- Source
- Herodotus. Godley, Alfred Denis, editor. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann, Ltd., 1920-1925 (printing).
- Translation
- AI-generated (gemini-3.5-flash) — machine translation; may contain errors
- Languages
- 日本語 · English · 简体中文 · 한국어
- CTS URN
- urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0016.tlg001.humanitext-grc2:2.25.1-2.25.5
- Generated
- Humanitext Reader · reader.humanitext.ai · 2026-11-03
The author explains the meteorological mechanism of how the sun, passing over upper Libya in winter, draws and disperses water to cause rain. This accounts for why the Nile alone has its water reduced by the sun in winter while other rivers swell with rain, whereas in summer the opposite occurs.
ὡς δὲ ἐν πλέονι λόγῳ δηλῶσαι, ὧδε ἔχει. διεξιὼν τῆς Λιβύης τὰ ἄνω ὁ ἥλιος τάδε ποιέει· ἅτε διὰ παντὸς τοῦ χρόνου αἰθρίου τε ἐόντος τοῦ ἠέρος τοῦ κατὰ ταῦτα τὰ χωρία καὶ ἀλεεινῆς τῆς χώρης ἐούσης καὶ ἀνέμων ψυχρῶν,1 διεξιὼν ποιέει οἷόν περ καὶ τὸ θέρος ἔωθε ποιέειν ἰὼν τὸ μέσον τοῦ οὐρανοῦ·
To explain it in more detail, it is as follows. In passing through the upper parts of Libya, the sun does this: since the air in these quarters is clear and the land is warm and free from cold winds throughout the whole year, the sun in his passage does just what he is accustomed to do in summer when he goes through the middle of the sky.
ἕλκει γὰρ ἐπʼ ἑωυτὸν τὸ ὕδωρ, ἑλκύσας δὲ ἀπωθέει ἐς τὰ ἄνω χωρία, ὑπολαμβάνοντες δὲ οἱ ἄνεμοι καὶ διασκιδνάντες τήκουσι· καὶ εἰσὶ οἰκότως οἱ ἀπὸ ταύτης τῆς χώρης πνέοντες, ὅ τε νότος καὶ ὁ λίψ, ἀνέμων πολλὸν τῶν πάντων ὑετιώτατοι δοκέει δέ μοι οὐδὲ πᾶν τὸ ὕδωρ τὸ ἐπέτειον ἑκάστοτε ἀποπέμπεσθαι τοῦ Νείλου ὁ ἥλιος, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὑπολείπεσθαι περὶ ἑωυτόν. πρηϋνομένου δὲ τοῦ χειμῶνος ἀπέρχεται ὁ ἥλιος ἐς μέσον τὸν οὐρανὸν ὀπίσω, καὶ τὸ ἐνθεῦτεν ἤδη ὁμοίως ἀπὸ πάντων ἕλκει τῶν ποταμῶν.
For he draws the water to himself, and having drawn it, he pushes it away to the upper regions, where the winds receive it, disperse it, and melt it down. And naturally, the winds that blow from this land, namely the south wind and the southwest wind, are by far the rainiest of all winds. And it seems to me that the sun does not send away all the water that he draws annually from the Nile on each occasion, but also retains some of it about himself. But when the winter becomes mild, the sun returns again to the middle of the sky, and from then on he draws water equally from all rivers.
τέως δὲ οἳ μὲν2 ὀμβρίου ὕδατος συμμισγομένου πολλοῦ αὐτοῖσι, ἅτε ὑομένης τε τῆς χώρης καὶ κεχαραδρωμένης, ῥέουσι μεγάλοι· τοῦ δὲ θέρεος τῶν τε ὄμβρων ἐπιλειπόντων αὐτοὺς καὶ ὑπὸ τοῦ ἡλίου ἑλκόμενοι ἀσθενέες εἰσί.
Meanwhile, the other rivers flow in full stream because much rain-water is mixed with them, since their land is rained upon and furrowed with torrents; but in summer, as the rains fail them and they are drawn by the sun, they become weak.
ὁ δὲ Νεῖλος ἐὼν ἄνομβρος, ἑλκόμενος δὲ ὑπὸ τοῦ ἡλίου μοῦνος ποταμῶν τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον, οἰκότως αὐτὸς ἑωυτοῦ3 ῥέει πολλῷ ὑποδεέστερος ἢ τοῦ θέρεος· τότε μὲν γὰρ μετὰ πάντων τῶν ὑδάτων ἴσον ἕλκεται, τὸν δὲ χειμῶνα μοῦνος πιέζεται.
But the Nile, being free from rain and being the only one of all rivers drawn by the sun at this time, naturally flows much lower than in summer; for then indeed he is drawn equally along with all other waters, but in winter he alone is hard pressed.
- 2.25.1ἀνέμων ψυχρῶν
This phrase is coordinated with the preceding genitive absolute constructions αἰθρίου τε ἐόντος τοῦ ἠέρος and ἀλεεινῆς τῆς χώρης ἐούσης, but lacks a participle. Since the context describes the warm climate of upper Libya, it is interpreted as having a negative participle (such as ἀπεόντων, 'being absent') omitted, meaning 'there being no cold winds'.
- 2.25.4οἳ μὲν
This is the plural demonstrative pronoun with the particle μέν, meaning 'they' or 'the others', referring here to the other rivers of Greece and elsewhere in contrast to the Nile. Its corresponding contrastive term is ὁ δὲ Νεῖλος ('but the Nile') in the next section (§2.25.5).
- 2.25.5αὐτὸς ἑωυτοῦ
A combination of the nominative pronoun αὐτός and the genitive of the reflexive pronoun ἑωυτοῦ. Used with the comparative ὑποδεέστερος ('lower', 'inferior'), it expresses self-comparison, showing how a single entity compares to itself at a different time ('the Nile itself compared to its own state in summer').