Editing Parmenides (section)

==== B8.42-49: "What is" is perfect ====
[[File:Being Parmenides.png|thumb|Parmenides describes "what is" as a rounded ball, with its entire surface equidistant from the center.{{efn|{{harvnb|DK 28B8}}.42-49}}]]
In verse 42,{{efn|''What are given as verses 34-41 in [[Diels-Kranz numbering]] have been displaced from the original position after verse 52 (See {{harvnb|Palmer|2020|loc=2.3}})''}} the discourse deals with the attribute of perfection: "what is" is similar to the mass of a well-rounded ball, it cannot be less somewhere and more somewhere else, all of it is equidistant from the center (vv. 43–44) Remaining identical to itself, it fulfills its own limits.(vv. 45–49).

[[File: OdysseyNausikaa.png | thumb | 250px | Illustration of the game scene of Nausicaa and her handmaidens with a ball (σφαίρα), by [[John Flaxman]].]]
Parmenides (v. 43) describes what is as a "σφαίρης" (sphaires), which in classical Greek means "that which has a spherical shape" which in antiquity led some commentators to claim that Parmenides believed in a "spherical universe"<ref>Hippolytus, ''Refutation of all heresies'', I, 11 , 2 = DK 28 A 23</ref> or  a "spherical god"<ref>Aetius, DK 28 A 31.</ref> or even a statement about the roundness of the Earth.<ref>Theophrastus in Diog. VIII, 4 and Aetius, III, 15, 17 (for both citations, cf. DK 28 A 44).</ref> This interpretation has a parallel with the later geometrical model of the universe in Plato's ''Timaeus'', where the Demiurge makes the world spherical, because the sphere is that figure that contains all the others, the most perfect and similar to itself.<ref>Cornford, ''Plato and Parmenides'', p. 44.</ref> However, both Plato and Parmenides distinguished between the "sensible" world and the "intelligible" world, and, considering the world of the senses unreal, so it is unlikely either of them was intending to make a statement about the shape of the material universe.{{sfn|Guthrie|1979|pp=39-40}}{{sfn|Kirk|Raven|Schofield|1982}} Additionally, in the [[Homeric Greek|Homeric language]] used by Parmenides, ''σφαίρα'' is nothing more than a ball, like the one they played with [[Nausicaa]] and her female servants upon reaching them [[Odysseus]].<ref>''Od.'' VI, 100</ref><ref name="Owenp95">Owen, «Eleatic questions», p. 95</ref>{{sfn|Guthrie|1979|p=57}} The Parmenidean entity could be thought of as a sphere, but it is ultimately neither spherical nor spatial, taking into account that it is a reality not perceptible by the senses, it is timeless, it does not change its quality and it is immobile. The "boundaries" are not spatial, but a sign of invariance.{{sfn|Guthrie|1979|p=59}} The limits are also not temporary, since this would involve accepting generation and corruption. The comparison with the sphere is required because it represents a reality in which every point is the same distance from the center, and therefore no point is more "true" than another. It is an image of the continuity and uniformity of the entity.<ref name="Owenp95" /><ref>Stokes, ''One and Many'', p. 140</ref>

Already [[Plato]] had understood that the Eleatics denied movement because the One lacked a place where it could move;<ref>(''Theaetetus '' 180de)</ref> this idea of the absence of a void was first expressed by [[Melissus of Samos]].<ref>Kirk & Strokes, ''Phronesis'' V , 1960, p. 1–4</ref>  In this attribute of what is, the idea of limit (πεῖρας) plays a fundamental role. It is associated with bonds or chains, such as those with which [[Odysseus]] was tied by his companions in ''Od.'' XII, 179. These uses maintain the idea of a certain deprivation of spatial mobility. The idea of limit is also related to "what is established by the gods." Because, in the poem, one of the arguments in favor of immobility is the fact that “what is” cannot be incomplete, this would be “illicit”: οὐκ ἀτελεύτητον τό ἐόν θἔμις εἶναι (v. 32). The term ἀτελεύτητον is used in ''Il.'', I, 527: there [[Zeus]] says that what he assents to «does not remain unfulfilled». This is equivalent to Parmenides' "is perfect" (τετελεσμένον ἔστι v. 42).{{sfn|Guthrie|1979|p=49}} The use of «limit» linked to the sense of «perfection» or «consummation» is also attested in ''Il''. XVIII, 501 and ''Od'' V, 289.<ref>Owen, ''Studies in Presocratic Philosophy'', II, p. 65</ref> The "limit" is, moreover, one of the fundamental principles of the [[Pythagoreans]], and heads the left column of their [[Table of Opposites]] (58 B 4–5 = ''Met''. 986a23), column in which were also, among others, the One, the Still and the Good.{{sfn|Kirk|Raven|Schofield|1982}}