SwanSong

What Is

What Is

As yet a single tale of a way remains,
That it is; and along this path, markers are there many,
That What Is is ungenerated and deathless,
Whole and uniform, and still and perfect.

(There is only one true understanding of reality: recognizing that "What Is" (existence) is ungenerated, deathless, whole, uniform, still, and perfect.)

But not ever was it, nor yet will it be,
Since it is now together entire, single, continuous;
For what birth will you seek of it? How, whence increased?
From not being I shall not allow you to say or to think:
For not to be said and not to be thought is it that it is not.

("What Is" has always existed and will always exist. It is continuous and unbroken, without any beginning or end.)

And indeed what need could have aroused it
Later rather than before, beginning from nothing, to grow?
Thus it must either be altogether or not at all.
Nor ever from not being will the force of conviction
Allow something to come to be beyond it.

(It is logically necessary for "What Is" to be eternal and unchanging. If something exists, it cannot come from nothing, and it cannot become nothing.)

On account of this neither to be born nor to die
Has Justice allowed it, having loosed its bonds,
But she holds it fast. And the decision about these matters lies in this:
It is or it is not; but it has in fact been decided, just as is necessary,
To leave the one unthought and nameless (for no true way is it),
And it has been decided that the one that it is indeed is genuine.

(Justice prevents existence from being born or dying. The nature of existence is governed by an unbreakable law or principle.)

And how could What Is be hereafter? And how might it have been?
For if it was, it is not, nor if ever it is going to be:
Thus generation is extinguished and destruction unheard of.

(The decision about the nature of existence has already been made: "What Is" is genuine and true, while non-existence is unthinkable and nameless.)

…

For nothing else either is or will be besides What Is,
Since it was just this that Fate did shackle
To be whole and changeless; wherefore it has been named all things
That mortals have established, trusting them to be true,
To come to be and to perish, to be and not to be,
And to shift place and exchange bright color.

(Fate has determined that "What Is" is whole and changeless. Mortals, however, believe in concepts like coming into being and perishing, being and not being, and changing forms and colors.)

– Parmenides, 5^th Century BCE

(The world’s supposedly earliest surviving example of extended philosophical argumentation)

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