Diotimos Reading Desk

Tap the page, move to the top or bottom edge, swipe down, or press Tab to reveal reading controls. Use the arrow keys or swipe sideways to turn pages.

← ExitStobaeus, Volume I

Reading language

Book I Chapter 49

44.70 · Earth’s grief and the godless throng

Earth was next present, deeply grieved, and † taking her turn to speak, my child of great renown, she began as follows: “King, governor of heavenly beings, master of the vaults, leader of us elements ⟨and⟩ father of those standing before you, from whom all things derive the principle of growth and decrease, and into whom they return to reach their necessarily owed end: an unreasoning, godless throng of [from] human beings assails me, much-honored one. Yet I contain the nature of all things. For I myself, as you commanded, bear everything and receive the murdered. Now everyone dishonors me. Your earthly world is full, but it has no god. Having nothing to fear, they break every law and fall from my ridges, lord, through every wicked contrivance. I am drenched everywhere, corrupted by the fluids of bodies.¹⁵⁸¹

44.71 · Earth asks for a sacred outflow

And so, lord, I am forced to contain even the unworthy. I wish to contain a god as well, together with everything I bear. Grant earth, if not yourself, for I cannot endure containing you, ⟨at least⟩ some sacred outflow of yourself. Make earth more honored than the other elements. For it is fitting that she alone should boast of what comes from you, since she provides everything.”¹⁵⁸²

44.72 · The creator promises judgment and recompense

The elements said this. The god, filling all things with his sacred voice as he spoke, said: “Depart, sacred children worthy of a great father. Do not attempt any innovation, and do not leave my whole cosmos idle, deprived of the service that comes from you. For another outflow of my nature is already among you. He will be a holy observer of deeds and an undeceivable judge of the living, and a ruler of those beneath the earth who is not only fearsome but also punitive. Fitting recompense will follow each human being through the race.”¹⁵⁸³

44.73 · The elements return to their duties

Thus, at the master’s command, the elements ceased their petition and kept silence; each retained control and mastery over its own domain.”¹⁵⁸⁴

44.74 · Horus asks about the divine outflow

After this Horus said, “Mother, how, then, did earth have the good fortune to receive the god’s outflow?” Isis replied: “I decline to recount the birth. For it is not lawful to relate the origin of your begetting, mighty Horus, lest the birth of immortal gods should later become known among human beings.¹⁵⁸⁵

44.75 · Osiris and Isis come to help the world

I will say only that the sole-ruling god, the maker and craftsman of the universe, [something] bestowed for a little while your most great father Osiris and the greatest goddess Isis, so that they might help a world in need of everything. They filled life with the means of living; they ended the savagery of mutual slaughter. They consecrated precincts and sacrifices to the ancestral gods; they bestowed laws, nourishment, and shelter upon mortals.¹⁵⁸⁶

44.76 · Hermes’ writings and their disclosure

“They,” Hermes says, “will come to know all the secrets of my writings and distinguish among them. Some they will keep to themselves; whatever extends to the benefit of mortals they will engrave upon stelae and obelisks.”¹⁵⁸⁷

44.77 · Justice, trust, and care for the dead

They were the first to establish courts of judgment and filled all things with good order and justice. They originated the pledge of the right hand and trust, and introduced the very great god Oath into human life. They taught people to lay out those who had ceased to live in the proper manner;¹⁵⁸⁸

44.78 · The breath’s return and irreversible collapse

They investigated the cruelty of death and understood that the breath from outside, being disposed to return into the fashioned human bodies, if it should ever fail to arrive in time, produces fainting without recovery;¹⁵⁸⁹

44.79 · Hidden laws and rites on earth

They learned from Hermes that the surrounding realm was filled with daimons and engraved this upon hidden stelae. They alone learned the god’s hidden ordinances from Hermes and became the introducers and lawgivers of all arts, sciences, and pursuits among human beings. They learned from Hermes that the creator had ordained the things below to share in the affections of those above, and established on earth sacred rites corresponding to the mysteries in heaven;¹⁵⁹⁰

44.80 · The complete training of prophets

They recognized the perishability of bodies and devised the prophets’ completeness in every field, so that the prophet who is to raise his hands to the gods should be ignorant of none of the things that exist: philosophy and magic are to nourish the soul, and medicine to preserve the body whenever it suffers.¹⁵⁹¹

44.81 · The invocation before ascent

After doing all these things, my child, Osiris and I, seeing the world filled to the utmost, were at last being summoned back by those who dwell in heaven. But it was not possible to ascend before invoking the sole ruler, so that the surrounding realm might be filled with this contemplation too, and we ourselves might have the good fortune of an ascent graciously received. * * For the god delights in hymns.”¹⁵⁹²

