ABSTRACT
Once the goddess has fulfilled her promise to reveal to the ‘youth’ Parmenides the ‘truth’ about reality, she turns to her task of teaching him the ‘opinions of mortals’ about the cosmos (B 8.50).1 Although most of what the unnamed goddess taught the youth about the ‘opinions’ has been lost, the surviving fragments and our ancient testimonies indicate that her instruction contained a complete cosmology, largely in the form of a cosmogony, and also included a theogony. The goddess warns the youth, however, that in her depiction of mortal opinions the ‘ordering’ of her ‘words’ is ‘deceptive’ (B 8.51-2), and this judgment is in keeping with the low opinion she expressed earlier in the poem about the opinions of mortals. In the proem of the poem she promises the youth that he will learn ‘all things,’ not only the ‘truth,’ but ‘the opinions of mortals, in which there is no true trustworthiness’ (B 1.28-30). In fragment B 6 she introduces a third way of inquiry, a way peculiar to mortals, in addition to the two ways she laid down for thought in the inauguration of her revelation of the truth (B 2.3-5), and upon this third way, the goddess declares, mortals ‘wander two-headed,’ ‘knowing nothing’ (B 6.4-5). These pronouncements by the goddess upon mortal opinions and the path of mortal reflection should make it plain that she does not value mortal opinions.
