in this respect the gods, human beings, and 
animals are one.?386 Empedocles is an important factor in Milton?s urging that ?Earth be changed 
to Heaven, and Heaven to Earth, One Kingdom, Joy and Union without end? (7.160?1).387 The 
blur of Empedocles? poetry, with its insistence on the free movement of thought within a 
materialist framework, offers Milton an alternative model for negotiating the spiritual 
ramifications of his monist apologetic. And the interpretation of Empedocles? philosophy as an 
incoherent system is an important contributor to Milton?s famously incongruous poetic approach, 
which has intrigued critics for centuries.388 I explore in this final section some additional 
confluences between Empedocles? and Milton?s materialist dialectic, beginning with their shared 
vulnerability of being anachronistically cast as shamans. 
Indeed, to many readers, Milton?s great poem seems to tangle a dualistic and monistic 
viewpoint into a Gordian knot of philosophical contradiction, but this emblematizes the poem?s 
liminal posture across a series of dualities. Milton negotiates these dualities in a work that, like 
 
 
386 Nietzsche, ?Empedocles,? 109.  
 
387 God is the speaker of this line. 
 
388 Beyond the recent divergence between Fallon and Sugimura?s readings of the poem, I?m 
thinking back to Samuel Johnson, Richard Bentley, and Joseph Addison, whose criticism of 
Paradise Lost?s incongruous ontologies I discussed earlier in this chapter. 
226 
the poetry of Empedocles, vacillates between the concerns of heaven and earth, soul and matter, 
religion and science. Teskey argues that Milton acts as a shaman-like figure who mediates 
between a forgotten order of divine creation and a modern vision of the poet as creator. 
According to Teskey, the twists and turns of Paradise Lost highlight Milton?s role as a landmark 
poet for a newly secularizing age, one that positions creativity ?as something consecrated, 
magical, and sublime, something shamanistic.?389 It is this tension that explains the poem?s 
vacillation between seemingly incompatible modes. Teskey characterizes the experience of 
Paradise Lost as a ?delirium [that] works by a kind of oscillation, a flickering on and off of 
hallucinatory moments in rapid succession, driven by some underlying contradiction,? one that 
?oscillate[s] between two incompatible perspectives, at once affirming and denying the presence 
of spirit [incorporeal substance] in what he creates.?390 Similarly, Catherine Gimelli Martin sees 
in Milton?s metaphysical mixtures ?an equivocation that allows the figure ceaselessly to oscillate 
between both poles of meaning,? one depicting the world as both ?organic and as immanently 
numinous remnants of a divine hierarchy.?391 Highlighting the Empedoclean contours of this 
oscillation, however, can help show how the very slipperiness of Milton?s ontological poetics 
helps gives voice to his materialist vision. 
 
 
389 Teskey, 20. 
 
390 Ibid., 4?5. 
 
391 Martin, The Ruins of Allegory: Paradise Lost and the Metamorphosis of Epic Convention 
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998), 4. Martin is commenting on Milton?s question, 
?What if Earth / Be but the shadow of Heav?n, and things therein / Each to other like, more then 
on earth is thought?? (5.574?6), an inquiry whose shadowy association of heaven and earth 
reveals the Empedoclean blur in action, as does its self-conscious insistence that the two domains 
might be more alike ?then on earth is thought.?  
 
227 
Much like Milton, readers have regarded Empedocles as a ?shaman? who jumps between 
the domains of mundane experience and cosmic transcendence.392 James Warren, for instance, 
links Empedocles? self-identification as a d?mon with the reputation of Pythagoras as ?a kind of 
shaman.?393 And Whitlock suggests that Empedocles? work ?clearly shows[s] the continued 
historical connection between philosophy and shamanism.?394 David Macauley likewise writes 
that one ?can think of Empedocles as engaged in the multiple?but at that time 
undistinguished?roles of naturalist, poet, religious prophet, philosopher, and perhaps even 
shaman-healer,? terms that could be applied to Milton as well, to varying degrees.395 In a related 
way, Passannante characterizes Empedocles as inspiring Lucretius to present himself as ?a kind 
of poetic vates...a prophet who could read the past and future of matter,? and I have tried to  
illustrate in this chapter how Empedocles plays a similar role for Milton, a materialist prophet in 
his own right.396 Clearly, readers are finding a similar impulse in the spiritual dimensions of 
 
 
392 Applying the word ?shaman? to writers like Milton and Empedocles is technically 
anachronistic, since the OED records the date of the word?s first usage as 1698. Its etymological 
roots include the German schamane and Russian ?aman, and it originally referred to ?a priest or 
priest-doctor among various northern peoples of Asia,? and later broadened to apply to figures in 
other global cultures. Eventually, the world developed the more general connotation of ?a man or 
woman who is regarded as having direct access to, and influence in, the spirit world, which is 
usually manifested during a trance and empowers them to guide souls, cure illness, etc.? See 
?shaman, n. and adj.,? in the OED.  
 
393 James Warren, Presocratics (Stocksfield, England: Acumen Publishing, 2007), 191fn32. 
 
394 Greg Whitlock, ?Translator?s Commentary,? in The Pre-Platonic Philosophers, 153?264 
(Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 237.  
 
395 David Macauley, ?The Flowering of Environmental Roots and the Four Elements in 
Presocratic Philosophy: From Empedocles to Delezue and Guattari? in Worldviews 9.3 (2005): 
283. Camille Paglia refers to Empedocles as a ?transsexual shaman.? See Sexual Personae: Art 
and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), 382. 
 
396 Passannante, Catastrophizing, 203. I referred to this same passage in Chapter One. 
228 
Empedocles and Milton, both regarded by recent critics as shamanic forces who help people 
negotiate periods of radical transition, such as the Fall or political revolution. The powerful 
similarities between Milton and Empedocles as mediators of the transcendent and mundane is 
captured in Deleuze and Guattari?s comment that ?the shaman draws lines between all the points 
or spirits, outlines a constellation, a radiating set of roots tied to a central tree? [emphasis 
mine].397 Deleuze and Guattari are speaking neither of Empedocles nor Milton in this passage, 
although their metaphor of shamanic work connecting ?roots? to ?tree? illustrates the 
intermingled terminology of Empedoclean and Miltonic shamanism.398 
Finally, I want to suggest that Milton?s attraction to Empedoclean philosophy is bound up 
with the two poets? revolutionary reputations. I?ve already referred to Milton?s public, written 
support of the killing of Charles I within weeks of its occurrence, and to Empedocles? textual 
afterlife as a democratic dissolver of oligarchical and monarchic power.399 I suggest that the 
publication of Paradise Lost, with its radical materialism that moves toward monism by way of 
 
 
397 Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Brian 
Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 211. 
 
398 Deleuze and Guattari implicitly ground A Thousand Plateaus in Empedoclean terms in a 
broader sense, considering the root imagery of the ?rhizome? with its ?root? and ?radicle,? and 
the theory?s focus on the relationship between the one and multiplicity. See Deleuze and 
Guattari, esp. 5?6. Macaulay spotlights the arc between Empedoclean philosophy and Deleuze 
and Guattari?s rhizomatic project. And see also David Macauley, ?The Flowering of 
Environmental Roots and the Four Elements in Presocratic Philosophy: From Empedocles to 
Delezue and Guattari? in Worldviews 9.3 (2005): esp. 283.  
 
399 For Milton?s view on regicide, see especially Milton, ?The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates,? 
which I also cite earlier in this chapter. For Empedocles? (probably historically groundless) 
reputation as anti-monarchical, see my discussions earlier in the dissertation, especially in 
Chapter One. From these prior discussions, it should be clear that this strand of Empedocles? 
legacy would have likely been readily available to Milton, through its emergence in texts such 
as, inter alia, Plutarch?s Moralia. 
229 
ontological flux, symbolically amounts to an early modern culmination of Empedocles? 
revolutionary spirit.  
True, skeptical readers might accuse my characterization of Milton?s Empedoclean 
politics of overreaching, arguing that I?ve leapt foolishly from fleeting resonances into a much 
larger claim about Milton?s political materialism. But recall how we?ve already seen the way 
Milton animates his materialist analogies using the dynamic terms of Empedoclean physics. In 
its own right, this speaks to how Empedoclean perspectivism undergirds Milton?s dissolution of 
incorporeal substance, an idea closely tied to the medieval political-religious fiction of the divine 
right of kings.400 This alone, in my opinion, makes it hermeneutically plausible to propose that 
Paradise Lost puts Empedocles? radical materialism to political use.  
The claim is further substantiated, albeit indirectly, by the traces of Empedocles? 
democratic legacy in a text that I?ve already discussed, Rapin?s Reflexions, published in French 
and English about a decade after Paradise Lost. Despite his occasional skepticism about the 
value of philosophy, the Jesuit Rapin emphasizes its political and moral worth by citing the old 
legend that Empedocles turned down an offer to become king:      
Il est vray que la Philosophie enseigna ? Pythagore l?integrit? de m?urs & l?austerit? de 
vie, qui luy attirerent tant de Sectateurs. Ce fut elle qui fit refuser ? Empedocle une 
couronne, & preferer une vie particuliere & paisible ? tout le faste de grandeurs. 
Democrite s??leva par elle ? la contemplation des choses naturelles, & renon?a aux 
plaisirs du corps, pour jo?ir plus tranquillement des plaisirs de l?ame. 
 
 
400 On the connection between incorporeal substance and divine ordination, see generally Ernst 
H. Kantorowicz, The King?s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton: 
Princeton University Press, 1957), but esp. 193?4.  
230 
 
[It is true Philosophy taught Pythagoras the integrity of manners and austerity of life, 
which gained him so many Followers. It was Philosophy that made Empedocles refuse a 
Crown, and prefer a private and quiet life to all the magnificence of Grandeur. By 
Philosophy Democritus was raised to the contemplation of Nature, and renounced bodily 
pleasures, that he might more peaceably enjoy the delights of the Soul.]401 
Quite at odds with the tradition of declaring materialist philosophers prone to suicidal insanity, 
Rapin actually makes Empedocles out to be the practitioner of a quiet and equanimous lifestyle 
(une vie particuliere & paisible). The passage illustrates the point I made in the dissertation?s 
introduction, namely, that Empedocles offers Renaissance thinkers an alternative avenue into the 
consideration of early modern materialism, one less immediately threatening to the period?s 
sacred view of reality than the Lucretian route. Rapin?s apparent approval of Empedocles? 
philosophically induced tranquility illustrates this point dramatically. It reveals how Empedocles 
sits at a crossroads of philosophical and political resonance, perhaps helping make materialist 
tranquility and anti-monarchical sentiment equally appealing perspectives, even for a religious 
writer like Rapin working in France over 100 years before the culmination of the French 
Revolution.  
 
