Page 14 - GALIET THE RIVERING WATERS: Heraclitus IV

water most pure and most tainted, drinkable and wholesome for fish, but undrinkable and poisonous for people.”27 In this example, there is no contradiction, because it is not said of the water to be pure and impure in the same respect. When Heraclitus says that, “War is father of all and king of all. Some he reveals as gods, others as men; some he makes slaves, others free,”28 he does not affirm that he (war) is revealed differently or in an opposed manner to these beings themselves. On the other hand, contrast is manifested as a dual path: the “road up and down is still the same road.”29 It suggests that the road is the same road in two possible directions. The place where the opposites are found is its fundament. It is true that Heraclitus gathers contrasts and the flow of things: “cool things become warm, warm things cool down, moist things dry out, parched things become damp.”30 Many are “ignorant of how while tending away it agrees with itself – a back-turning harmony, like a bow or lyre.”31 It is difficult to understand how the many or the multiple can agree with one or itself.32 Yet, beneath the principle of the bow and the lyre, reigns the contrasts of Apollo, archer-god, deity symbolic of order, beauty, justice, unity, patron of the arts, poetry and the Muses; deity also of prophecy and divination whose arrow can also bring
27 FR 15. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 9.10.5.3-4 Marcovich. 39 28 FR 23. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 9.9.4.4-7 Marcovich. 40 29 FR 14. Hippolytus. Refutation of All Heresies 9.10.5.3-4 Marcovich. 39 30 F 20. John Tzetzes, Notes on Homer’s Illiad 126.17-19 Hermann. 40
31 F 21. Hippolytus. Refutation of All Heresies 9.9.2.2-4 Marcovich. 40
32 This was also Anaximander’s challenge: how can Apeiron can be the source of opposites and still remain a unity?
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