we had to mention the conditions for properly asking who the human being is, if only in the form of a list.

But since the thoughtful determination of Being-human that Parmenides accomplishes is difficult to approach directly and strikes us as strange, we will first seek help and instruction by listening to a poetic projection of Being-human among the Greeks.

We will read the first choral ode from Sophocles’ Antigone (lines 332–75). First we will hear the Greek words, so that we get some of the sound, at least, into our ears. The translation runs:

Manifold is the uncanny, yet nothing

uncannier than man bestirs itself, rising up beyond him.

He fares forth upon the foaming tide

amid winter’s southerly tempest

and cruises through the summits

of the raging, clefted swells.

The noblest of gods as well, the earth,

the indestructibly untiring, he wearies,

overturning her from year to year,

driving the plows this way and that

with his steeds.

Even the lightly gliding flock of birds

he snares, and he hunts

the beast folk of the wilderness

and the brood whose home is the sea,

the man who studies wherever he goes.

With ruses he overwhelms the beast

that spends its nights on mountains and roams,

and clasping with wood

the rough-maned neck of the steed

and the unvanquished bull

he forces them into the yoke.