Customer Reviews

Fragments (Penguin Classics) (English and Greek Edition)

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

Heraclitus' FRAGMENTS come here in the original with a facing-page translation by Brooks Haxton that tries to do to the pre-Socratic philosopher what no earlier translator has done, make him a New-Ageish wisdom poet in tune with our modern needs. It is a disastrous experiment, and I cannot recommend it either to students of Greek or readers interested in the pre-Socratics.

The problems here are legion. For one, Haxton doesn't use Diels' numbering scheme, favouring Bywater's dinosaur-era numbers, which means this work is out of touch with most collections of Heraclitus. The Greek typeface used is very idiosyncratic and not conformant to classical norms. But the translation itself is horrid.

A lot of what the reader is getting here simply isn't Heraclitus. Instead of providing a footnote with his opinion on what the fragment may mean in context, as reputable scholars would do, Haxton simply adds content to the translation. Unless he were to look at the translation notes in the back, the average reader would be unaware that much of what he was reading wasn't actual said by the philsopher, but is just one modern translator's opinion. Take, for example, Haxton's rendition of the fragment "Nyktipoloi, magoi, bakchoi, lenai, mustai", which is literally translated "Night-walkers, mages, bacchants, lenai, and the initiated", but which Haxton inexplicably expands to "Nightwalker [sic], magus, and their entourage, bacchants and mystics of the wine press, with stained faces, and damp wits". One that really takes the cake is 89: "Ex homine in tricennio potest avus haberi," which simply means "A man could be a grandfather in thirty years." Haxton somehow comes up with "Look: the baby born under the new moon under the old moon holds her grandchild in her arms".

This translation is a crime. If you are interested in Heraclitus' thought, try getting a reputable scholarly translation. Dennis Sweet's HERACLITUS: Translation and Analysis (University Press of America, 1995) is quite easily readable and entertaining. Stay far away from Haxton's kookish work.

If you know Greek, and don't care about using it as a reference work, this is a good, inexensive edition. It contains the fragments in Greek.

On the pages opposite the Greek, though, is not a translation. Instead, it is an adaptation into English. This adaptation is occasionally inspired, often mediocre, and almost never what Heraclitus said.

While Heraclitus is no do doubt deserving of five stars, and Brooks Haxton does provides some lovely, even moving, translations here; there is something just a little too fast and loose about this edition for my comfort - as if the folks at Penguin figured they could cash in pitching ancient Greek thought to a New Age audience. I hate to say it, but this is a volume in desperate need of far more extensive footnotes and a far more rigorous introduction to provide a better picture of the world and context from these fragments and their author come from. Unfortunately, without these, Haxton/Penguin merely leave the reader with an amorphous list of happy truisms. James Hillman's softball introduction is of little use with its glib glossing of archetypes, postmodernism, and cross cultural comparisons of so-called "wisdom poetry" in what I can only take as a feel-good attempt to make Heraclitus into some sort of hip dude; you know, like Buddha, Lao-Tzu, Jesus and gang. And I have no doubt that he was, but this sort of self-congratulatory blather (e.g. "I like to think [Heraclitus] would have enjoyed this deconstruction") makes my teeth grind. This book is fine for those who want to rub their bellies and say "ohm," after every precious fragment, and Haxton's renderings really are nice, but it is still essentially useless for the student or serious reader. The use of the original Greek text on the facing pages appears perhaps only as a desperate attempt at some sort of legitimacy. On a shallow note, this book does feature one of the nicest, and most appropriate, covers to grace a Penguin Classic in a long time. At least their design department still appears to be top notch.

When I picked this volume up, I was quite excited to finally have the opportunity to read the fragments of Heraclitus. This particular volume is printed as a bilingual edition, with the Greek on the left page and the English "translation" on the right. This particular edition gives 130 Fragments as belonging to Heraclitus, but only translates 126 of them; the translator indicates that one was deleted in a prior edition (9), two fragments were repetitive (42 & 54), and another is omitted due to its overlapping with the two prior fragments. Apparently, the translator is going for some kind of narrative flow in the fragments and what the reader therefore gets is a Heraclitus that has been packaged for sale.

