Fragment 48

The words for bow (βιός) and life (βίος) in this fragment are pronounced differently because of accentuation, but when written down they look identical (ΒΙΟΣ). The ambiguity in this fragment only works if the fragment were read from a page, not read out loud. This fragment shows that Heraclitus did not compose his book as a set of spoken statements but as a written one.

Heraclitus is very interested in language. His divine principle is called the λόγος ('word', 'account', 'spoken thing'). Though the λόγος is the same for all men (fragment 1), they do not understand it because they have barbarian souls (i.e., souls that do not understand the language of the λόγος, fragment 107). In this fragment, language itself is teaching us something about the nature of the universe: death and life co-exist in a single object. By giving us the word 'life' for something that works 'death,' the λόγος is telling us that individual things contain both opposites in a pair.

Kahn tries to draw out of the bow two different works — death and life (in one sense, the bow brings death to the food I hunt and thus it brings life to me), but Barnes correctly rejects this reading. Heraclitus clearly assigns one work to the bow: death. The contradiction lies between the name and the work, not between two different works.