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← ExitStobaeus, Volume I

Reading language

Book I Chapter 49

44.33 · Hermes prepares the material for bodies

The god, the master of the cosmos, rejoiced to hear this and commanded the human race to come into being. “I,” says Hermes, “sought to know what material I should use, and appealed to the sole ruler. He commanded the souls to give me the remainder of the mixture. When I received it, I found it completely dry. I therefore used far more water than was needed in the blending [so as to make the material’s consistency fresh again], so that what was being fashioned would be utterly slack, weak, and powerless, and would not, in addition to being intelligent, also be filled with strength.¹⁵⁴⁴

44.34 · The souls learn that they are condemned

I fashioned it, and it was beautiful. I took pleasure in seeing my work, and from below called upon the sole ruler to behold it. He saw it and rejoiced, and commanded the souls to enter bodies. Then for the first time they became dismayed and ⟨groaned⟩, learning that they had been condemned.”¹⁵⁴⁵

44.35 · The transmission of a secret teaching

I marveled, then, also at the words of the souls. Attend, my child Horus, for you are hearing a secret teaching. The forefather Kamēphis received it from Hermes, the recorder of all deeds, ⟨and I⟩ from Kamēphis, who came before them all, when he also honored me with the perfect black ink. Now you yourself receive it from me.¹⁵⁴⁶

44.36 · The souls resist like captive wild creatures

For when they were about to be shut within bodies, my wondrous child of great renown, some of them did nothing but lament and groan. They were like free wild creatures, whom wicked people will take care to enslave: torn from their familiar and beloved solitude, they fight, rebel, and refuse agreement with their captors; and if they happen to gain the upper hand, they will even put to death those who laid hands upon them.¹⁵⁴⁷

44.37 · One soul speaks after weeping

Others hissed all the more, like asps. Another wailed sharply, wept at length before speaking, and repeatedly turned upward and downward the eyes she happened to possess:¹⁵⁴⁸

44.38 · The loss of the heavenly dwelling

“Heaven,” she said, “origin of our birth; ether and air; hands and sacred breath of the sole-ruling god; radiant stars, eyes of gods; tireless light of Sun and Moon, companions of our beginning: torn away from you all, we suffer miserably. Worse still, from things great and splendid, from the sacred surrounding expanse and rich vault of heaven, and from our blessed life with the gods, we shall be shut within dwellings so dishonored and low. What have we poor creatures done that is so unseemly? What deserves these punishments?¹⁵⁴⁹

44.39 · The lament over bodily sight

How many errors await us wretched creatures! How much we shall do because of the wickedness of our hopes, to procure necessities for the watery body that is so quickly dissolved! Unreasoning eyes will contain souls that no longer belong to the god. Seeing our own forefather, heaven, as exceedingly small through the moist [and] circle within those eyes, we groan forever; and sometimes we shall not see at all [hence Orpheus:

We see by the bright light, but with our eyes we see nothing].¹⁵⁵⁰

44.40 · The narrow instruments of embodied life

For we have been condemned in misery, and sight has not been granted to us outright, since we have not been given the power to see without light. They are therefore passages, no longer eyes. And how painfully we shall bear hearing our kindred breaths blowing in the air, because we do not breathe together with them! Instead of this world aloft, the small bulk of a heart awaits us as our house.¹⁵⁵¹

44.41 · A plea for relief or conditions of release

Make us forget forever from what heights into what condition we have descended, and release us from grief, master, father, and maker, if you have so quickly neglected your works. ⟨Or⟩ lay down some conditions for us; grant us at least a few words more, while we can still see throughout the whole resplendent cosmos.”¹⁵⁵²

44.42 · The ruler answers from Truth’s throne

The souls succeeded in their petition when they said this, my child Horus, for ⟨the⟩ sole ruler was also present. Seated upon the throne of Truth, he addressed the suppliants as follows:¹⁵⁵³

44.43 · Love, Necessity, and the prospect of return

“Love and Necessity will rule you, souls, for after me these are the masters and commanders of all. Souls who serve my ageless sovereignty, know that so long as you are without fault, you will inhabit the regions of heaven. But if blame should come upon any one of you, you too will be condemned to dwell in a place assigned within mortal entrails. If the charges against you are moderate, you will leave behind the temporary bond of flesh and once more embrace your own heaven without groaning.¹⁵⁵⁴

44.44 · Greater faults and animal embodiments

But if you commit greater transgressions, you will depart from the fashioned bodies without the fitting completion; you will no longer dwell in heaven, nor again in human bodies, but will thereafter continue wandering into irrational animals.”¹⁵⁵⁵

1544.The deliberately excessive water explains the weakness of the embodied creature in this narrative. The entire explanatory clause about refreshing the material is rejected in the edition and remains bracketed. Eklyton describes looseness or lack of tension; the translation preserves its distinction from weakness and lack of power. This is Hermes’ account of construction, not a statement of modern physiology.