 
401 See Ren? Rapin, Reflexions sur la philosophie ancienne et moderne, et sur l?usage qu?on en 
doit faire pour la Religion (Paris, 1676), 2, and Reflexions upon ancient and modern philosophy, 
moral and natural. Treating of the Aegyptians, Arabians, Gretians, Romans, &c. philosophers; 
as Thales, Zeno, Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, Aristotle, Epicurus, &c. Also of the English, 
Germans, French, Spanish, Italian, &c. As Bacon, Boyle, Descartes, Hobbes, Vanhelmont, 
Gassendus, Galilens, Harvey, Paracelsus, Marsennus, Digby, &c. Together with the use that is 
to be made thereof (London, 1678), 2. 
231 
 Therefore, against the backdrop of Rapin?s allusion, Milton?s Empedoclean championing 
of the demos comes into clearer view, enveloped within a cultural-historical moment when 
Empedocles? perspectival blurriness is assisting Europeans on the Continent to question the 
hegemony of monarchical rule. The arc of this story is further concretized when one revisits 
Shakespeare?s political use of Empedoclean elementalism in Antony and Cleopatra (1607), 
which I explored in Chapter Two. Milton?s reading of Shakespeare? elemental drama could 
represent a key moment in the development of his Empedoclean politics, particularly in light of 
the recent discovery of a First Folio in the Philadelphia Free Library that has been plausibly 
identified as containing annotations by Milton. As McDowell explains,  
The recent identification of Milton?s copy of the First Folio, with the careful annotations 
likely dating for the most part from the early 1640s, should prompt a reconsideration of 
arguments for Milton?s suspicion of the Shakespearean dramatic imagination. The 
presence of Shakespeare in Milton?s political prose, in particular The Tenure of Kings 
and Magistrates and Eikonoklastes, suggests less a politically motivated rejection of 
Shakespeare as a royalist author than an appreciation of Shakespearean versions of 
British history as offering vivid lessons in the nature and consequences of tyranny.402  
McDowell?s claim that Milton and Shakespeare?s political imaginations are sympathetic can be 
further buffered by the connection I?m making between both authors? poetic use of Empedoclean 
materialism. Moreover, in the Philadelphia Free Library?s First Folio, Milton?s hand has marked 
up some of the moments from Antony and Cleopatra that I explored in Chapter Two along the 
lines of a radical elemental materialism, such as Enobarbus? speech about Cleopatra on the 
 
 
402 McDowell, Poet of Revolution, 137. 
232 
barge.403 Incidental as the markings may seem, they provide material traces of Milton?s attention 
to, and concern for, the dialectic between Shakespeare?s political and elemental imagination. 
Milton?s traces of potential encounter with the Empedoclean materialism of Antony and 
Cleopatra thus form part of a broader story fueled by thousands of years? worth of Empedoclean 
reception. Ultimately, for the early modern writers I?ve explored in this study, Empedocles? 
double tale holds together a vision of material, spiritual, and political transformation.  
 
 
403 Milton scribbled a lengthy bracket annotation along the right side of Enobarbus? entire speech 
in his copy of the Folio, crossing out the misprinted word ?gloue? and adding the elementally 
adjacent word ?glow? in the margins of the line about how the ?winde? of Cleopatra?s 
?Fannes?did gloue [sic] the delicate cheeks which they did coole,? a passage I considered in 
Chapter Two. The tiny detail of Milton?s emendation to the First Folio?s ?gloue? with ?glow? 
may be a small moment, but it keys into his elemental imagination. See Shakespeare, Mr. 
William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies Published According to the True 
Originall Copies, annotated copy in Free Library of Philadelphia, skh00001, 
https://libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/item/67237 (London, 1623), pp. 347. And see also 
McDowell, ?Reading Milton Reading Shakespeare Politically: What the Identification of 
Milton?s First Folio Does and Does Not Tell Us.? The Seventeenth Century, vol. 36, no. 4 (July-
August 2021): 509-25. 
 
233 
Appendix: A Map of Milton?s Empedocles 
(Analysis of Milton?s Exposure to Empedoclean Doxography) 
Description  
The table below offers a snapshot of Milton?s Empedoclean reading. I have cross-
referenced the doxography of the fragments, per Inwood?s analysis in The Poem of Empedocles, 
with Boswell?s study of Milton?s reading in Milton?s Library. The table displays the results of 
this cross-referencing. The first column provides the fragment number per Diels-Kranz. The 
?Sources? column lists the texts that transmitted each fragment, with any texts likely to have 
been owned or read by Milton marked with asterisks and set in blue type. For all starred sources, 
the relevant entry from Boswell is provided in brackets. Sources set in gray type are not found in 
Boswell?s study, meaning Milton was unlikely to have read them. The final column shows where 
the doxographic information is taken from in Inwood. 
The number of asterisks for each source indicate Boswell?s level of confidence that 
Milton read that text. While Boswell uses three different symbol types (?, *, and V), I have 
simplified this by using only asterisks, with more asterisks conveying higher confidence. Here is 
precisely how my system concords with Boswell?s semiotics: 
*     it?s possible Milton read the source, but questionable [Boswell uses ??? for this] 
**   a good probability Milton read the source [Boswell uses ?*? for this] 
*** high confidence Milton read or owned the source [Boswell uses ?V? for this] 
 No asterisks and grayed out: Not in Boswell?s study, and unlikely to have been read by  
 Milton 
234 
With this schema, it is possible to see exactly how a given fragment may have been transmitted 
to Milton, along with a baseline level of certainty for each source. I offer this analysis in the hope 
of providing additional avenues for investigations of Empedoclean resonance in Milton. 
However, let me emphasize that this should be regarded as a starting point for 
understanding the complexities of Milton?s Empedoclean reading, not as an absolute or 
definitive picture, for the map of Milton?s reading is a topic that scholars continue to refine. In 
other words, the table that follows is defined by the same limitations and affordances of Inwood 
and Boswell?s analyses, whose work it replicates and synthesizes. Finally, note that not every 
source transmitted ?complete? fragments; some sources quote only a line or two of a particular 
fragment. This means that one must think not only in fragments, but in fragments of fragments 
(see for instance DK17). Thus, it?s important to refer to the doxography information included in 
Inwood when scrutinizing Milton?s exposure to a particular fragment. In other words, one should 
not assume that asterisks below immediately indicate Milton?s exposure to every single line 
within that fragment. Often, these sources do transmit ?full? fragments, but this cannot be taken 
for granted. 
235 
A Map of Milton?s Empedocles 
 
