Plutarch, De primo frigido, Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator), 13

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[13] But the argument which attributes it to water finds in the same way facts to support it; Empedocles¹ says something like this:

Behold the sun, everywhere bright and warm;

And then the rain, to all men dark and cold.

By thus setting cold against hot, as he does dark against bright, he has given us to understand that dark and cold belong to the same substance, as do also bright and hot. And our senses bear witness that darkness is an attribute of water, not of air, since nothing, to put it simply, is blackened by air and everything is by water.² For if you throw the whitest wool or the whitest garment into water, it will come out black and it will remain black until the moisture is evaporated by heat or is squeezed out by some sort of wringing or pressure. When a patch of ground is sprinkled, the spots which are covered by the drops turn black, but the rest remains as it was. In fact, of water itself the deepest looks the darkest because there is so much of it, while those parts that lie near the air flash and sparkle³; and of the other liquids oil is the most transparent, as containing the most air. A proof of this is its lightness, by reason of which it maintains itself on the surface of all other things, buoyed up by the air.⁴ If it is sprinkled upon the waves, it will calm the sea, not because it is so smooth that the winds slip off it, as Aristotle⁵ affirmed; but because the waves are dissipated when they are struck by any moist substance. But it is peculiar to oil that it provides light and sight at the bottom since the moist elements are interspersed with air; it is, in fact, not only on the surface that it provides light for those who pass the night at sea; it does so also for sponge-divers⁶ below the surface when it is blown out of their mouths. Air, therefore, has no greater proportion of darkness than water has, and it has less cold. Certainly oil, which has more air than any other moist substance, is least cold; and when it freezes, it forms a soft jelly: the air that is intermixed does not permit it to freeze hard. They dip needles, iron clasps, and all delicate artifacts in oil rather than in water, fearing that the water’s excessive frigidity may distort them. It is, in fact, fairer to judge the argument by this evidence than by that of colour, since snow and hail and ice are at their brightest when they are coldest. Moreover, pitch is both hotter and darker than honey.

De primo frigido. Plutarch. Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1957.

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Current edition Perseus

On the Principle of Cold (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. XII. Cherniss, Harold and William C. Helmbold, translators. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1957 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Περὶ τοῦ πρώτως ψυχροῦ Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol V. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1893.) — 13 focus

[13] ὁ δὲ τῷ ὕδατι λαμβάνει μὲν καὶ αὐτὸς ἀρχὰς ὁμοίως, οὕτω πως τοῦ Ἐμπεδοκλέους λέγοντος

ἠέλιον μὲν λαμπρὸν ὅρα καὶ θερμὸν ἁπάντῃ,

ὄμβρον δʼ ἐν πᾶσι δνοφόεντά τε ῥιγαλέον τε

10 τῷ γὰρ θερμῷ τὸ ψυχρὸν ὡς τῷ λαμπρῷ τὸ μέλαν ἀντιτάξας συλλογίσασθαι δέδωκεν, ὅτι τῆς αὐτῆς οὐσίας ἐστὶ τὸ μέλαν καὶ τὸ ψυχρόν, ὡς τῆς αὐτῆς 950a τὸ λαμπρὸν καὶ τὸ θερμόν. ὅτι δʼ οὐ τοῦ ἀέρος τὸ μέλαν ἀλλὰ τοῦ ὕδατός ἐστιν, ἡ αἴσθησις ἐπιμαρτυρεῖ, 15 τῷ μὲν ἀέρι μηδενὸς ὡς ἁπλῶς εἰπεῖν μελαινομένου τῷ δʼ ὕδατι πάντων.. ἂν γὰρ τὸ λευκότατον ἐμβάλῃς ἔριον εἰς ὕδωρ ἢ ἱμάτιον, ἀναφαίνεται μέλαν καὶ διαμένει, μέχρι ἂν ὑπὸ θερμότητος ἐξικμασθῇ τὸ ὑγρὸν ἤ τισι στρέβλαις καὶ βάρεσιν 20 ἐκπιεσθῇ τῆς τε γῆς ὕδατι ῥαινομένης, διαμελαίνουσιν οἱ καταλαμβανόμενοι ταῖς σταγόσι τόποι, τῶν ἄλλων ὁμοίων μενόντων. αὐτοῦ μὲν οὖν τοῦ ὕδατος σκοτεινότατον ὑπὸ πλήθους φαίνεται τὸ 950b βαθύτατον, οἷς δʼ ἀὴρ πλησιάζει, ταῦτα περιλάμπεται 25 καὶ διαγελᾷ. τῶν δʼ ἄλλων ὑγρῶν διαφανὲς μάλιστα τοὔλαιόν ἐστι, πλείστῳ χρώμενον ἀέρι τούτου τεκμήριον κουφότης, διʼ ἣν ἐπιπολάζει πᾶσιν ὑπὸ τοῦ ἀέρος ἄνω φερόμενον, ποιεῖ δὲ καὶ τὴν γαλήνην ἐν τῇ θαλάττῃ τοῖς κύμασιν ἐπιρραινόμενον, οὐ διὰ τὴν λειότητα τῶν ἀνέμων ἀπολισθαινόντων, 5 ὡς Ἀριστοτέλης ἔλεγεν· ἀλλὰ παντὶ μὲν ὑγρῷ τὸ κῦμα διαχεῖται πληττόμενον, ἰδίως δὲ τοὔλαιον αὐγὴν καὶ καταφάνειαν ἐν βυθῷ παρέχει, διαστελλομένων τῷ ἀέρι τῶν ὑγρῶν· οὐ γὰρ μόνον ἐπιπολῆς τοῖς διανυκτερεύουσιν ἀλλὰ καὶ κάτω τοῖς 10 950c σπογγοθήραις διαφυσώμενον ἐκ τοῦ στόματος ἐν τῇ θαλάττῃ φέγγος ἐνδίδωσιν. οὐ μᾶλλον οὖν τῷ ἀέρι τοῦ μέλανος ἢ τῷ ὕδατι μέτεστιν, ἧττον. δὲ τοῦ· ψυχροῦ. τὸ γοῦν ἔλαιον, ἀέρος πλείστου τῶν ὑγρῶν μετέχον, ἣκιστα ψυχρόν ἐστι καὶ πήγνυται 15 μαλακῶς· ὁ γὰρ ἀὴρ ἐγκεκραμένος οὐκ ἐᾷ σκληρὰν γενέσθαι τὴν πῆξιν βελόνας δὲ καὶ πόρπας σιδηρᾶς καὶ τὰ λεπτὰ τῶν ἔργων οὐχ ὕδατι βάπτουσιν ἀλλʼ ἐλαίῳ, τὴν ἄγαν ψυχρότητα φοβούμενοι τοῦ· ὕδατος ὡς διαστρέφουσαν. ἀπὸ τούτων γὰρ δικαιότερὸν 20 ἐστιν ἐξετάζεσθαι τὸν λόγον οὐκ ἀπὸ τῶν χρωμάτων ἐπεὶ καὶ χιὼν καὶ χάλαζα καὶ κρύσταλλος ἅμα λαμπρότατα γίγνεται καὶ ψυχρότατα καὶ πάλιν πίττα θερμότερόν ἐστι μέλιτος καὶ σκοτωδέστερον. 950d 25

