Weary of the same masters
Read the full text in our reader
κάματός ἐστι τοῖς αὐτοῖς μοχθεῖν καὶ ἄρχεσθαι
It is weariness to toil at the same things and to be ruled by them.
Preserved by Plotinus (Enneads 4.8.1), quoted alongside B84a in his account of why the soul descends into body: change itself brings rest, and it wearies the soul to labour under unchanging things and be ruled by them.
Plotinus quotes this to explain why souls leave the intelligible for bodies: staying put wearies them. <em>Kamatos</em> is the specific tiredness of unrelieved effort — the fatigue of the labourer, the exhaustion of the soldier. To 'toil at the same things and be ruled by them' (μοχθεῖν καὶ ἄρχεσθαι) is to serve masters that never change, and Heraclitus makes weariness itself the argument for motion, the counterpart of B84a's 'changing, it rests.'
The verb ἄρχεσθαι does double duty. As a passive it means 'to be ruled,' but ἄρχω also means 'to begin,' and its middle 'to make one's own beginning.' The ear catches both at once: the drudgery is being governed by the same things, and also forever starting the same things over. It sits close to the turning wheel of the elements (B36, B76), where nothing finds rest except by passing into its opposite.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Heraclitus B84b in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
You are reading a page of the Heraclitus — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Heraclitus B84b — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/heraclitus/B84b/