DK # Sources Dox. Ref. 
1 ***Diogenes Laertius, Lives, 8.60 [Boswell #882] Inwood, 
pp. 91 
2 Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos, 7.122?5 Inwood, 
pp. 84?5 
3 Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos, 7.122?5 Inwood, 
pp. 84?5 
4 ***Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 5.18.4 (II.338.1?5) [Boswell Inwood, 
#414] pp. 82 
B5 ***Plutarch, "Table Talk," in Moralia, 728d?f [Boswell #1153] Inwood, 
pp. 149 
6 ***Diogenes Laertius, Lives, 8.76 [Boswell #882] Inwood, 
A?tius, 1.3.20 (in Doxographi Graeci, 286?7) pp. 160 & 
173 
B7 Hesychius, s. v. ???????? Inwood, 
pp. 96 
8 Pseudo-Aristotle, De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia, 975a36?b8 Inwood, 
***Plutarch, "Reply to Colotes," in Moralia 1111f?1112a [Boswell   pp. 92?4, 
#1153] 99 
***Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1014b35?1015a3 [Boswell #81] 
A?tius, 1.30.1 (in Doxographia Graeci, 326.10?21) 
Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, in Commentaria in 
Aristotelem Graeca v9, 157.25?161.20 
9 ***Plutarch, "Reply to Colotes," 1113a?d [Boswell #1153] Inwood, 
pp. 95 
B10 ***Plutarch, "Reply to Colotes," in Moralia, 1113a?d [Boswell #1153] Inwood, 
pp. 95?6 
11 ***Plutarch, "Reply to Colotes," in Moralia, 1113a?d [Boswell #1153] Inwood, 
pp. 95 
12 Pseudo-Aristotle, De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia, 975a36?b8 Inwood, 
Pseudo-Philo, The Eternity of the World, 5 pp. 92?3 
13 Pseudo-Aristotle, De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia, 976b22?27 Inwood, 
Theophrastus, De Sensibus, 13 pp. 93, 
198?9 
B14 Pseudo-Aristotle, De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia, 976b22?7 Inwood, 
pp. 93 
15 ***Plutarch, "Reply to Colotes," in Moralia, 1113a?d [Boswell #1153] Inwood, 
pp. 95?6 
236 
DK # Sources Dox. Ref. 
16 Hippolytus, Refutatio, 7.29.9?7.30.4 (211.17?215.12) Inwood, 
pp. 88 
17 ***Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1000a18?b20 [Boswell #81] Inwood, 
**Aristotle, Physics, 250b23?251a5 [Boswell #84] pp. 96?
***Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 5.15.4 (II.335.20?2) [Boswell 101, 104?
#414] 5, 113?
***Diogenes Laertius, Lives, 8.76 [Boswell #882] 14, 144?
***Plutarch, "Dialogue on Love," in Moralia, 756d [Boswell #1153] 5, 160, 
***Plutarch, "On Isis and Osiris," in Moralia, 370e [Boswell #1153] 173?4 
Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's De Caelo, in Commentaria in 
Aristotelem Graeca v7, 93.18?294.3, and 528.3?530.26 
Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, in Commentaria in 
Aristotelem Graeca v9, 25.21?26.4, 157.25?161.20, and v10, 1183.21?
1184.18 
**Stobaeus, Eclogae, 1.10.11b [Boswell #1350] 
18 ***Plutarch, "On Isis and Osiris," in Moralia, 370e [Boswell #1153] Inwood, 
pp. 144?5 
B19 ***Plutarch, "The Principle of Cold," in Moralia, 952b [Boswell Inwood, 
#1153] pp. 118?
19 
20 Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, in Commentaria in Inwood, 
Aristotelem Graeca, v10, 1123.25?1125.6 pp. 102?3 
21 Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, in Commentaria in Inwood, 
Aristotelem Graeca v9, 31.18?34.8 & 157.25?161.20 pp. 96?8, 
116?18 
22 Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, in Commentaria in Inwood, 
Aristotelem Graeca, v9, 157.25?161.20 pp. 96?9, 
Theophrastus, De Sensibus, 16 195?200 
23 Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, in Commentaria in Inwood, 
Aristotelem Graeca v9, 157.25?161.20 pp. 99?
100 
24 ***Plutarch, "The Obsolescence of Oracles," in Moralia, 418c Inwood, 
[Boswell #1153] pp. 103 
25 Scholiast on Plato's Gorgias, 498e, in Scholia Platonica Inwood, 
pp. 103 
26 Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, in Commentaria in Inwood, 
Aristotelem Graeca v9, 31.18?34.8 & 157.25?161.20, and v10, pp. 99?
1123.25?1125.6 100, 102?
3, 116?18 
237 
DK # Sources Dox. Ref. 
27 Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, in Commentaria in Inwood, 
Aristotelem Graeca, v10, 1183.21?1184.18 pp. 101?
***Plutarch, "The Face on the Moon," in Moralia, 926d?927a [Boswell 2, 104 
#1153] 
27a ***Plutarch, "Philosophers and Men in Power," in Moralia, 777c Inwood, 
[Boswell #1153] pp. 83 
28 Hippolytus, Refutatio, 7.29.9?7.30.4 (211.17?215.12) Inwood, 
pp. 88?90 
29 Hippolytus, Refutatio, 7.29.9?7.30.4 (211.17?215.12) Inwood, 
pp. 88?90 
30 ***Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1000a18?b20 [Boswell #81] Inwood, 
Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, in Commentaria in pp. 101?
Aristotelem Graeca, v10, 1183.21?1184.18 2, 104?5 
31 Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, in Commentaria in Inwood, 
Aristotelem Graeca, v10, 1183.21?1184.18 pp. 101?2 
B32 Pseudo-Aristotle, On Indivisible Lines, 972b29?30 Inwood, 
pp. 123  
33 ***Plutarch, "On Having Many Friends," in Moralia, 95a?b [Boswell Inwood, 
#1153] pp. 129 
34 **Aristotle, Meteorologica, 381b31?382a2 [Boswell #82] Inwood, 
pp. 120 
35 **Aristotle, De Caelo, 295a29?b9 [Boswell #73] Inwood, 
**Aristotle, Poetics, 1461a23?5 [Boswell #85] pp. 112?
**Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, 423f [Boswell #107] 18, 120?1 
***Plutarch, "Table Talk," in Moralia, 677d [Boswell #1153] 
Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's De Caelo, in Commentaria in 
Aristotelem Graeca, v7, 528.3?530.26, and 586.5?587.26 
Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, in Commentaria in 
Aristotelem Graeca, v9, 31.18?24.8 
36 ***Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1000a18?b20 [Boswell #81] Inwood, 
**Stobaeus, Eclogae, 1.10.11a [Boswell #1350] pp. 104?5 
37 Aristotle, De Generatione et Corruptione, 333a35?b3  Inwood, 
pp. 108 
38 ***Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 5.48.2?3 (II.358.15?23) Inwood, 
[Boswell #414] pp. 106 
39 **Aristotle, De Caelo, 294a21?8 [Boswell #73] Inwood, 
pp. 109 
238 
DK # Sources Dox. Ref. 
40 ***Plutarch, "The Face of the Moon," in Moralia, 920c [Boswell Inwood, 
#1153] pp. 109 
41 ***Macrobius, Saturnalia, 1.17.46 [Boswell #944] Inwood, 
*The Suda, s. v. Helios [Boswell #1358] pp. 109?
10 
42 ***Plutarch, "The Face on the Moon," in Moralia, 929c?e [Boswell Inwood, 
#1153] pp. 110?
11 
43 ***Plutarch, "The Face on the Moon," in Moralia, 929c?e [Boswell Inwood, 
#1153] pp. 110?
11 
44 ***Plutarch, "The Oracles at Delphi," in Moralia, 400b [Boswell Inwood, 
#1153] pp. 110 
45 Achilles Tatius, Introduction to Aratus v16, 43.2?6 Inwood, 
pp. 111 
46 ***Plutarch, "The Face on the Moon," in Moralia, 925b?c [Boswell Inwood, 
#1153] pp. 111 
47 Anecdota Graeca, ed. Bekker (1814), 1.337.13-15 Inwood, 
pp. 110 
48 ***Plutarch, "Platonic Questions," in Moralia, 1006e [Boswell #1153] Inwood, 
pp. 111 
49 ***Plutarch, "Table Talk," in Moralia, 720e [Boswell #1153] Inwood, 
pp. 112 
A49a Philo of Alexandria, On Providence, Armenian prose translation, 2.60? Inwood, 
1 pp. 106?7 
50 Tzetzes, Allegories of the Iliad, 15.85?6 Inwood, 
pp. 112 
51 *Eustathius, Commentary on the Odyssey, 1.321 [Boswell #578] Inwood, 
Scholiast on Odyssey, 1.320 pp. 107 
52 Proclus, Commentary on Plato's Timaeus, 8.26?9.4  Inwood, 
pp. 109 
53 Aristotle, De Generatione et Corruptione, 334a1?7  Inwood, 
**Aristotle, Physics, 196a17?24 [Boswell #84] pp. 107?
Philoponus, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, in Commentaria in 8, 135 
Aristotelem Graeca, v16, 261.17?25 
Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, in Commentaria in 
Aristotelem Graeca, v9, 330.31?331.17 
239 
DK # Sources Dox. Ref. 
54 Aristotle, De Generatione et Corruptione, 334a1?7  Inwood, 
pp. 108 
55 A?tius, 3.8.1, in Doxographi Graeci, 381 Inwood, 
**Aristotle, Meteorologica, 2.3, 357a24?8 [Boswell #82] pp. 112, 
184 
56 Hephaestion, Handbook, 1.3 Inwood, 
pp. 112 
57 **Aristotle, De Anima, 400a28?30 [Boswell #72] Inwood, 
**Aristotle, De Caelo, 300b25?31 [Boswell #73] pp. 120?
*Aristotle, De Generatione Animalium, 722b3?28 [Boswell #74] 3, 126 
Philoponus, Commentary on Aristotle's De Anima, in Commentaria in 
Aristotelem Graeca, v15, 545.17?20 
Philoponus, Commentary on Aristotle's De Generatione Animalium, in 
Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, 14.3, 27.31?28.14 
Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's De Caelo, in Commentaria in 
Aristotelem Graeca, v7, 586.5?587.26 
B58 Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's De Caelo, in Commentaria in Inwood, 
Aristotelem Graeca, v7, 586.5?587.26  pp. 120?1 
59 Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's De Caelo, in Commentaria in Inwood, 
Aristotelem Graeca, v7, 586.5?586.26 pp. 120?1 
B60 ***Plutarch, "Reply to Colotes," in Moralia, 1123b [Boswell #1153] Inwwod, 
pp. 123 
61 Aelian, On Animals, 16.29 Inwood, 
**Aristotle, Physics, 198b29?32 [Boswell #84] pp. 123?4 
***Plutarch, "Reply to Colotes," in Moralia, 1123b [Boswell #1153] 
Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, in Commentaria in 
Aristotelem Graeca, v9, 371.33?372.9 
62 **Aristotle, Physics, 199b7?13 [Boswell #84] Inwood, 
Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, in Commentaria in pp. 124?5 
Aristotelem Graeca, v9. 381.29?382.18 
63 *Aristotle, De Generatione Animalium, 722b3?28, and 764b15?18 Inwood, 
[Boswell #74] pp. 126 
64 ***Plutarch, "Natural Phenomena," in Moralia, 917c [Boswell #1153] Inwood, 
pp. 125?6 
65 *Aristotle, De Generatione Animalium, 723a23?6 [Boswell #74] Inwood, 
Philoponus, Commentary on Aristotle's De Generatione Animalium, in pp. 127 
Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, 14.3, 30.1?7 
66 Scholion to Euripides, Phoenissae, 18, in Scholia in Euripidem (1887), Inwood, 
v1, 249?50 pp. 125?6 
240 
DK # Sources Dox. Ref. 
A66a Philo of Alexandria, On Providence, Armenian prose translation, 2.60? Inwood, 
1 pp. 106?7 
67 ***Galen, Commentary on Hippocrates' Epidemics 6, 2.46, in Claudii Inwood, 
Galeni Opera Omnia [Boswell #631] pp. 127 
68 *Aristotle, De Generatione Animalium, 777a7?12 [Boswell #74] Inwood, 
pp. 128 
B69 Proclus, Commentary on Plato's Republic, v2, pp. 34.25?8 Inwood, 
pp. 128 
B70 Rufus of Ephesus, On Naming of the Parts of Man, 229 (pp. 166.12? Inwood, 
13) pp. 128 
71 Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's De Caelo, in Commentaria in Inwood, 
Aristotelem Graeca, v7, 586.3?530.26 pp. 113?
16 
72 **Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, 334b [Boswell #107] Inwood, 
pp. 129 
73 Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's De Caelo, in Commentaria in Inwood, 
Aristotelem Graeca, v7, 586.3?530.26 pp. 113?
16 
74 ***Plutarch, "Table Talk," in Moralia, 685f [Boswell #1153] Inwood, 
pp. 132 
75 Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's De Caelo, in Commentaria in Inwood, 
Aristotelem Graeca, v7, 586.3?530.26 pp. 113?
Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, in Commentaria in 16, and 
Aristotelem Graeca v9, 330.31?331.17 135 
76 ***Plutarch, "Table Talk," in Moralia, 618b [Boswell #1153] Inwood, 