For aspiring scholars like me, however, the omission in the translation are only one concern. Of greater concern is when Brooks Paxton, the "translator", writes in his notes that he has "provided my own examples" (95, n. 16) within the actual text of the translation from other ancient Greek writings! So, not only are we getting a commodified Heraclitus, but a commodified Heraclitus that is also now intertextual with other ancient Greek literature that he not only never cited, but actually lived before they were written! Paxton then writes, "Heraclitus, no doubt, would have chosen other examples" (ibid.). One wonder why Paxton didn't just translate the examples that Heraclitus himself gave so that we might understand what it was that he was originally trying to get across. Further, Paxton even changes entirely the reference to a town in one of the fragments because little is known about the town that Heraclitus references (97 n. 112).

I myself do not know Greek, so I cannot comment upon how well translated these passages are. Given the above notes from Paxton's own hand, however, I am not willing to trust the translation - for all I know he has played fast and loose with it, going for the aesthetic feel of a word over (and perhaps even against!) what would actually communicate what Heraclitus actually wrote or said. I find it extremely disappointing that Penguin Classics would allow and publish such shoddy academic work. This book is of no use whatsoever to the lay person who wants to actually understand Heraclitus; it is of even less use to the student that would like a reliable translation to use for research. Fortunately, there are other translations - such Guy Davenport's Herakleitos and Diogenes - which aim at being responsible translations, in the belief that Heraclitus could - and will continue to - speak for himself.

As a recent graduate of a Classics program and enthusiast of pre-Socratic philosophy, I was thrilled to see an edition of Heraclitus' fragments available with the original Greek text opposite an English translation (particularly because the Greek text of the Fragments is so hard to come by). To readers of Greek, the English translation will look poor if not atrocious and absurd. It aims to capture the 'sense' of the Greek while consistently avoiding more literal renderings. Sometimes a 'loose translation' is enjoyable, if not preferable - but here the supposedly 'poetic' translation is SO outrageous that I feel it does a grave injustice to Heraclitus' philosophy. There are two reasons to buy this book: 1) you are a student of Greek who can read the Greek text and appreciate it while ignoring the English translations on the right-facing pages, or 2) you want to read the English translations to get a taste of Heraclitus but feel inspired to learn the Greek by having its presence on the left-facing pages. No one should buy this book hoping to get an authoritative translation of Heraclitus.

If I did not think I could better the thinking in trnaslation of our mutual friend Heraclitus, I would not write this review. The Hillman forward suggests to me that there is too much "psychologizing" afoot here. But this is no legitimate criticism of the translation. So, let us look at Haxton's translation of 10. "Phusis kruptesthai philei." I read the verb as a middle voice infinitive: hence I would try "to hide itself" for "kruptesthai". You have "keep" here. Oh dear, this loses me. But you could mean the keep as in the keep of "to hold dear." More interesting. And is "things" such an illuminating word for the very difficult word "phusis?" I realize we are in trouble here, since "nature" is not a great translation for "phusis." This is a difficult problem. If it were my first attempt, I would try: "Emergence conceals itself in itself." No, probably not so good. Perhaps better, I would try: "The flower in full bloom conceals itself." A little closer. The simpler and more usual "Nature loves to hide herself." is, I presently think, better than what you have.

But the author may have had tyrannical editors.

I know, I know, the author would say, well, if you think you can do better, then try it. Alas, I know it is too difficult, but for me it is easier to learn classical Greek. . THAT is the satisfying moment when the blossoming of the manifold meanings can come forth from their hiding places, like the flowers that bloom suddenly in the spring.

What we know of the work of the pre-socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus are a few fragments, which are collected here in a new, free verse translation by the poet Brooks Haxton. Nothing is known about Heraclitus, the man. Many things are elusive and ambiguous in the surviving fragments of his work. His moniker is "The Obscure".

Where obscurity asks for interpretation, intuition is a good guide. Where language creates obscurity, poets are supremely gifted guides. Poets have a unique talent to explore the many facets of language, to scan the many meanings and references of a word, to add and enlighten where scholars - almost always better versed in history, philosophy and grammar - tend to move cautiously on a well-trodden, narrow path.

Good examples for this would be Anne Carson's translation of the fragments of Sappho, titled "If not, Winter", Stephen Mitchell's translation of the Book of Job, and Bill Porter's (he writes under the name of "Red Pine") translation of Lao-Tzu's Taoteching (Dao De Ching). Brooks Haxton's translation of the fragments of Heraclitus ranks in the same league.

