105. We have more abundant remains of Empedokles than of any other early Greek philosopher. If we may trust our manuscripts of Diogenes and of Souidas, the librarians of Alexandria estimated the _Poem on Nature_ and the _Purifications_ together as 5000 verses, of which about 2000 belonged to the former work.[538] Diels gives about 350 verses and parts of verses from the cosmological poem, or not a fifth of the whole. It is important to remember that, even in this favourable instance, so much has been lost. Besides the two poems, the Alexandrian scholars possessed a prose work of 600 lines on medicine ascribed to Empedokles. The tragedies and other poems which were sometimes attributed to him seem really to belong to a younger writer of the same name, who is said by Souidas to have been his grandson.[539] Footnote 538: Diog. viii. 77 (R. P. 162); Souidas _s.v._ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς· καὶ ἔγραψε δι’ ἐπῶν Περὶ φύσεως τῶν ὄντων βιβλία βʹ, καὶ ἔστιν ἔπη ὡς δισχίλια. It hardly seems likely, however, that the Καθαρμοί extended to 3000 verses, so Diels proposes to read πάντα τρισχίλια for πεντακισχίλια in Diogenes. It is to be observed that there is no better authority than Tzetzes for dividing the Περὶ φύσεως into three books. See Diels, “Über die Gedichte des Empedokles” (_Berl. Sitzb._, 1898, pp. 396 sqq.). Footnote 539: Hieronymos of Rhodes declared (Diog. viii. 58) that he had met with forty-three of these tragedies; but see Stein, pp. 5 sqq. The poem on the Persian Wars, which Hieronymos also refers to (Diog. viii. 57), seems to have arisen from an old corruption in the text of Arist. _Probl._ 929 b 16, where Bekker still reads ἐν τοῖς Περσικοῖς. The same passage, however, is said to occur ἐν τοῖς φυσικοῖς, in _Meteor._ Δ, 4. 382 a 1, though there too E reads Περσικοῖς. I give the remains as they are arranged by Diels:— (1) And do thou give ear, Pausanias, son of Anchitos the wise! (2) For straitened are the powers that are spread over their bodily parts, and many are the woes that burst in on them and blunt the edge of their careful thoughts! They behold but a brief span of a life that is no life,[540] and, doomed to swift death, are borne up and fly off like smoke. Each is convinced of that alone which he had chanced upon as he is <<5>> hurried to and fro, and idly boasts he has found the whole. So hardly can these things be seen by the eyes or heard by the ears of men, so hardly grasped by their mind! Thou,[541] then, since thou hast found thy way hither, shalt learn no more than mortal mind hath power. R. P. 163. (3) ... to keep within thy dumb heart. (4)