44.82 · Horus asks to learn the hymn

“Mother,” Horus said, “grant me too the knowledge of the hymn, so that I may not remain ignorant.” And Isis said, “Attend, my child.”¹⁵⁹³

1581.The dagger marks a corrupt clause before Earth’s speech. Its printed taxomai is first person, “I shall be placed” or “take my place,” and the following words do not yield a secure construction. “Taking her turn to speak” gives only the likely narrative function, not a certain restoration; the dagger flags that provisional rendering. The supplied “and” and rejected “from” remain marked. Tenontōn, literally “sinews,” here denotes Earth’s ridges (LSJ, tenōn II). The clause describes people falling from them through wicked contrivance; it does not specify the particular acts involved.

1582.Chōrein is repeated through Earth’s complaint as containing or making room for something. The supplied ge is represented by “at least.” Aporrhoia is an outflow or emanation; Earth requests one because she cannot contain the god himself. The final feminine forms shift the speech from Earth’s “I” to a statement about what befits her. The comparative honor requested is explicitly relative to the other elements.

1583.The printed reflexive hautōn is interpreted contextually as the elements’ own service. The antecedent “outflow” is feminine, but the relative pronoun is masculine; English preserves the shift to “he.” The agent is not named in this speech. Amethodeutos describes a judge who cannot be circumvented by contrivance. Dia genous, “through the race,” is retained as a difficult expression concerning human continuance or generations; the apparatus’s conjecture “through an age” is not adopted.

1584.Entychia is the petition or audience with the god. Echemythia is reserve or the keeping of silence. The conclusion restores each element’s own authority without saying that their complaints were withdrawn as false. This closes Isis’ present speech. Horus asks how earth obtained the divine outflow in the next sentence, where the continuing excerpt will resume.

1585.Aporrhoia continues the preceding exchange about the divine outflow or emanation. Isis connects Horus’s question with his own begetting but withholds the account. “Become known among” interprets the expression “come to human beings” in its context of disclosure. The refusal does not supply a missing genealogy. Her answer continues.

1586.The rejected ti has no secure place in the sentence and is retained as the bracketed fragment “something.” Pros oligon is understood temporally, “for a little while.” The repeated bios permits the distinction between life and livelihood or means of living. Isis speaks of herself in the third person alongside Osiris before returning to “Osiris and I” below.

1587.Isis introduces a quotation from Hermes inside her own speech. The Greek shifts to future forms and includes the subjunctive kataschōsin, “may retain”; English makes the coordinated prediction readable without changing the Greek. The division concerns what is kept secret and what is made available for human benefit. Stelae are inscribed standing monuments.

1588.Dexia, the right hand, expresses the hand given as a pledge; pistis denotes trust or good faith. Oath is personified and explicitly called a god. Peristellein concerns attending to and laying out the dead. The wording alone does not specify a complete embalming procedure. The following sentence gives the passage’s own account of death.

1589.Philypostrophos describes a disposition to return. The neuter “not having recovery” agrees with pneuma in the printed text, while “fainting” is plural. English transfers the qualification to the resulting collapse to convey the likely sense; this is an interpretation of a compressed construction. The distinction between this failure of returning breath and recoverable fainting is not developed here.

1590.Daimons are the intermediate divine beings named in the passage, not necessarily evil spirits. Sympathein describes the correspondence or shared affections of lower and upper things. Proskathetos literally suggests a perpendicular relation; “corresponding” conveys the alignment of earthly rites with heavenly mysteries without supplying a further ritual system.

1591.Wachsmuth notes that something is disturbed in this sequence. “The prophets’ completeness in every field” renders the abstract phrase to en hapasi teleion tōn prophētōn provisionally, as comprehensive formation of the sacred practitioner. The Greek names philosophy, mageia, and medicine separately; it does not identify one with another. “Raise his hands” interprets the approach to the gods expressed by prosagein cheiras.

1592.Isis returns to the first person. Apēitoumetha suggests being required or called back by the heavenly inhabitants. Theōria may denote contemplation or the sacred spectacle involved in the invocation; neither the hymn’s words nor a complete ritual are supplied. Wachsmuth marks a gap before the statement about hymns. The gap remains, and the statement stays in Isis’s speech rather than being reassigned to Horus.

1593.This is the end of Stobaeus’s excerpt 44. The hymn requested by Horus is not supplied here. The following excerpt is introduced as coming from the same work, but begins with an invitation to ask another question. The comparison subdivisions 44.74-82, like the earlier suffixes, are modern reading aids rather than source section numbers.