***Plutarch, "The Face on the Moon," in Moralia, 927f [Boswell pp. 132 
#1153] 
77 ***Plutarch, "Table Talk," in Moralia, 649c?d [Boswell #1153] Inwood, 
***Theophrastus, De Causis Plantarum, 1.13.2, 1?8 [Boswell #1407] pp. 129?
30 
78 ***Plutarch, "Table Talk," in Moralia, 649c?d [Boswell #1153] Inwood, 
***Theophrastus, De Causis Plantarum, 1.13.2, 1?8 [Boswell #1407] pp. 129?
30 
79 *Aristotle, De Generatione Animalium, 731a1-9 [Boswell #74] Inwood, 
***Theophrastus, De Causis Plantarum, 1.7.1, 1?5 [Boswell #1407] pp. 130 
80 ***Plutarch, "Table Talk," in Moralia, 683d?f [Boswell #1153] Inwood, 
pp. 131 
81 ***Aristotle, Topics, 127a17?19 [Boswell #90] Inwood, 
***Plutarch, "Natural Phenomena," in Moralia, 912b-c, and 919c-d pp. 131?2 
[Boswell #1153] 
241 
DK # Sources Dox. Ref. 
82 **Aristotle, Meteorologica, 387b1?6 [Boswell #82] Inwood, 
pp. 132?3 
83 ***Plutarch, "On Chance," in Moralia, 98d [Boswell #1153] Inwood, 
pp. 133 
84 Aristotle, De Sensu, 437b23?438a5 Inwood, 
Alexander of Aphrodisias, Commentary on Aristotle's De Sensu, in pp. 136?7 
Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, 3.1, 23.8?24.9 
85 Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, in Commentaria in Inwood, 
Aristotelem Graeca, v9, 330.30?331.17 pp. 135 
86 Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's De Caelo, in Commentaria in Inwood, 
Aristotelem Graeca, v7, 586.3?530.26 pp. 113?
16 
87 Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's De Caelo, in Commentaria in Inwood, 
Aristotelem Graeca, v7, 586.3?530.26 pp. 113?
16 
88 **Aristotle, Poetics, 1458a4?5 [Boswell #85] Inwood, 
pp. 137 
89 ***Plutarch, "Natural Phenomena," in Moralia, 916d [Boswell #1153] Inwood, 
 pp. 133 
90 ***Plutarch, "Table Talk," in Moralia, 663a [Boswell #1153] 
***Macrobius, Saturnalia, 7.5.17?18 [Boswell #944] 
91 Alexander of Aphrodisias, Quaestiones, 2.23, in Commentaria in Inwood, 
Aristotelem Graeca, Supp. 2.2.72.9?27 pp. 133, 
Philoponus, Commentary on Aristotle's De Generatione Animalium, in 198, 203?
Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, 14.3, 123.16?21 4 
Theophrastus, De Sensibus, 12 
92 *Aristotle, De Generatione Animalium, 747a24?b3 [Boswell #74] Inwood, 
pp. 194 
93 ***Plutarch, "The Obsolescence of Oracles," in Moralia, 433b Inwood, 
[Boswell #1153] pp. 134 
94 ***Plutarch, "Natural Phenomena," in Moralia, 39 [Boswell #1153] Inwood, 
pp. 137?8 
95 Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's De Caelo, in Commentaria in Inwood, 
Aristotelem Graeca, v7, 586.3?530.26 pp. 113?
16 
242 
DK # Sources Dox. Ref. 
96 **Aristotle, De Anima, 410a1?6 [Boswell #72] Inwood, 
Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, in Commentaria in pp. 119 
Aristotelem Graeca, v9, 300.19?26 
Paraphrased by Simplicius in his Commentary on Aristotle's De Anima, 
in Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, v11, 68.2?14 
B97 ***Aristotle, De Partibus Animalium, 640a19?22 [Boswell #76] Inwood, 
pp. 128 
98 Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, in Commentaria in Inwood, 
Aristotelem Graeca, v9, 31.18?34.8, and 330.30?331.17 pp. 116?
18, 135 
B99 Theophrastus, De Sensibus, 9 Inwood, 
pp. 197 
100 Aristotle, De Respiratione, 473a15?474a6 Inwood, 
pp. 138?9 
101 Anonymous, Commentary on Plato's Theaetetus, col. 70.43?71.6 Inwood, 
***Plutarch, "Natural Phenomena," in Moralia, 917e [Boswell #1153] pp. 139?
***Plutarch, "On Being a Busybody," in Moralia, 520e [Boswell 40 
#1153] 
Pseudo-Alexander, Problemata, 3.102 
102 Theophrastus, De Sensibus, 22 Inwood, 
pp. 201?2 
103 Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, in Commentaria in Inwood, 
Aristotelem Graeca, v9, 330.30?331.17 pp. 135 
104 Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, in Commentaria in Inwood, 
Aristotelem Graeca, v9, 330.30?331.17 pp. 135 
105 Porphyry, On Styx, in **Stobaeus, Eclogae, 1.49.53 Inwood, 
pp. 136 
106 **Aristotle, De Anima, 427a21?5 [Boswell #72] Inwood, 
***Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1009b17?20 [Boswell #81] pp. 134 
107 Theophrastus, De Sensibus, 10 Inwood, 
pp. 197?8 
108 *Aristotle, De Anima, 427a21?5 [Boswell #72] Inwood, 
***Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1009b17?20 [Boswell #81] pp. 134 
109 **Aristotle, De Anima, 404b8?15 [Boswell #72] Inwood, 
***Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1000a18?b20 [Boswell #81] pp. 83?4, 
Hippolytus, Refutatio, 6.11?12 (138.3?9) 92, 104?5 
Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos, 1.302?3 
110 Hippolytus, Refutatio, 7.29.9?7.30.4 (211.17?215.12) Inwood, 
pp. 90 
243 
DK # Sources Dox. Ref. 
111 ***Diogenes Laertius, Lives, 8.59 [Boswell #882] Inwood, 
***Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 6.30.1?3 (II.445.11?20) pp. 91?2 
[Boswell #414] 
112 ***Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotecha Historica, 13.83.2 [Boswell #492] Inwood, 
***Diogenes Laertius, Lives, 8.54, 8.61?2, 8.66 [Boswell #882] pp. 81?4, 
Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos, 1.302?3 157?8, 
*The Suda, s. v. Empedocles [Boswell #1358] 161?2 
T zetzes, Exegesis of the Iliad, 29.21?7 
113 Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos, 1.302?3 Inwood, 
pp. 83?4 
114 ***Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 5.9.1 (II.331.12?16) [Boswell Inwood, 
#414] pp. 82 
115 **Celsus, in Origen, Contra Celsum, 8.53 [Boswell #1048] Inwood, 
***Hierocles of Alexandria, Commentary on the Carmen Aureum, ed. pp. 86?
Koehler, 24.2?3 [Boswell #762] 91, 101?
Hippolytus, Refutatio, 7.29.9?7.30.4 (211.17?215.12, 216.7?13) 2, & 142?
Plotinus, Enneads, 4.8.1, 17?22 3 
***Plutarch, "On Exile, in Moralia, 607c?d [Boswell #1153] 
***Plutarch, "On Isis and Osiris," in Moralia, 361c [Boswell #1153] 
***Plutarch, "Obsolescence of Oracles," in Moralia, 418e, 420d 
[Boswell #1153] 
Porphyry, in Stobaeus, ed. Wachsmuth, 2.8.42 (pp. 169, 3?8) 
Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, in Commentaria in 
Aristotelem Graeca v10, 1183.21?1184.18 
116 ***Plutarch, "Table Talk," in Moralia, 745c?d [Boswell #1153] Inwood, 
pp. 141 
117 ***Diogenes Laertius, Lives, 8.77 [Boswell #882] Inwood, 
Hippolytus, Refutatio, 1.3 pp. 161, 
*The Suda, s. v. "Empedocles" [Boswell #1358] and 172 
118 ***Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 3.14.1?2 (II.201.23?202.3) Inwood, 
[Boswell #414] pp. 142 
Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos, 11.96 
119 ***Plutarch, "On Exile," in Moralia, 607c?d [Boswell #1153] Inwood, 
pp. 86 
120 Plotinus, Enneads, 4.8.1.33?6 Inwood, 
Porphyry, De Antro Nympharum, 8, in Porphyrii Philosophi Platonici pp. 144 
Opuscula Selecta, pp. 61.17?21 
121 ***Hierocles, Commentary on the Carmen Aureum, 24.2?3 [Boswell Inwood, 
#762] pp. 142?3 
Proclus, Commentary on Plato's Cratylus, 103  
Proclus, Commentary on Plato's Republic, 614d?e, vol. 2, 157.24?8  
Synesius, On Providence, 1 
244 
DK # Sources Dox. Ref. 
122 ***Plutarch, "On Isis and Osiris," in Moralia, 370e [Boswell #1153] Inwood, 
***Plutarch, "On Tranquility of Mind," in Moralia, 474b?c [Boswell pp. 144?5 
#1153] 
123 Cornutus, Theologiae Graecae Compendium, v17, pp. 30.2?8 Inwood, 
pp. 145 
124 ***Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 3.14.1?2 (II.201.23?202.3) Inwood, 
[Boswell #414] pp. 142 
125 ***Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 3.14.1?2 [Boswell #414] Inwood, 
pp. 142 
126 ***Plutarch, "On the Eating of Flesh," in Moralia, 998c [Boswell Inwood, 
#1153] pp. 141?2 
Porphyry, in **Stobaeus Eclogae, 1.49.60 [Boswell #1350] 
127 Aelian, On Animals, 12.7 Inwood, 
pp. 151 
128 Porphyry, De Abstinentia, 2.20?2, in Porphyrii Philosophi Platonici Inwood, 
Opuscula Selecta, pp. 150.9?151.13 pp. 145?6 
129 ***Diogenes Laertius, Lives, 8.54 [Boswell #882] Inwood, 
Porphyry, Life of Pythagoras, 30?1, in Porphyrii Philosophi Platonici pp. 83 & 
Opuscula Selecta 154 
130 Scholion to Nicander's Theriaca, line 452 Inwood, 
pp. 146 
131 Hippolytus, Refutatio, 7.31.3?4 (216.21?217.4) Inwood, 
pp. 85?6 
132 ***Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 5.140.5 (II.420.28?421.4) Inwood, 
[Boswell #414] pp. 82?3 
133 ***Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 5.81.2 (II.380.5?9) [Boswell Inwood, 
#414] pp. 140 
134 Ammonius, Commentary on Aristotle's De Interpretatione, in Inwood, 
Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, 4.5, 249.1?11 pp. 140?1 
Tzetzes, Chiliades, 7.522?26 
135 ***Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1373b6?17 [Boswell #89] Inwood, 
*Cicero, De Republica, 3.11.19 [Boswell #364] pp. 146?7 
Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras, 108 
136 Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos, 9.126?30 Inwood, 
pp. 147?8 
137 **Origen, Contra Celsum, 5.49, pp. 54.1?4 [Boswell #1048] Inwood, 
***Plutarch, "On Superstition," in Moralia, 171c [Boswell #1153] pp. 147?8 
Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos, 108 
138 **Aristotle, Poetics, 1457b13?16 [Boswell #85] Inwood, 
pp. 149 
245 
DK # Sources Dox. Ref. 
139 Porphyry, De Abstinentia, 2.31, in Porphyrii Philosophi Platonici Inwood, 
Opuscula Selecta, pp. 161.13?20 pp. 146 
140 ***Plutarch, "Table Talk," in Moralia, 646d [Boswell #1153] Inwood, 
pp. 150 
141 ***Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, 4.11.1?2 [Boswell #115] Inwood, 
pp. 150?1 
142 Voll. Herc. N. 1012, col. 18 Inwood, 
pp. 152 
143 **Aristotle, Poetics, 1457b13?16 [Boswell #85] Inwood, 
Theo Smyrnaeus, 15.7?11 pp. 149 
144 ***Plutarch, "On the Control of Anger," in Moralia, 464b [Boswell Inwood, 
#1153] pp. 150 
145 ***Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus, 2.27.2 (I.20.13?18) [Boswell Inwood, 
#411] pp. 148 
146 ***Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 4.150.1 (II.314.25?9) [Boswell Inwood, 
#414] pp. 151 
147 ***Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 5.122.3 (II.409.8?13), qtd. in Inwood, 
**Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica, 13.13.49 (684d?685a) [Boswell pp. 151?2 
414 & 576] 
B148 ***Plutarch, "Natural Phenomena," in Moralia, 912b?c [Boswell Inwood, 
#1153] pp. 131 
B149 ***Plutarch, "Natural Phenomena," in Moralia, 912b?c [Boswell Inwood, 
#1153] pp. 131 
B150 ***Plutarch, "Natural Phenomena," in Moralia, 912b?c [Boswell Inwood, 
#1153] pp. 131 
B151 ***Plutarch, "Dialogue on Love," in Moralia, 756e [Boswell #1153] Inwood, 
pp. 128 
B152 **Aristotle, Poetics, 1457b22?5 [Boswell #85] Inwood, 
pp. 129 
B153 Hesychius, s. v. ????? Inwood, 
pp. 129 
153a Theo Smyrnaeus, pp. 104.1?3 Inwood, 
pp. 127 
B158 ***Hierocles, Commentary on the Carmen Aureum, 24.2?3 [Boswell Inwood, 
#762] pp. 142?3 
N/A Herodian, General Accentuation, in Jahrbuch der ?sterreichischen Inwood, 
Byzantinischen Gesellschaft, 1?33; N.B. According to Inwood, "this is pp. 135 
a new fragment, recovered from a palimpsest and published by H. 
Hunger" in 1967 
2 46 
Bibliography 
 
