Scythinus, On Nature fr.2

This fragment is preserved in Stobaeus (1.8.43). I’ve presented it as prose here, based on the text of Edmonds’ Loeb edition (Elegy and Iambus Vol.2): the new Loeb of Gerber omits it as it ‘seems to be a prose version of trochaic tetrameters’.

ὕστατον πρῶτον τε πάντων ἐστὶν ἀνθρώποις χρόνος, 
πάντ’ ἔχων ἐν αὐτῷ, κἄστιν εἷς κοὐκ ἔστ’ ἀεί.
 καὶ παρῳχωκὼς πάρεστι καὶ παρεὼν παροίχεται,
 ἐκ δ’ ἐνεόντος αὐτὸς αὐτῷ νεῖτ’ ἐναντίην ὁδόν.
 τωὔριον γὰρ ἡμὶν ἔργῳ χθές, τὸ δὲ χθὲς αὔριον.

The first and last of all things for men is Time, which has all things in it and is ever one and not one. And it is here when it has passed, and it passes when it is here. Being inside itself it runs in the opposite direction to itself. For what to us seems tomorrow is really yesterday, and yesterday is tomorrow.