Editing Heraclitus (section)

==== The Obscure ====
[[Aristotle]] quotes part of the opening line of Heraclitus's work in the ''[[Rhetoric (Aristotle)|Rhetoric]]'' to outline the difficulty in punctuating Heraclitus without ambiguity; he debated whether "forever" applied to "being" or to "prove".{{sfn|Graham|2019|loc=§2}}{{efn|{{harvnb| A4}}}} Aristotle's successor at the [[Lyceum (classical)|lyceum]] [[Theophrastus]] says about Heraclitus that "some parts of his work [are] half-finished, while other parts [made] a strange medley".{{efn|name=DiogLae}} Theophrastus thought an inability to finish the work showed Heraclitus was melancholic.{{efn|name=DiogLae}}

Diogenes Laërtius relays the story that the playwright [[Euripides]] gave [[Socrates]] a copy of Heraclitus's work and asked for his opinion. Socrates replied: "The part I understand is excellent, and so too is, I dare say, the part I do not understand; but it needs a [[Delos|Delian]] [[Underwater diving|diver]] to get to the bottom of it."<ref>Laërtius 2.5</ref>

Also according to Diogenes Laërtius, Timon of Phlius called Heraclitus "the Riddler" ({{lang|grc|αἰνικτής}}; {{transliteration|grc|ainiktēs}}).{{NoteTag|A likely reference to an alleged similarity to Pythagorean riddles.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=8YiHqT6CWnUC&pg=PA193 Heresiography in Context] by Jaap Mansfeld p. 193</ref>}} Timon said Heraclitus wrote his book "rather unclearly" ({{lang|grc|ασαφεστερον}}; {{transliteration|grc|asaphesteron}}); according to Timon, this was intended to allow only the "capable" to attempt it.{{efn|name=DiogLae}} 

By the time of the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise ''[[On the Universe|De Mundo]]'', this epithet became in Greek "The Dark" ({{lang|grc|ὁ Σκοτεινός}}; {{transliteration|grc|ho Skoteinós}}).<ref>''De Mundo'', 396b</ref> In [[Latin]] this became "The Obscure". According to [[Cicero|Cicero,]] Heraclitus had spoken ''nimis obscurē'' ("too obscurely") concerning nature and had done so deliberately in order to be misunderstood.<ref>Cicero, ''De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum'', Chapter 2, Section 15.</ref>{{sfn|Wheelwright|1959|p=116}} According to [[Plotinus]], it was "probably with the idea that it is for us to seek within ourselves, as he sought for himself and found".<ref>Plotinus, Enneads, IV, 8th Tractate</ref>{{efn|name=B101}}