Primary Works 
Adam, Charles and Paul Tannery, editors. ?uvres de Descartes. 12 vols. Paris, 1897?1910. 
Addison, Joseph. The Spectator: Vol. IV. Second edition. London, 1712. 
Aelian. De Natura Animalium [On Animals] Libri XVII: Varia Historia, Epistolae Fragmenta.  
Edited by Rudolph Hercher. 2 vols. Leipzig: Teubner, 1864?66. 
A?tius. In Doxographi Graeci, edited by Hermann Diels, 273?444. Berlin, 1879. 
Alexander of Aphrodisias. Commentary on Aristotle's De Sensu. In Commentaria in Aristotelem 
Graeca, edited by Hermann Diels, volume 3, part 1. Berlin, 1882?1909. 
???. Quaestiones. In Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, edited by Hermann Diels, Supp. 
2.2.72.9?27. Berlin, 1882?1909. 
Ammonius. Commentary on Aristotle?s De Interpretatione. In Commentaria in Aristotelem 
Graeca, edited by Hermann Diels, volume 4, part 5. Berlin, 1882?1909. 
Anaxagoras. ?The Fragments and Their Contexts.? In Anaxagoras of Clazomenae: Fragments 
and Testimonia, translated by Patricia Curd, 13?30. Toronto: University of Toronto 
Press, 2007. 
Anonymous. ?In Theaetetum, PBerol inv. 9782? [Commentary on Plato?s Theaetetus]. In Corpus 
Dei Papyri Filosofici Greci e Latini Parte III: Commentari, edited by G. Bastianini, 227?
562. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1995. 
Aratus of Soli. Commentariorum in Aratum Reliquiae. Edited by Ernst Maass. Berlin: Apud 
Weidmannos, 1898. 
Ariosto, Ludovico. Orlando Furioso: A New Verse Translation. Translated by David R. Slavitt. 
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009. 
Aristotle. Art of Rhetoric. Translated by John Henry Freese. Revised by Gisela Striker. Loeb 
Classical Library 193. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020.  
???. ?De Anima? [?On the Soul?]. In On the Soul, Parva Naturalia, On Breath, translated by 
W. S. Hett, 8?206. Loeb Classical Library 288. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 
Press, 1957. 
???. De Caelo. Translated by W. K. C. Guthrie. Loeb Classical Library 338. Cambridge, 
MA: Harvard University Press, 1939. 
???. Generation of Animals [De Generatione Animalium]. Translated by A. L. Peck. Loeb 
Classical Library 366. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942. 
???. Metaphysics. Translated by Hugh Tredennick. 2 vols. Loeb Classical Library 271 and 
287. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1933?5.                           
???. ?Meteorologica.? In Aristotle VII, translated by H. D. P. Lee, 2?366. Loeb Classical 
Library 397. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952. 
???. ?On Coming-to-Be and Passing-Away? [?De Generatione et Corruptione?]. In Aristotle 
III, translated by E. S. Forster, 162?332. Loeb Classical Library 400. Cambridge, MA: 
Harvard University Press, 1955. 
???. ?On Respiration? [?De Respiratione?]. In Aristotle VIII, translated by W. S. Hett, 430?
83. Loeb Classical Library 288. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957. 
247 
???. ?On Sense and Sensible Objects? [?De Sensu?]. In Aristotle VIII, translated by W. S. 
Hett, 214?86. Loeb Classical Library 288. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 
1957. 
???. ?Parts of Animals? [?De Partibus Animalium?]. In Aristotle XII, translated by A. L. 
Peck, 8?435. Loeb Classical Library 323. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 
1961. 
???. Physics. Translated by Philip H. Wicksteed and Francis M. Cornford. 2 vols. Loeb 
Classical Library 228 and 255. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1929?1957.  
???. ?Poetics.? In Aristotle XXIII, edited and translated by Stephen Halliwell, 28?141. Loeb 
Classical Library 199. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.   
???. ?Topica? [?Topics?]. In Aristotle II, translated by E. S. Forster, 272?740. Loeb Classical 
Library 391. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960.  
Athenaeus of Naucratis. The Learned Banqueters [Deipnosophists]. 8 vols. Translated by S. 
Douglas Olson. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 
2006?2012. 
Augustine of Hippo. Confessions. Translated by Henry Chadwick. Oxford: Oxford University 
Press, 2008. 
Aulus Gellius. Noctes Atticae. Edited by P. K. Marshall. 2 vols. Oxford Classical Texts. Oxford: 
Oxford University Press, 1968. 
Baxter, Richard. Baxter Treatises (MS 59 and MS 61). London: Dr. Williams?s Trust, 1959. 
Bekker, Immanuel, editor. Anecdota Graeca. Berlin, 1814. 
Bentley, Richard, editor. Milton?s ?Paradise Lost?: A New Edition. London, 1732. 
Brant, Sebastian. The Shyppe of Fooles. London, 1509.   
Burnet, John, translator. Early Greek Philosophy. London: A&C Black, 1920. 
Callimachus. ?Epigrams.? In Callimachus: Hymns and Epigrams, Lycophron, Aratus, translated 
by A. W. Mair, 136?84. Loeb Classical Library 129. Cambridge, MA: Harvard 
University Press, 1955. 
Cicero. ?De Fato.? In Cicero: De Oratore, Book III: De Fato, Paradoxa Stoicorum, De 
Partitione Oratoria [Cicero IV], translated by H. Rackham, 192?249. Loeb Classical 
Library 349. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942. 
???. ?De Re Publica.? In Cicero XVI, translated by Clinton Walker Keyes, 12?286. Loeb 
Classical Library 213. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928.  
Clement of Alexandria. ?Protrepticus.? In Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten 
drei Jahrhunderte, vol. 12. Edited by Otto St?hlin. Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1905. 
???. ?Stromateis.? In Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei 
Jahrhunderte, edited by Otto St?hlin, vol. 52. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1906. 
Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca. Edited by Hermann Diels. 23 vols. Berlin: G. Reimer, 
1891?1909. 
Cornutus. Theologiae Graecae Compendium. Edited by Carl Lang. Leipzig: Teubner, 1881. 
Cottingham, John, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny, translators. The 
Philosophical Writings of Descartes. 3 vols. New York: Cambridge University Press, 
1985?91. 
Cudworth, Ralph. The True Intellectual System of the Universe. London, 1678. 
Dante Alighieri. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Volume 1, Inferno. Translated by Robert 
M. Durling. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. 
248 
Democritus. ?Testimonia, Part 2: Doctrine (D).? In Early Greek Philosophy, Volume VII: Later 
Ionian and Athenian Thinkers, Part 2, translated by Andr? Laks and Glenn W. Most, 60?
347. Loeb Classical Library 530. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016. 
Diodorus Siculus. The Library of History [Bibliotheca Historica], Volume V: Books XII.41?XIII. 
Translated by C. H. Oldfather. Loeb Classical Library 384. Cambridge, MA: Harvard 
University Press, 1950. 
Diogenes Laertius. Lives of Eminent Philosophers. 2 vols.  Loeb Classical Library 184 and 185. 
 Translated by R.D. Hicks. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925?72. 
??? . The Lives, Opinions, and Remarkable Sayings of the Most Famous Ancient 
 Philosophers. Written in Greek, by Diogenes Laertius. Made English by Several Hands. 2 
 vols. London, 1688?96.  
Doxographi Graeci. Edited by Hermann Diels. Berlin: G. Reimer, 1879. 
Dryden, John. Mac Flecknoe, or, A satyr upon the true-blew-Protestant poet, T. S. by the author 
of Absalom & Achitophel. London, 1682. 
Du Bartas, Guillaume de Salluste. Du Bartas his deuine weekes and workes translated: and 
dedicated to the Kings most excellent Maiestie by Iosuah Syluester. Translated by Josuah 
Sylvester. London, 1611.  
???. Les ?uvres de Guillaume de Saluste seigneur du Bartas : reveues et augment?es par 
l?auteur. Geneva, 1582. 
Empedocles. The Poem of Empedocles. Translated by Brad Inwood. Toronto: Toronto University 
Press, 2010. 
Epic of Gilgamesh, The. Translated by Benjamin R. Foster. New York: Norton, 2019. 
Estienne, Henri [Henrico Stephanus]. Poesis Philosophica. Geneva, 1573.  
???. Poetae Graeci Principes Heroici Carminis. Geneva, 1566.  
???. Thesaurus Graecae Linguae. Geneva, 1572. 
Eusebius. La Pr?paration ?vang?lique [Praeparatio Evangelica]. Edited by Jean Sirinelli and 
?douard des Places. Paris: Les ?ditions du Cerf, 1974.  
Eustathius. Comentarii ad Homeri Iliadem et Odysseam. 4 vols. Edited by Gottfried Stallbaum. 
Hildesheim: Olms, 1960. 
Galen of Pergamum. Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia. 22 vols. Edited by Karl Gottlob K?hn. 
Leipzig, 1821?33. 
Garzoni, Tommaso. L?Hospidale de Pazzi Incurabili. Venice, 1586. 
???. The Hospital of Incurable Fools, Erected into English. London, 1600. 
Gentian, Hervet, trans. Sexti Empirici Adversvs mathematicos, hoc est aduersus qui prositentur 
 disciplinas, Opvs eruditissimum, complectens vniuersam Pyrrhoniorum acutissimorum 
 Philosophorum disputandi de quibuslibet disciplinis & artibus rationem, Gr?c? 
 nunquam, Latin? nunc prim?m editum, Gentiano Herveto Avrelio interprete. Eivsdem 
 Sexti Pyrrhoniarvm Hypotys[o]se[o]n libri tres: Qvibvs in tres Philosophi?partes 
 seuerissim? inquiritur. Libri magno ingenij acumine scripti, veriaque doctrina referti: 
 Gr?ce nunquam, Latin? nunc prim?m editi, interpretate Henrico Stephano. Accessit & 
 Pyrrhonis vita, ex Diogene La?rtio: ex vulgata interpretatione, sed multis in locis 
 castigata. Item, Claudij Galeni Pergameni contra Academico & Pyrrhonios, D. Erasmo 
 Roterodamo interprete. Antwerp, 1569.  
249 
Glanvill, Joseph. Essays on Several Important Subjects in Philosophy and Religion by Joseph 
Glanvill, Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty, and Fellow of the R. S. London, 1676. 
Hephaestion. Handbook. Edited by M. Consbruch. Leipzig: Teubner, 1906. 
Herodian. General Accentuation. In Jahrbuch der ?sterreichischen Byzantinischen Gesellschaft, 
edited by H. Hunger, vol. 16. Vienna: H. B?hlaus, 1951?68. 
Hesiod. Theogony, Works and Days, Testimonia [Hesiod I]. Edited and translated by Glenn W. 
Most. Loeb Classical Library 57. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018.  
Hesychius of Alexandria. Hesychii Alexandrini Lexicon. Edited by M. Schmidt. Amsterdam, 
1965. 
Hierocles. Hieroclis in Aureum Pythagoreorum Carmen Commentarius [Commentary on the 
Carmen Aureum]. Edited by F. G. Koehler. Stuttgart: Teubner, 1974. 
Hippolytus. ?Refutatio.? In Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller, edited by P. Wendland, 
 3:551?76. Leipzig, 1916. 
Holland, Philemon, trans. The Philosophie, Commonlie Called, The Morals Written by the 
 Learned Philosopher PLUTARCH of Chaeronea. Translated out of Greeke into English, 
 and conferred with the Latine translations and the French, by Philemon Holland of 
 Coventrie, Doctor in Physicke. London, 1603. 
Holy Bible, The. King James Version. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. 
Horace. ?Ars Poetica.? In Horace: Satires, Epistles, and Ars Poetica, translated by H. Rushton 
Fairclough, 442?90. Loeb Classical Library 194. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 
Press, 1929. 
Horrell, Joseph. ?Milton, Limbo, and Suicide.? The Review of English Studies 18, no. 72 (Oct. 
 1942): 413?27. 
Hume, Patrick. Annotations on Milton?s ?Paradise Lost.? London, 1695. 
Iamblichus. Life of Pythagoras. Edited by L. Deubner and U. Klein. Stuttgart: Teubner, 1975. 
Johnson, Samuel. ?Milton.? In The Lives of the Poets: A Selection, edited by Roger Lonsdale, 
 54?114. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.  
Jonson, Ben. ?News from the New World Discovered in the Moon.? In Ben Jonson: The 
 Complete Masques, edited by Stephen Orgel, 292?305. New Haven: Yale University 
 Press, 1969. 
??? . ?To the memory of my beloved the author Mr. William Shakespeare and what he hath 
 left us.? In the Digital Facsimile of the Bodleian First Folio of Shakespeare's Plays, 
 Arch. G c.7, A4 recto. London, 1623. 
????. The Workes of Benjamin Jonson. London, 1641. 
Kircher, Athanasius. Mundus Subterraneus, In XII libros digestus; quo divinum subterrestris  
