Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes, Robert Gregg Bury (Translator), 1.33.224

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[224] For after praising him repeatedly, so that he even dedicated to him his Satires, he represented him as uttering this lamentation—

Would that I too had attained a mind compacted of wisdom,

Both ways casting my eyes; but the treacherous pathway

deceived me,

Old that I was, and as yet unversed in the doubts of the

Sceptic.

For in whatever direction I turned my mind in its questing

All was resolved into One and the Same; All ever-existing

Into one self-same nature returning shaped itself all ways.

So on this account he also calls him ‟semi-vain,” and not perfectly free from vanity, where he says—

Xenophanes semi-vain, derider of Homer’s deceptions,

Framed him a God far other than Man, self-equal in all ways,

Safe from shaking or scathe, surpassing thought in his

thinking.

He called him ‟semi-vain” as being in some degree free from vanity, and ‟derider of Homer’s deceptions” because he censured the deceit mentioned in Homer.¹

Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes. Sextus Empiricus. Robert Gregg Bury (Translator). London. 1933.

Funding provided by Tisch Library, Tufts University.

Current edition First1KGreek

Outlines of Pyrrhonism (English) (Sextus Empiricus, Vol. 1. Bury, Robert Gregg, translator. London: William Heinemann Ltd.; New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1933.)

Editions (1)

Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes First1KGreek (Sextus Empiricus. Sexti Empiricii Opera, Volume 1. Mutschmann, Hermann, editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1912.) — 1.33.224 focus

[224] ἐν πολλοῖς γὰρ αὐτὸν ἐπαινέας [τὸν Ξενοφάνην], ὧς καὶ τοὺς σίλλους αὐτῷ ἀναθεῖναι, ἐποίησεν αὐτὸν ὀδυρόμενον καὶ λέγοντα

ὡς καὶ ἐγὼν ὄφελον πυκινοῦ νόου ἀντιβολῆσαι

ἀμφοτερόβλεπτος· δολίῃ δ’ ὁδῷ ἐξαπατήθην

πρεσβυγενὴς ἔτ’ ἐὼν καὶ ἀμενθήριατος ἀπάσης

σκεπτοσύνης. ὅππῃ γὰρ ἐμὸν νόον εἰρύσαιμι,

εἰς ‘ὲν ταὐτό τε πᾶν ἀνελύετο· πᾶν δ’ ἐὸν αἰεί

πάντῃ ἀνελκόμενον μίαν εἰς φύσιν ἵσταθ’ ὁμοίην.

διὰ τοῦτο γοῦν καὶ ὑπάτυφον αὐτὸν λέγει, καὶ οὐ τέλειον ἄτυφον, δι’ ὧν φησι (Diels Vorsokr. 2 11 A 35) ¹ 51

Ξεινοφάνης ὑπάτυφος, ὁμηραπάτης ἐπισκώπτης,

εἰ τὸν ἀπ’ ἀνθρώπων θεὸν ἐπλάσατ’ ἶσον ἀπάντῃ,

<ἀτρεμῆ> ἀσκηθῆ νοερώτερον ἠὲ νόημα.

ὑπάτυφον μὲν γὰρ εἶπε τὸν κατά τι ἄτυφον, ὁμηραπάτης δὲ ἐπισκώπτην, ἐπεὶ τὴν παρ’ Ὁμήρῳ ἀπάτην διέσυρεν.

Notes on the current edition

Outlines of Pyrrhonism

1. e.g. Homer, Il. ii. 114 where Agamemnon says of Zeus νῦν δὲ κακὴν ἀπάτην βουλεύσατ᾽. Cf. Plato, Rep. 380d ff.

Sextus Empiricus Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes 1.33.224

Robert Gregg Bury (Translator)

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