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Ancient Greek Page · Branch 139 of 879
Book I Chapter 9 · I.9.8–I.9.9
Ancient Greek
p. 2748 Πλάτωνος ἐκ τοῦ Φαίδρου
Ὥστε γε τοῦτο αὐτὸ μὴ φοβώμεθα, μηδέ τις ἡμᾶς λόγος θορυβείτω δεδιττόμενος, ὡς πρὸ τοῦ κεκινημένου τὸν σώφρονα δεῖ προαιρεῖσθαι φίλον· ἀλλὰ τόδε πρὸς ἐκείνῳ δείξας φερέσθω τὰ νικητήρια, ὡς οὐκ ἐπ’ ὠφελείᾳ ἔρως τῷ ἐρῶντι καὶ τῷ ἐρωμένῳ ἐκ θεῶν ἐπιπέμπεται. Ἡμῖν δὲ ἀποδεικτέον αὖ τοὐναντίον, ὡς ἐπ’ εὐτυχίᾳ παρὰ θεῶν ἡ τοιαύτη μανία δίδοται. ἡ δὲ δὴ ἀπόδειξις ἔσται δεινοῖς μὲν ἄπιστος, σοφοῖς δὲ πιστή.
9 Ἐν ταὐτῷ
Ὃ μέντοι ἐζήτουν, ἔστιν αὐτὸ τοῦτο· μανίαν γάρ τινα ἐφήσαμεν εἶναι τὸν ἔρωτα. ἦ γάρ; - Ναί. - Μανίας δὲ εἴδη δύο· τὴν μὲν ὑπὸ νοσημάτων ἀνθρωπίνων, τὴν δὲ ὑπὸ θείας ἐξαλλαγῆς τῶν εἰωθότων νομίμων γιγνομένην. - Πάνυ γε. - Τῆς δὲ θείας τεττάρων θεῶν τέτταρα μέρη διελόμενοι, μαντικὴν μὲν ἐπίπνοιαν Ἀπόλλωνος θέντες, Διονύσου δὲ τελεστικήν, Μουσῶν δ’ αὖ ποιητικήν, τετάρτην δὲ Ἀφροδίτης καὶ Ἔρωτος, ἐρωτικὴν μανίαν ἐφήσαμεν ἀρίστην εἶναι.
Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 9
p. 2758 Plato, Phaedrus (245b-c)
Let us therefore have no fear of this very thing; let no argument alarm us by threatening that we must choose a clear-headed friend in preference to one who is beside himself. Let it carry off the prize only after showing, in addition, that love is not sent by the gods for the benefit of lover and beloved. We, in turn, must prove the opposite: that this kind of madness is given by the gods to bring good fortune. The proof will be unconvincing to the clever, but convincing to the wise.309
9 In the same work (265a-b)
“What I was looking for, however, is precisely this: we said that love was a kind of madness, did we not?” “Yes.”
“And there are two kinds of madness: one arising from human illnesses, the other from a divine departure from customary practices.” “Certainly.”
“We divided the divine kind into four parts belonging to four gods: we assigned prophetic inspiration to Apollo, initiation to Dionysus, poetic inspiration to the Muses, and the fourth to Aphrodite and Love. This last, the madness of love, we said was best.”310
Socrates
Reading Stobaeus, Volume I · Book I Chapter 9 · I.9.8–I.9.9
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.
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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.