 mundi opificium, mira ergasteriorum natur? in eo distributio, verbo pant?morphou 
 Protei regnum, univers? denique natur? majestas. Amsterdam, 1665. 
????. The vulcano's, or, Burning and fire-vomiting mountains, famous in the world, with their 
 remarkables collected for the most part out of Kircher's Subterraneous world, and 
 exposed to more general view in English: upon the relation of the late wonderful and 
 prodigious eruptions of ?tna, thereby to occasion greater admirations of the wonders of 
 nature (and of the God of nature) in the mighty element of fire. London, 1669.   
Laks, Andr? and Glenn W. Most, editors and translators. Early Greek Philosophy. 9 vols. Loeb 
 Classical Library 524?32. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016.  
Legrand, Jacques. Here Begynneth the Table of a Book Entytled the Book of Good Maners. 
 London, 1487. 
250 
???. Le Livre De Bonnes Meurs. Burgundy, ca. 1450. 
Lough, Robin, director. Antony and Cleopatra. Royal Shakespeare Company. BBC, 2018. Blu-
ray Disc, 195 mins. 
Lucian. ?The Patriot? [?Philopatris?]. In Lucian Volume VIII, translated by M. D. MacLeod, 
413?68. Loeb Classical Library 432. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967. 
???. ?Icaromenippus, or the Sky-Man.? In Lucian II, translated by A. M. Harmon, edited by 
 Jeffrey Henderson, 267?324. Loeb Classical Library 54. Cambridge, MA: Harvard 
 University Press, 1915.  
Lucretius. Lucretius: De Rerum Natura. Translated by W.H.D. Rouse. Loeb Classical Library 
 181. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992. 
Macrobius. Saturnalia. Edited by J. A. Willis. Leipzig: Teubner, 1963.  
Midgley, Robert. A New Treatise of Natural Philosophy, Free?d from the Intricacies of the 
 Schools Adorned With Many Curious Experiments both Medicinal and Chymical: As Also 
 with Several Observations Useful for the Health of the Body. London, 1687. 
Milton, John. Commonplace Book of John Milton. Add MS 36354. British  Library, London, ca. 
1630?50. 
???. ?From On Christian Doctrine.? In The Riverside Milton, edited by Roy Flannagan, 
 1158?1201. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. 
???. ?From The Second Defence of the English People.? In The Riverside Milton, edited by 
  Roy Flannagan, 1096?1118. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. 
???. ?Of Education.? In The Riverside Milton, edited by Roy Flannagan, 977?86. Boston: 
 Houghton Mifflin, 1998. 
???. ?Of Prelatical Episcopacy.? In Complete Prose Works of John Milton. Edited by Don M. 
 Wolfe. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1953?82. 
???. ?Paradise Lost.? In The Riverside Milton, edited by Roy Flannagan, 297?710. Boston: 
Houghton Mifflin, 1998. 
???. ?Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, The.? In The Riverside Milton, edited by  
 Roy Flannagan, 1057?75. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. 
Montaigne, Michel de. Florio?s Montaigne, Volume I, translated by John Florio. Edited by J. I. 
 M. Stewart. London: The Nonesuch Press, 1931. 
Nicander. See Scholiast on Nicander?s Theriaca. 
Origen. Contra Celsum. In Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller, edited by P. Koetschau, 
 Origen vol. 2. Leipzig, 1899. 
Ovid. ?Book XV.? In Metamorphoses Volume II, translated by Frank Justus Miller, 363?428. 
Loeb Classical Library 43. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984. 
Philo of Alexandria. De Providentia [On Providence]. Edited by M. Hadas-Lebel. Paris, 1973. 
Philoponus. ?Ioannis Philiponi in Aristotelis Physicorum? [Commentary on Aristotle?s Physics]. 
In Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, vol. 16. Berlin: G. Reimer, 1887. 
Philostratus. Life of Apollonius of Tyana. 3 vols. Edited and translated by Christopher P. Jones. 
 Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005?6. 
Pierce, Thomas. The Sinner Impleaded in his Own Court. London, 1656. 
Plato. ?Cratylus.? In Plato IV, translated by H. N. Fowler, 1?192. Loeb Classical Library 167. 
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1939. 
???. ?Phaedo.? In Plato I: Euthyphro. Apology. Crito. Phaedo. Phaedrus, translated by 
Harold North Fowler, 266?406. Loeb Classical Library 36. Cambridge, MA: Harvard 
University Press, 1995.  
251 
???. Republic. 2 vols. Edited and translated by Chris Emlyn-Jones and William Preddy. Loeb 
Classical Library. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2013. 
???. ?Symposium.? In Plato III: Lysis. Symposium. Gorgias, translated by W. R. M. Lamb, 
73?246. Loeb Classical Library 166. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925. 
???. ?Timaeus.? In Timaeus and Critias, translated by Robin Waterfield, 1?100. Oxford: 
Oxford University Press, 2008. 
Pliny the Elder. Natural History, Books 28?32. Translated by W. H. S. Jones. Cambridge, MA: 
 Harvard University Press, 1963. 
Pliny the Younger. Letters, Volume I: Books 1?7. Translated by Betty Radice. Cambridge, MA: 
 Harvard University Press, 1969. 
Plotinus. Enneads. Translated by A. H. Armstrong. 6 vols. Loeb Classical Library. 
 Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966?1988. 
Plutarch. Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romanes, The. Translated by Thomas North. London, 
 1579. 
???. Moralia. Edited by Jeffrey Henderson. 17 vols. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, 
MA: Harvard University Press, 1927?2004. 
Pomponazzi, Pietro. Corsi inedita dell?insegnamento padovano. 2 vols. Edited by Antonino 
 Poppi. Padua: Antenore, 1966?70.   
Pope, Alexander. The Rape of the Lock. An heroi-comical poem. In five canto's. London, 1714. 
Porphyry. Porphyrii Philosophi Platonici Opuscula Selecta. Edited by August Nauck. Leipzig: 
Teubner, 1886. 
Proclus. Ex Procli Scholiis in Cratylum Platonis Excerpta [Commentary on Plato?s Cratylus]. 
Edited by F. Boissonade. Leipzig, 1820. 
???. Procli Diadochi in Platonis Rem Publicam Commentarii. [Commentary on Plato?s 
Republic]. 2 vols. Edited by G. Kroll. Leipzig: Teubner, 1899?1901. 
???. Procli Diadochi in Platonis Timaeum Commentaria [Commentary on Plato?s Timaeus]. 
3 vols. Edited by Ernst Diehl. Leipzig, 1903?6.  
Pseudo-Aristotle. De lineis insecabilibus [On Indivisible Lines]. Edited by M. Timpanaro 
Cardini. Milan: Istituto Editoriale Cisalpino, 1970. 
???. ?De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia.? In Anecdota Graeca. Edited by Immanuel 
 Bekker. Berlin, 1814.  
Quintilian. The Orator?s Education, Volume I: Books 1-2. Translated by Donald A. Russell. 
 Loeb Classical Library 124. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. 
Rabelais, Francois. The Complete Works of Francois Rabelais. Translated by Donald M. Frame 
 Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. 
Rapin, Ren?. Reflexions sur la philosophie ancienne et moderne, et sur l?usage qu?on en doit 
 faire pour la Religion. Paris, 1676. 
???. Reflexions upon ancient and modern philosophy, moral and natural. Treating of the 
 Aegyptians, Arabians, Gretians, Romans, &c. philosophers; as Thales, Zeno, Socrates, 
 Plato, Pythagoras, Aristotle, Epicurus, &c. Also of the English, Germans, French, 
 Spanish, Italian, &c. As Bacon, Boyle, Descartes, Hobbes, Vanhelmont, Gassendus, 
 Galilens, Harvey, Paracelsus, Marsennus, Digby, &c. Together with the use that is to be 
 made thereof. London, 1678. 
Rufus of Ephesus. ?On Naming of the Parts of Man.? In ?uvres de Rufus D??ph?se, Texte 
Collationn? sur Les Manuscrits, Traduit Pour La Premi?re Fois en Fran?ais, edited by 
C. Daremberg and C. E. Ruelle, 133?85. Paris, 1879. 
252 
Scholiast on Dionysius of Thrace. In Greek Elegiac Poetry from the Seventh to the Fifth 
Centuries BC, translated by D. Gerber, 36?7. Loeb Classical Library 258. Cambridge, 
MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. 
Scholiast on Euripides? Phoenissae. In Scholia in Euripidem, edited by E. Schwartz, 1:249?50. 
Berlin: Reimer, 1887. 
Scholiast on Homer?s Odyssey. In Etymologicum Graeca Linguae Gudianum, edited by F. W. 
Sturz, 745?6. Leipzig: Olms, 1073. 
Scholiast on Nicander?s Theriaca. In Scholia in Nicandri Theriaka: Cum Glossis, edited by 
Annunciata Crugnola. Milan: Istituto Editoriale Cisalpino, 1971. 
Scholiast on Plato?s Gorgias. In Scholia Platonica, edited by William Chase Greene, 128?69. 
Haverford, PA: American Philological Association, 1938.  
Sextus Empiricus. Opera. Edited by H. Mutschmann and J. Mau. Leipzig: Teubner, 1914?54. 
Shakespeare, William. Antony and Cleopatra. Edited by John Wilders. New York: Bloomsbury 
 Arden Shakespeare, 2018. 
??? . Coriolanus. Edited by Peter Holland. New York: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare, 
 2016. 
??? . Hamlet. In The Riverside Shakespeare, edited by Herschel Baker, Anne Barton, Frank 
 Kermode, Harry Levin, Hallett Smith, and Marie Edel, 1183?1245. Second Edition. 
 Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.  
???. Merry Wives of Windsor, The. Edited by Giorgio Melchiori. New York: Bloomsbury 
 Arden Shakespeare, 2000.   
??? . Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies Published According to 
the True Originall Copies. London, 1623. Annotated copy in Free Library of 
Philadelphia, skh00001. https://libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/item/67237. 
??? . ?Sonnet 44.? In Shakespeare?s Sonnets and Poems, edited by Barbara A. Mowat and 
 Paul Werstine, 107. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009. 
??? . ?Sonnet 45.?  In Shakespeare?s Sonnets and Poems, edited by Barbara A. Mowat and 
 Paul Werstine, 109. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009.  
???. Romeo and Juliet. In The Riverside Shakespeare, edited by Herschel Baker, Anne 
Barton, Frank Kermode, Harry Levin, Hallett Smith, and Marie Edel, 1104?45. Second 
Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.  
??? . Titus Andronicus. Edited by Jonathan Bate. New York: Bloomsbury Arden 
Shakespeare, 2013.  
??? . Twelfth Night. In The Riverside Shakespeare, edited by Herschel Baker, Anne Barton, 
Frank Kermode, Harry Levin, Hallett Smith, and Marie Edel, 437?76. Second Edition. 
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. 
Simplicius. ?In Aristotelis De Caelo Commentaria? [Commentary on Aristotle?s De Caelo]. In 
Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, edited by I. L. Heiberg, vol. 7. Berlin: G. Reimer, 
1894. 
???. ?In Aristotelis Physica Commentaria? [?Commentary on Aristotle?s Physics]. In 
Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, vols. 9?10. Berlin, 1882?1895. 
???. ?Simplicii In Libros Aristotelis De Anima Commentaria? [Commentary on Aristotle?s 
De Anima]. In Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, ed. Michael Hayduck, vol. 11. 
Berlin: G. Reimer, 1882. 
Stobaeus, Joannes. Anthologium. Edited by Curt Wachsmuth and Otto Hense. 5 vols. Berlin: 
Apud Weidmannos, 1884?1912. 
253 
Suidae Lexicon [The Suda]. Edited by Ada Adler. Leipzig, 1928?1938. 
Synesius of Cyrene. ?On Providence.? In Patrologiae Cursus Completus, edited by 
 Jacques-Paul Migne, vol. 66. Paris: Apud Garnier Fratres, 1857. 
Theodoret, Graecarum Affectionum Curatio. Edited by Joannes Raeder. Leipzig: Teubner, 1904.  
Theo of Smyrna. Theonis Smyrnaei Philosophi Platonici. Edited by Eduard Hiller. Leipzig: 
Teubner, 1878. 
Theophrastus. De Causis Plantarum. 3 vols. Edited and translated by Benedict Einarson and 
George K. K. Link. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 
1976?90. 
???. ?De Sensibus? [?On Sense?]. In Doxographi Graeci, edited by Hermann Diels, 497?
527. Berlin, 1897. 
Tzetzes, Joannes. ?Exegesis of the Iliad.? In Draconis Stratonicensis Liber de Metris Poeticis, 
Ioannis Tzetzes Exegesis in Homeri Iliadem. Edited by G. Hermann. Leipzig, 1812.  
???. Historiarum Variorum Chiliades. Edited by Th. Kiessling. Leipzig, 1826.  
???. Tzetzae Allegoriae Iliadis [Allegories of the Iliad]. Paris: Apud Dumont, 1851. 
 
