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← ExitStobaeus, Volume I

Reading language

Book I Chapter 60

1.17 · The origin of the red color

“Freshly cut and derived from kindred things, some from fruits and others from green growth, which the god planted for us for this very purpose, to be food, these particles have all sorts of colors through their mixture. But red is the color most widely spread through them, a character produced by fire’s cutting and wiping its imprint into moisture.”²⁰⁸³

1.18 · Blood as nourishment for the body

“Hence the color of what flows through the body has acquired the appearance we have described. We call it blood, the pasture of the flesh and of the whole body, from which each part draws its water and fills the seat of what is being depleted.”²⁰⁸⁴

2083.The freshly cut particles are understood from the preceding sentence. Exomorxis is wiping off or impressing a quality onto something; the marginal explanation reported in the apparatus describes fire’s depositing its own quality and power. The English uses imprint to convey this image. The redness is explained within the passage’s account of fire acting in moisture.

2084.Nomē is pasture or nourishment, here paired with the image of drawing water. The final basis, base or seat, is rendered seat; its precise reference is compressed, and the English provisionally understands replenishment of the part being depleted. This completes the excerpt and Book I at printed p. 502 line 17. The apparatus records a manuscript colophon identifying the end of the first book; it is not added to the running Greek.