Brooks Haxton's translation is clear and uncluttered. It highlights the uncompromising thrust of Heraclitus' thought. Heraclitus, it appears, had a very toughminded logic peppered with quirky humor: "If everything were turned to smoke, the nose would be the seat of judgment." (Fragment 37). He respected knowledge of the knowable, but made fun of people who claimed to know the unknowable: "Pythagoras may well have been / the deepest in his learning of all men. / And still he claimed to recollect / details of former lives, / being in one a cucumber / and one time a sardine." (Fragment 17).

An example of the qualities of the translation: Brooks Haxton translates Fragment 122 as "After death comes / nothing hoped for / nor imagined." Charles H. Kahn, a scholar of Greek philosophy, translates this as "What awaits men at death they do not expect or even imagine." These two translations are different in where they lead our thought. Haxton's "after death" makes us think "so what about BEFORE death?" Kahn's "what awaits" leads us to think "so WHAT does await us at death?" The difference in emphasis is important. Haxton's Heraclitus points us to our lives NOW, whereas Kahn's Heraclitus points us to the metaphysical nature of death. Heraclitus is neither a metaphysical philosopher nor a mystic. "The eye, the ear, / the mind in action, / these I value" says Fragment 13. Therefore, Haxton's translation is an improvement over the older, already very good and formally correct translation. Haxton "adds value," as my banker colleagues like to say.

James Hillman wrote an interesting introduction to "Fragments." He explores what he calls his notion of "Heraclitus the psychologist." That may not go down well with traditional scholars of Greek philosophy, but it is an intriguing aspect worthy of exploration nonetheless.

One reviewer complained that a psychologist wrote an introduction to this edition. While I do agree that psychologists may not be the best people to comment on the details of Greek philosophy, they are -like it or not - among the foremost interpreters of "reality" in our modern world. In that respect, Hillman adds another - very contemporary - dimension to the interpretation of Heraclitus, and I welcome that. After all, Hillman is not a New Age fuzzy pop-psychologist. Nor does he interpret Heraclitus as a predecessor to New Age thinking. On the contrary, he comments that in Heraclitus there is "no sloppy emotionalism either. Heraclitus would hardly be found among enthusiastic revivalists or holistic healers of the New Age. 'Dry, the soul grows wise and good' ([Fragment] 74). 'Moisture makes the soul succumb...' ([Fragment] 72), which I have understood to be a warning against drowning in easiness. Comfortable, complacent, content - these soporifics extinguish the fire of the soul." (Foreword, xv).

To sum it up: In this Penguin paperback we have the most easily accessible modern translation of the fragments of Heraclitus on the market, and I recommend this book of less than 100 pages to anyone interested in philosophy and the history of human thought. Heraclitus influenced Plato, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Montaigne, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Jung. His ideas also bear some striking resemblance to early Chinese Taoism. Coincidentally, Lao Tzu - the earliest philosopher of this school - lived in the same 6th century BC as Heraclitus.

I was a bit underwhelmed by "Fragments", which is not only a slim volume to start with but also consists of the text in Greek on facing pages. I have no doubt that Heraclitus had a revolutionary way of looking at the world 2500 or so years ago, but now it reads a bit like a watered-down cross between Marcus Aurelius and Ecclesiastes. Of course, this may well be a result of the translation (which has received plenty of criticism from reviewers who appear better informed than me) - I raised my eyebrows when the foreword described this as a "deconstruction", and raised them again when I noted that "character is fate" had become the decidedly less forceful "one's bearing shapes one's fate".

Five stars if you really want to brush up on your Ancient Greek, and four stars if you have been waiting for the postmodernist interpretation of Heraclitus (I guess someone out there has been). For the rest of us, three stars. There is still some thought-provoking stuff in here, but if you are looking for an introduction to Stoic thought you are much better off with Meditations (Penguin Classics).

This compilation of words by ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, is known as "Fragments" because there are no actual works by Heraclitus in existence today. There are only examples from antiquity where others quoted his long-lost works. This book is, therefore, a compilation of bits and pieces of Heraclitus' unique brand of philosophy. His thought reflects strains of ideas that the West did not hear of again until investigating the Buddha of the East. Heraclitus represents a kind of missing link of philosophy in a certain way, drawing our attention to a time in history when much different fundamental ideas could have shaped our minds to come for the next millenia. As an added benefit, each quote is shown with its representation in Greek as well as its translation in English. The author also supplies the reader with some background information to clarify and understand obscurities in his text that may not be so readily obvious. I found this to be an enjoyable book...

The original is one of 'Man's' (male and female) true spiritual and philosophical mssterpieces. I found this translation both sensitive and thoughtful.

morton tolson