 
 
 
Secondary Works 
Adelman, Janet. The Common Liar: An Essay on ?Antony and Cleopatra.? New Haven, CT: 
 Yale University Press, 1973.  
Atti?, Katherine B. ?Regendering the Sublime and the Beautiful: Shakespeare?s Cleopatra and 
 Feminist Formalism,? in The Routledge Companion to Women, Sex, and Gender in the 
 Early British Colonial World, edited by Kimberly Anne Coles and Eve Keller, 46?58. 
 London: Routledge, 2019. 
Bates, Jennifer. ?Phenomenology and Life: Hegel?s Inverted World, Cleopatra, and the Logic of 
 the Crocodile.? Criticism 54, no. 3 (Summer 2012): 427?43. 
Bercovitch, Sacvan. ?Empedocles in the English Renaissance.? Studies in Philology 65, no. 1 
 (Jan. 1968): 67?80.  
Bevington, David. ? ?Above the element they lived in?: The Visual Language of Antony and 
 Cleopatra, Acts 4 and 5.? In Antony and Cleopatra: New Critical Essays, edited by Sara 
 Munson Deats, 95?110. New York: Routledge, 2005.  
Bignone, Ettore. Empedocle. Turin, 1916. 
Blits, Jan H. New Heaven, New Earth: Shakespeare?s Antony and Cleopatra. New York: 
 Lexington Books, 2009. 
Bloom, Harold. Cleopatra: I Am Fire and Air. New York: Scribner, 2017.  
Blumenberg, Hans. Shipwreck with Spectator: Paradigm of a Metaphor for Existence. Translated 
 by Steven Rendall. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997. 
254 
Boswell, Jackson Campbell. Milton?s Library: A Catalogue of the Remains of John Milton?s 
 Library and an Annotated Reconstruction of Milton?s Library and Ancillary Readings. 
 New York: Garland Publishing, 1975. 
Bricault, Laurent and Miguel John Versluys. ?Isis and Empires.? In Power, Politics and the Cults 
 of Isis, 3?35. Brill, 2014. 
Burrow, Colin. Shakespeare & Classical Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. 
Cavell, Stanley. Disowning Knowledge in Seven Plays of Shakespeare: Updated Edition. New 
 York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 
Chitwood, Ava. Death by Philosophy: The Biographical Tradition in the Life and Death of the 
 Archaic Philosophers Empedocles, Heraclitus, and Democritus. Ann Arbor: The 
 University of Michigan Press, 2004. 
??? . ?The Death of Empedocles.? The American Journal of Philology 107, no. 2 (Summer 
 1986): 175?91. 
Cocks, H.G. ?The Discovery of Sodom, 1851.? Representations 112, no. 1 (Fall 2010): 1?26. 
Colie, Rosalie L. Shakespeare?s Living Art. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974. 
Collins, Derek. ?Nature, Cause, and Agency in Greek Magic.? Transactions of the American 
 Philological Association 133, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 17?49. 
Crane, Mary Thomas. ?Roman World, Egyptian Earth: Cognitive Difference and Empire in 
 Shakespeare?s Antony and Cleopatra.? Comparative Drama 43, no. 1 (Spring 2009): 
 1?17.  
Curd, Patricia, editor and translator. Anaxagoras of Clazomenae: Fragments and Testimonia. 
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. 
Daniel, Drew. ?The Empedoclean Renaissance.? In The Return of Theory in Early Modern 
 English Studies, Volume II, edited by Paul Cefalu, Gary Kuchar, and Bryan Reynolds, 
 277?300. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 
??? . The Joy of the Worm. Chicago: Chicago University Press, forthcoming June 2022. 
Deats, Sara Munson. ?Shakespeare?s Anamorphic Drama: A Survey of Antony and Cleopatra in 
 Criticism, on Stage, and on Screen.? In Antony and Cleopatra: New Critical Essays, 
 edited by Sara Munson Deats, 1?94. New York: Routledge, 2005. 
Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. 
 Translated by Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. 
Diels, Hermann. Doxographi Graeci. Berlin, 1879. 
Dillon, John. ?Plotinus, the First Cartesian?? Hermathena 149 (Winter 1990): 19?31.  
Dollimore, Jonathan, and Alan Sinfield, editors. Political Shakespeare: Essays in Cultural 
 Materialism. Second edition. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994. 
Drummond, W. ?On the Science of the Egyptians and Chaldeans.? In The Classical Journal for 
 March and June, 1820: Volume XXI, 35?56. London: A. J. Valpy, 1820.  
Edmunds, Lowell. ?Necessity, Chance, and Freedom in the Early Atomists.? Phoenix 26, no. 4 
 (Winter 1972): 342?57. 
Everson, Jane E. ?The Melting Pot of Science and Belief: Studying Vesuvius in Seventeenth-
 Century Naples.? Renaissance Studies 26, no. 5 (Nov. 2010): 691?727. 
Fallon, Stephen. Milton Among the Philosophers: Poetry and Materialism in Seventeenth-
 Century England. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991. 
Findlen, Paula. ?Introduction.? In Athanasius Kircher: The Last Man Who Knew Everything, 
 edited by Paula Findlen, 1?48. New York: Routledge, 2004.  
255 
Fish, Stanley. Self-Consuming Artifacts: The Experience of Seventeenth-Century Literature.  
 Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974. 
???. Surprised by Sin: the Reader in ?Paradise Lost. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1967. 
???. Versions of Antihumanism: Milton and Others. Cambridge: Cambridge University 
 Press, 2012. 
Flannagan, Roy, editor. The Riverside Milton. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. 
Floyd-Wilson, Mary. Occult Knowledge, Science, and Gender on the Shakespearean Stage. New 
York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.   
???. ?Transmigrations: Crossing Regional and Gender Boundaries in Antony and Cleopatra. 
In Enacting Gender on the English Renaissance Stage, edited by Viviana Comensoli and 
Anne Russel, 73?96. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999.  
French, Marilyn. Shakespeare?s Division of Experience. New York: Ballantine, 1983. 
Furlong, Gillian. Treasures from UCL. London: UCL Press, 2015. 
Garani, Myrto. Empedocles Redivivus: Poetry and Analogy in Lucretius. New York: Routledge, 
 2007. 
Gasparini, Valentino. ?Isis and Osiris: Demonology vs. Henotheism?? Numen 58, no. 5/6 (2011): 
 697?728. 
Gregory, Andrew. ?Leucippus and Democritus on Like to Like and ou mallon.? Apeiron 46, no. 
 4 (2013): 446?68. 
Hadfield, Andrew. Shakespeare and Renaissance Politics. London: Bloomsbury, 2004. 
??? . Shakespeare and Republicanism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 
Hardie, Philip. ?The Presence of Lucretius in ?Paradise Lost.? Milton Quarterly 29, no. 1 (Mar. 
 1995): 13?24. 
Hayne, L?onie. ?Isis and Republican Politics.? Acta Classica 35 (1992): 143?9. 
Hershbell, Jackson P. ?Empedocles? Oral Style.? The Classical Journal 63, no. 8 (May 1968): 
 351?7. 
Holstun, James. Ehud?s Dagger: Class Struggle in the English Revolution. New York: Verso, 
 2000.   
Inwood, Brad. ?Introduction.? In The Poem of Empedocles, 3?79. Toronto: University of 
 Toronto Press, 2001. 
Iyengar, Sujata. ?Shakespeare?s Embodied Ontology of Gender, Air, and Health.? In Disability, 
 Health, and Happiness in the Shakespearean Body, edited by Sujata Iyengar, 176?92. 
 New York: Routledge, 2015. 
Jones, Ann Rosalind and Peter Stallybrass. Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory. 
 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. 
Kalderon, Mark Eli. Form Without Matter: Empedocles and Aristotle on Color Perception. 
 Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. 
Kantorowicz, Ernst H. The King?s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology. 
 Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957.  
Kelley, Maurice. ?Additions to: Milton?s Library.? Milton Quarterly 10, no. 3 (October 1976): 
 93?4. 
Kelley, Maurice, and Samuel D. Atkins. ?Milton?s Annotations of Aratus.? PMLA LXX (1955): 
 1090?1106. 
Kendrick, Christopher. ?Satire and Speculation in Milton?s Limbo.? Milton Studies 54 (2013): 
 229?58. 
256 
Kessler, Eckhard. ?The Intellective Soul.? In The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, 
edited by Charles B. Schmitt, Quentin Skinner, Eckhard Kessler, and Jill Kraye, 485?
534. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. 
Kingsley, Peter. Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic: Empedocles and Pythagorean 
 Tradition. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. 
Knapp, James A. Immateriality and Early Modern English Literature: Shakespeare, Donne, 
 Herbert. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020. 
