Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition

John Stobaeus

Stobaeus, Volume I

Name: Stobaeus, Volume I
Author: John Stobaeus

Greek with an independent English translation.

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Stobaeus, Volume IBook I Chapter 7 · I.7.heading–I.7.5

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Ancient Greek Page · Branch 109 of 879

Book I Chapter 7 · I.7.heading–I.7.5

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Ancient Greek

p. 214

Κεφάλαιον Ζʹ

I.7.heading

Ὅτι ἀλόγιστος ἡ φορὰ τῆς τύχης.

1 Μενάνδρου Κιθαριστοῦ

I.7.1

Ὡς ποικίλον πρᾶγμ’ ἐστὶ καὶ πλάνον τύχη.

2 Μενάνδρου Προγάμων

I.7.2

Τὸ τῆς τύχης τοι μεταβολὰς πολλὰς ἔχει.

3 ⟨Μενάνδρου⟩

I.7.3

Τυφλόν γε καὶ δύστηνόν ἐστιν ἡ τύχη.

4 Σοφοκλέους Οἰδίποδι

I.7.4

Τί δ’ ἂν φοβοῖτ’ ἄνθρωπος, ᾧ τὰ τῆς τύχης κρατεῖ, πρόνοια δ’ ἐστὶν οὐδενὸς σαφής;

5 Μενάνδρου

I.7.5

Οὐδὲν κατὰ λόγον γίγνεθ’ ὧν ποιεῖ τύχη.

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 7

p. 215

Chapter 7: Fortune beyond calculation

I.7.heading

That the course of fortune cannot be calculated.²³⁶

1 Menander, The Lyre Player

I.7.1

What a shifting, wandering thing is fortune!

2 Menander, Progamōn

I.7.2

The business of fortune, you know, has many changes.²³⁷

3 ⟨Menander⟩

I.7.3

Fortune is indeed a blind and wretched thing.²³⁸

4 Sophocles, Oedipus (977-978)

I.7.4

Why should a person fear, when fortune’s dealings rule him, and there is certain foresight of nothing?²³⁹

5 Menander

I.7.5

Nothing that fortune does comes about by calculation.

236.The heading concerns the inability to calculate fortune’s course. The excerpts variously describe changeability, lack of rational order, and causes hidden from human calculation; these are related but distinct explanations.

237.The heading is reproduced as printed. Wachsmuth also refers this line to a fragment of Chaeremon, and his apparatus records competing forms of the play-title. The uncertain Greek title is left untranslated.

238.The attribution is supplied in the base edition. “Wretched” follows the printed dystēnon; the apparatus records conjectures that would instead describe fortune as difficult to rein in.

239.The reference is to Oedipus the King. The question turns the lack of reliable foreknowledge into an argument against fear; it does not say that the future contains no danger.

About This Reading Edition

Stobaeus gathered Greek philosophy and poetry for his son Septimius. Volume I presents the dedication testimony, On Arithmetic, Book I through chapter 60, and the ancient contents of all four books. This complete bilingual edition includes an introduction and 2,117 explanatory notes.

Historical Text and Translation

The Greek follows Curt Wachsmuth’s 1884 Volume I, checked against the supplied scan. Gaps, lost-chapter headings, and uncertain attributions remain visible. Chapter 2 includes a labeled proposed reconstruction. The appendix outlines Books I–IV; the full texts of Books II–IV are outside this volume. Reader pages preserve the companion PDF’s numbering.

About Diotimos Editions

Diotimos Editions prepared this independent English translation directly from the Greek. Prose and verse retain their distinct forms, with mixed passages preserving their quoted verse. Every passage is paired with its Greek and identified by the edition’s reference number. All 2,117 notes remain linked to their passages, with continuous numbering across the introduction and text.

Rights

Stobaeus’s ancient Greek work and Wachsmuth’s 1884 printing are in the public domain. The independent English translation, introduction, and explanatory notes are © 2026 Diotimos Editions. The complete supplied edition is available as PDF, EPUB, Word, and Markdown. The PDF retains the fixed page locations used by the companion lexicon.