1545.The creator’s pleasure in the work and the souls’ distress at embodiment are distinct responses. The main verb “groaned” is supplied by Wachsmuth and remains marked in both languages. The reported first-person account of Hermes ends here in the English punctuation; Isis next introduces the lament as a sacred teaching passed through a succession of recipients.

1546.The supplied “and I” clarifies the chain Hermes, Kamēphis, Isis, Horus. The Greek names Kamēphis and uses the genitive Kamēpheōs; no further identification is imposed. The expression teleion melan is literally “perfect black.” “Ink” follows Wachsmuth’s apparatus, which understands the ink used for Hermes’ secret books; the English does not turn the phrase into an independently attested ritual title. Theōria is the secret contemplation or teaching being transmitted.

1547.The comparison is badly disjointed in Greek, especially the sequence “to be enslaved ... it will be a concern ... to fight.” English gives its provisional sense in clauses while retaining capture, resistance, and possible killing of captors. The printed ponērōn is understood as wicked people, rather than silently adopting the apparatus’s proposed adverbs or an alternative adjective. No missing sentence is supplied to repair the Greek.

1548.The printed aspidōn supplies the comparison with asps; the hissing or creaking sense of etrizon suits it. The following eye clause remains awkward because these souls are not yet embodied. “The eyes she happened to possess” keeps that wording without inventing bodily organs or silently adopting the apparatus’s proposed relative-pronoun correction. The colon carries the suspended construction into her speech.

1549.The speaker invokes the places and powers associated with the souls’ origin. After “great and splendid,” the Greek has no noun; the apparatus proposes “thrones,” but that supplement is not printed and is not inserted here. Perichyma, a surrounding outpouring or expanse, is kept as an image rather than identified with an additional physical element. Politeia is their shared mode of life with the gods. Skēnōmata, “dwellings,” anticipates bodies.

1550.The soul’s complaint speaks of anticipated bodily limitations as well as present grief. The printed “no longer the god’s” is retained, rather than adopting proposed rearrangements. “As exceedingly small” takes mikron with heaven, describing its apparent size through the bodily eye; the moist circle is the eye’s seeing part. Both the rejected conjunction and the entire rejected Orpheus quotation remain bracketed. Wachsmuth’s parenthetical reference reads “fragm. monad. 10 p. 504 Herm.”; this editorial bibliography is recorded here, outside the Greek speech.

1551.The distinction between sight and mere poroi, passages or channels, belongs to the lament: bodily vision depends on external light. The printed phusōntōn is retained as “blowing,” without changing it to a proposed form. Pneumata can evoke both breaths and spirits; “kindred breaths” preserves its connection with “breathe together.” The heart is described as the soul’s cramped house in this account, without endorsement of a modern anatomical claim.

1552.The printed epilēsas is Wachsmuth’s correction and is taken causatively, “having made us forget”; English coordinates it with the appeal for release. The surrounding phrase “from what ... into what” is also textually difficult. The supplied “or” separates the pleas. Horoi are limits or conditions; the following divine speech explains the conditions of future embodiment and return. The first-person plural lets one soul voice the group’s lament.

1553.Isis resumes the narrative before quoting the creator. The supplied article before “sole ruler” remains marked. Truth is personified as the owner of the throne. The success of the petition here introduces an answer and stated conditions; it does not mean that the souls are immediately exempted from embodiment.

1554.The compressed expression about an allotted place in mortal splanchna is rendered as dwelling within bodily inward parts. The address shifts from the assembled souls’ punishment to a general statement about fault and embodiment; the translation retains that shift. Epikairos describes the fleshly bond as temporary. Release in the case of lesser faults is explicit, qualifying the earlier statement that the race of souls would continually undergo punishment.

1555.The departure clause is difficult. The translation retains the negative “without a fitting completion” and the printed apelthousai, “having departed,” rather than silently replacing them with a claim about a normal or appointed death. Plasmata are the fashioned bodies in context. The subsequent exclusion from both heaven and human bodies is explicit. The speech closes here; the creator speaks again immediately afterward in the continuing excerpt.