Note 356 — Chapter III · HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS

This fragment is interesting because of the great antiquity of the corruptions which it has suffered. According to Stephanus, who is followed by Bywater and Diels, we should read: Αὔη ψυχὴ σοφωτάτη καὶ ἀρίστη, ξηρή (or rather ξηρά—the Ionic form would only appear when the word got into the text) being a mere gloss upon the somewhat unusual αὔη. When once ξηρή got into the text, αὔη became αὐγή, and we get the sentence: “the dry light is the wisest soul,” whence the siccum lumen of Bacon. Now this reading is certainly as old as Plutarch, who, in his Life of Romulus (c. 28), takes αὐγή to mean lightning, as it sometimes does, and supposes the idea to be that the wise soul bursts through the prison of the body like dry lightning (whatever that may be) through a cloud. I do not think that Clement’s making the same mistake proves anything at all (Zeller, p. 705, n. 3; Eng. trans. i. p. 80, n. 2), except that he had read his Plutarch. Lastly, it is worth noticing that, though Plutarch must have written αὐγή, the MSS. vary between αὕτη and αὐτή. The next stage is the corruption of the corrupt αὐγή into οὗ γῆ. This yields the sentiment that “where the earth is dry, the soul is wisest,” and is as old as Philo (see Mr. Bywater’s notes).