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The sun is new each day.

Heraclitus of Ephesus, c. 500 BC

Philosophy

The story behind the card

Heraclitus lived around 500 BC in Ephesus, the Greek city on the Aegean coast of today's Turkey whose ruins stand near Selçuk. He wrote a single book, now lost; more than a hundred short sayings survive because later writers quoted them, and this one is preserved in Aristotle's Meteorology. Ancient sources suggest he meant it literally: he seems to have thought the sun was a mass of fire lit afresh each morning and put out each evening. It also fits his best-known idea, that everything is always changing, as in the saying attributed to him that you cannot step into the same river twice, because new waters keep flowing past. His riddling style earned him the nickname 'the Obscure'. Modern editions number his fragments; this one is known as B6.

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Efesli Herakleitos, MÖ 500 dolayları

Herakleitos MÖ 500 dolaylarında Efes'te yaşadı. Ege kıyısındaki bu Yunan kentinin kalıntıları bugün İzmir'in Selçuk ilçesi yakınındadır. Tek bir kitap yazdı; kitap kayıp, ama sonraki yazarların alıntıladığı yüzü aşkın kısa söz bugüne ulaştı. Bu söz de Aristoteles'in Meteoroloji adlı eserinde korunmuştur. Antik kaynaklara bakılırsa Herakleitos bunu mecaz olarak değil, gerçek anlamıyla söylüyordu: Güneşi her sabah yeniden tutuşan, her akşam sönen bir ateş kütlesi olarak düşünmüş olmalı. Söz, en bilinen fikriyle de örtüşür: Her şey sürekli değişir. Ona atfedilen bir söze göre aynı ırmağa iki kez girilmez, çünkü hep yeni sular akar. Bilmece gibi konuşması ona “Karanlık” lakabını kazandırdı. Bugünkü baskılarda fragmanları numaralandırılır; bu söz B6 diye bilinir.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Heraclitus
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