Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition
Swipe or use the arrow keys.
English Page · Branch 404 of 879
Book I Chapter 40 · I.40.1.57–I.40.1.59
Ancient Greek
p. 80457
Ἴσως δὲ τῶν ἐναντίων ἡ φύσις γλίχεται καὶ ἐκ τούτων ἀποτελεῖ τὸ σύμφωνον, οὐκ ἐκ τῶν ὁμοίων· ὥσπερ ἀμέλει τὸ ἄρρεν συνήγαγε πρὸς τὸ θῆλυ καὶ οὐχ ἑκάτερον πρὸς τὸ ὁμόφυλον, καὶ τὴν πρώτην ὁμόνοιαν διὰ τῶν ἐναντίων συνῆψεν, οὐ διὰ τῶν ὁμοίων.
58
Ἔοικε δὲ καὶ ἡ τέχνη τὴν φύσιν μιμουμένη τὸ αὐτὸ ποιεῖν· ζωγραφία μὲν γὰρ λευκῶν τε καὶ μελανῶν, ὠχρῶν τε καὶ ἐρυθρῶν χρωμάτων ἐγκερασαμένη φύσεις τὰς εἰκόνας τοῖς προηγουμένοις ἀπετέλεσε συμφώνως· μουσικὴ δὲ ὀξεῖς ἅμα δὲ καὶ βαρεῖς, μακρούς τε καὶ βραχεῖς φθόγγους μίξασα ἐν διαφόροις φωναῖς μίαν ἀπετέλεσεν ἁρμονίαν· γραμματικὴ δὲ φωνηέντων τε καὶ ἀφώνων γραμμάτων κρᾶσιν ποιησαμένη τὴν ὅλην τέχνην ἀπ᾽ αὐτῶν συνεστήσατο.
59
Αὐτὸ δὲ τοῦτ᾽ ἦν παρὰ τῷ σκοτεινῷ Ἡρακλείτῳ λεγόμενον· “Συνάψειας οὖλα καὶ οὐχὶ οὖλα, συμφερόμενον καὶ διαφερόμενον, συνᾷδον ⟨καὶ⟩ διᾷδον, ἐκ πάντων ἓν καὶ ἐξ ἑνὸς πάντα.”
Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 40
p. 80557 · Nature’s joining of opposites
Perhaps nature seeks opposites and produces concord from them, rather than from things alike. Thus, for example, it has brought male together with female, not each with its own sex, and joined the first concord through opposites rather than through likenesses.1041
58 · Painting, music, and letters
Art, too, seems to imitate nature in doing the same. Painting mixes the qualities of white and black, yellow and red colors, and produces images in agreement with their originals. Music mixes high and low, long and short notes in different sounds and produces a single harmony. The art of letters combines vowels and consonants and constructs its entire craft from them.1042
59 · Heraclitus on combination
This very thing was said by Heraclitus the obscure: “You could join wholes and not-wholes, what converges and what diverges, what sings together ⟨and⟩ what sings apart; from all things one, and from one all things.”1043
Socrates
Reading Stobaeus, Volume I · Book I Chapter 40 · I.40.1.57–I.40.1.59
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.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.