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← ExitStobaeus, Volume I

Reading language

Book I Chapter 57

Chapter 57 · Voice

On voice, whether voice is incorporeal, ⟨whence the soul has the power of perception, and⟩ what its ruling part is.²⁰⁵⁰

1.1 · Breath and a transmitted blow

⟨Aëtius.⟩

Plato defines voice as breath passing through the mouth from thought, and as a blow delivered by air and transmitted through the ears, brain, and blood as far as the soul.²⁰⁵¹

1.2 · Voice in the strict and extended senses

The word voice is also used in an extended sense of nonrational animals and of inanimate things, as with neighing and noises. Strictly speaking, however, voice is articulate, for it illuminates what is thought.²⁰⁵²

2050.The editor supplies the middle clause of this heading, referring to his Prolegomena. The heading announces more questions than the short surviving excerpt answers. The single excerpt has no printed number; 1 and its decimal subdivisions are modern comparison locators, as also in chapters 58 and 60.

2051.The supplied Latin attribution identifies Aëtius IV.19.11, Diels p. 407, line 13. This formulation differs from I.53.5.2: here ears, brain, and blood are explicitly linked under through. Phōnē is voice or sound; the first definition connects it with thought, while the second describes its physical transmission.

2052.Katachrēstikōs marks an extended or improper use of a word, contrasted with its strict use. The explanation associates phōnē with phōtizein, to illuminate: articulate speech makes thought clear. This is the passage’s explanatory wordplay, not a claim about a securely established linguistic derivation. This completes chapter 57.