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.7.6–I.7.7b

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Facing Pages · Branch 110 of 879

Book I Chapter 7 · I.7.6–I.7.7b

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Ancient Greek

p. 216

6 Εὐριπίδου Ἑλένης

I.7.6

Σκέψαι γάρ, ὁ θεὸς ὡς ἔχει τι ποικίλον καὶ δυστέκμαρτον· εὖ δέ πως ἀναστρέφει ἐκεῖσε κἀκεῖσ’ ἀναφέρων· ὁ μὲν πονεῖ, ὁ δ’ οὐ πονήσας αὖθις ὄλλυται κακῶς, βέβαιον οὐδὲν τῆς ἀεὶ τύχης ἔχων.

7a Μενάνδρου Ξενολόγῳ

I.7.7a

Οὕτως ἀσυλλόγιστον ἡ τύχη ποιεῖ τὸ συμφέρον τί ποτ’ ἐστὶν ἀνθρώπου βίῳ· οὐ χρῆται νόμοις καθ’ οὓς κρίνει πράγματα, οὐδ’ ἔστιν εἰπεῖν ζῶντα “ταῦτ’ οὐ πείσομαι”.

7b ⟨Εὐριπίδου Ἱππολύτῳ⟩

I.7.7b

Πρὸς τὰς τύχας γὰρ τὰς φρένας κεκτήμεθα.

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 7

p. 217

6 Euripides, Helen (711-715)

I.7.6

Consider how changeful the god is, how hard to fathom: how deftly he turns things about, carrying them this way and that. One man toils; another, without having toiled, then perishes miserably, with nothing secure in his fortune from moment to moment.²⁴⁰

7a Menander, Xenologos

I.7.7a

Fortune makes it so impossible to calculate what, after all, is beneficial in a human life. She uses no laws by which to judge affairs, and no one living can say, “This will not happen to me.”²⁴¹

7b ⟨Euripides, Hippolytus (701)⟩

I.7.7b

For the minds we have accord with our fortunes.²⁴²

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.