Translations (1)

Concerning the First Principle of Cold Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. V. Goodwin, William W., editor; Fetherstone, F., translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.) — 13 focus

[13] Those that allow it to water lean upon principles of the same nature. And this was intimated by Empedocles, where he says:

Behold the sun, how warm he is,

And shining everywhere;

But rain and tempests cold and dark

With horror fill the air.

And thus opposing cold to heat, and dark to bright, he gives us to understand that black and cold are both of the same substance, as also are bright and hot. Now that black is proper to the water and not to the air, sense itself bears witness, nothing being darkened by the air, all things being clouded and blackened by water. So that if you throw the whitest wool that is, or a white garment into the water, it comes out black, and so remains, till the moisture be dried up again by the heat, or squeezed forth by presses or weights. Also when the ground is watered, the places that receive the drops grow black, the rest retaining their former color. And therefore the deepest waters, by reason of their quantity, always appear blackest, but the parts which are next the air afford a lovely and smiling brightness. But of all liquids, oil is the most transparent, because of the great quantity of air that is in it. And of this, the lightness of it is an unquestionable proof; the reason why it swims above all things, as carried upward by the air. Being poured forth upon the waves, it will cause calmness upon the sea, not because it is so slippery that the winds can have no power over it, as Aristotle thought, but because the waves will fall and sink when smitten by any moist body. And this is also peculiar to oil, that it shines and causes a transparency at the bottom of the water, while the watery humors are dispersed by the air. For being spurted out of the mouth into the sea, not only by those that sail in the night, but also by those that dive for sponges to the bottom of the sea, it will cast a light in the water. Water therefore has more of blackness than the air, but less of cold. Oil therefore, partaking more of air than most liquid things, is least cold, nor will it easily or suddenly freeze; for the air which is mixed with it will not suffer the congelation to grow hard. And therefore, as for needles, steel buckles, and such sort of small iron and steel wares, they never quench them in water but in oil, fearing lest the over-coldness of the water should make them too brittle. And indeed the truth is more truly enquired into from the consideration of these experiments, than those of colors. For hail, snow, and ice, as they are most transparent, so are most cold; and pitch, as it is hotter, so it is blacker and darker than honey.

Notes on the current edition

On the Principle of Cold

1. Diels-Kranz, Frag. der Vorsok. 5, i, p. 319, frag. B 21, lines 3 and 5. Plutarch apparently used a version different from those known to Aristotle and Simplicius. The evidence is complicated and may be consulted in Diels-Kranz. On Empedocles’ meaning see Cherniss, Aristotle’s Criticism of the Presocratics, p. 110.

2. Cf. Mor. 364 b.

3. Cf. 952 f infra.

4. Cf. Mor. 696 b, 702 b.

5. Problemata, 961 a 23 ff., though this work is surely not by Aristotle in the form in which it has come down to us.

6. Cf. 981 e infra; Oppian, Hal. v. 638 ff.

Plutarch De primo frigido 13

Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator)

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