Knoll, Gillian. ?Binding The Void: The Erotics of Place in Antony and Cleopatra.? Criticism 58, 
 no. 2 (Spring 2016): 281?304. 
Laks, Andr? and Glenn W. Most, editors and translators. Early Greek Philosophy. 9 vols. Loeb 
 Classical Library volumes 524?532. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016.  
Little, Arthur L., Jr. Shakespeare Jungle Fever: National-Imperial Re-Visions of Race, Rape, and 
 Sacrifice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000. 
Lobis, Seth. The Virtue of Sympathy: Magic, Philosophy, and Literature in Seventeenth-Century 
 England. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015. 
Mack, Maynard. Everybody?s Shakespeare: Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies. Lincoln, 
 NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1993. 
Macauley, David. ?The Flowering of Environmental Roots and the Four Elements in Presocratic 
 Philosophy: From Empedocles to Delezue and Guattari.? Worldviews 9, no. 3 (2005): 
 281?314.  
Martin, Catherine Gimelli. The Ruins of Allegory: ?Paradise Lost? and the Metamorphosis of 
 Epic Convention. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998. 
Mazzio, Carla. ?Circling the Square: Geometry, Masculinity, and the Norms of Antony and 
 Cleopatra.? In Staged Normality in Shakespeare?s England, edited by Rory Loughnane 
 and Edel Semple, 33?68. N.p.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.  
McDowell, Nicholas. ?Reading Milton Reading Shakespeare Politically: What the Identification  
 of Milton?s First Folio Does and Does Not Tell Us.? The Seventeenth Century, vol. 36, 
 no. 4 (July-August 2021): 509-25. 
Miner, Earl. The Metaphysical Mode from Donne to Cowley. Princeton: Princeton University 
 Press, 1969. 
Miola, Robert S. Shakespeare?s Reading. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. 
McDowell, Nicholas. Poet of Revolution: The Making of John Milton. Princeton, NJ: Princeton 
 University Press, 2020. 
Montanari, Franco. The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek. Edited by Madeleine Goh and Chad 
 Schroeder. Boston: Brill, 2015. 
Morgan, Kathryn. A. Myth and Philosophy: From the Presocratics to Plato. New York: 
 Cambridge University Press, 2000. 
M?hlethaler, Jean-Claude. ?Po?sie et Savoir au XVe Si?cle.? In Po?tiques de la Renaissance: Le 
 mod?le italien, le monde franco-bourguignon et leur h?ritage en France au XVIe si?cle, 
 edited by Perrine Galand-Hallyn and Fernand Hallyn, 159?217. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 
 2001.  
Nietzsche, Friedrich. ?Empedocles,? in The Pre-Platonic Philosophers, translated and edited by 
 Greg Whitlock, 106?119. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2006. 
O?Brien, D. Empedocles? Cosmic Cycle: A Reconstruction from the Fragments and Secondary 
 Sources. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969. 
257 
Otto, Bernd-Christian. ?Towards Historicizing ?Magic? in Antiquity,? Numen 60, no. 2/3 (2013): 
 309?47. 
Oxford English Dictionary Online. 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. 
 www.oed.com.   
Oxford Latin Dictionary. Edited by P. G. W. Glare. 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University 
 Press, 2012. 
Paglia, Camille. Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson. New 
 York: Vintage Books, 1991. 
Passannante, Gerard. Catastrophizing: Materialism and the Making of Disaster. Chicago: The 
 University of Chicago Press, 2019. 
???. The Lucretian Renaissance: Philology and the Afterlife of Tradition. Chicago: The 
 University of Chicago Press, 2011. 
Paster, Gail Kern. Humoring the Body: Emotions and the Shakespearean Stage. Chicago: 
 Chicago University Press, 2004. 
Patrides, C.A. ? ?The High and Aiery Hills of Platonisme?: An Introduction to the Cambridge 
 Platonists.? In The Cambridge Platonists, 1?41. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 
 Press, 1970. 
Picciotto, Joanna. Labors of Innocence in Early Modern England. Cambridge, MA: Harvard 
 University Press, 2010.  
Plantzos, D. ?The Iconography of Assimilation. Isis and Royal Imagery on Ptolemaic Seal 
 Impressions.? In More than Men, Less than Gods: Studies on Royal Cult and Imperial 
 Worship. Proceedings of the International Colloquium Organized by the Belgian School 
 of Athens, November 1?2, 2007, edited by P. P. Iossif, A. S. Chankowski, and C. C. 
 Lorber, 389?416. Leuven, 2011.   
Prescott, Anne Lake. ?The Reception of Du Bartas in England.? Studies in the Renaissance 15 
 (1968): 144?73. 
Quint, David. Inside Paradise Lost: Reading the Designs of Milton?s Epic. Princeton: Princeton 
 University Press, 2014. 
Raymond, Joad. Milton?s Angels: The Early-Modern Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University 
 Press, 2010.  
Richter, Daniel S. ?Plutarch on Isis and Osiris: Text, Cult, and Cultural Appropriation.?  
 Transactions of the American Philological Association 131 (2001): 191?216. 
Rumrich, John, and Stephen M. Fallon. ?Introduction.? In Immortality and the Body in the Age of 
 Milton, 1?22.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 
Rust, Jennifer. The Body in Mystery: The Political Theology of the Corpus Mysticum in the 
 Literature of the English Reformation. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 
 2013. 
Sands, Kathleen R. Demon Possession in Elizabethan England. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004. 
Shaw, Michael M. ?Aither and the Four Roots in Empedocles.? Research in Phenomenology 44, 
 no. 2 (2014): 170?193. 
Sinfield, Alan. Shakespeare, Authority, Sexuality: Unfinished Business in Cultural Materialism. 
 New York: Routledge, 2006.  
Smith, Martin Ferguson. ?Introduction.? In Lucretius: De Rerum Natura, translated by W. H. D. 
Rouse, ix?lxv. Loeb Classical Library 181. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 
1992. 
258 
Spellmeyer, Kurt. ?Plotinus and Seventeenth-Century Literature: A Prolegomenon to Further 
Study.? Pacific Coast Philology 17, no. 1?2 (Nov. 1982): 50?8.  
Sprigge, T. L. S. ?Idealism.? In The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. New York:  
Routledge, 2000. 
Stack, George J. ?Materialism.? In The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. New 
 York: Routledge, 2000. 
Stempel, Daniel. ?The Transmigration of the Crocodile.? Shakespeare Quarterly 7, no. 1 (1956): 
 59?72.  
Sugimura, N. K. ?Matter of Glorious Trial?: Spiritual and Material Substance in ?Paradise 
  Lost.? New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. 
Sytsma, David S. Richard Baxter and the Mechanical Philosophers. Oxford: Oxford University 
 Press, 2017. 
Tr?panier, Simon. ?From Hades to the Stars: Empedocles on the Cosmic Habitats of Soul.? 
 Classical Antiquity 36, no. 1 (April 2017): 130?182. 
???. ?From Wandering Limbs to Gods: ?????? as Substance in Empedocles.? Apeiron 47, 
 no. 2 (2014): 172?210. 
Wallace, Richard. ? ?Amaze Your Friends!? Lucretius on Magnets.? Greece & Rome 43, no. 2 
 (Oct., 1996): 178?87. 
Warren, James. Presocratics. Stocksfield, England: Acumen Publishing, 2007. 
Waterfield, Robin. ?Empedocles of Acragas.? In The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and 
 Sophists, 133?63. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. 
Whitlock, Greg. ?Translator?s Commentary.? In The Pre-Platonic Philosophers, 153?264. 
 Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. 
Wilders, John, editor. Antony and Cleopatra. New York: The Arden Shakespeare, 2018.  
Wilhelm, Robert M. ?Pliny and Vergil.? The Classical Outlook 53, no. 4 (Dec. 1975): 40?1. 
Willis, Gary. Making Make-Believe Real. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014. 
Wolfe, Jessica. Homer and the Question of Strife from Erasmus to Hobbes. Toronto: Toronto 
 University Press, 2015. 
Wolf, William D. ? ?New Heaven, New Earth?: The Escape from Mutability in Antony  
 and Cleopatra.? Shakespeare Quarterly 33 (1982): 328?35. 
Vincent, Barbara C. ?Shakespeare?s Antony and Cleopatra and the Rise of Comedy.? 
 English Literary Renaissance 12 (1982): 53?86. 
Yates, Frances. The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age. New York: Routledge, 1979. 
Zhmud, Leonid. ?Pythagoras? Northern Connections: Zalmoxis, Abaris, Aristeas.? The Classical 
Quarterly 66, no. 2 (December 2016): 446?62.