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 1 · I.1.30–I.1.31b

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Facing Pages · Branch 39 of 879

Book I Chapter 1 · I.1.30–I.1.31b

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Ancient Greek

p. 74

30 ⟨Ἑρμοῦ ἐκ τοῦ Κρατῆρος⟩

I.1.30

Τοιοῦτο γάρ ἐστι τὸ σῶμα ἐκείνου, οὐχ ἁπτὸν οὐδὲ ὁρατὸν οὐδὲ μετρητὸν οὐδὲ διαστατὸν οὐδ’ ἄλλῳ τινὶ σώματι ὅμοιον. Οὔτε γὰρ πῦρ ἐστιν οὔτε ὕδωρ οὔτε ἀὴρ οὔτε πνεῦμα, ἀλλὰ πάντα ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ. Ἀγαθὸς γὰρ ὤν, μόνῳ ἑαυτῷ τοῦτο ἀναθεῖναι ἠθέλησε, καὶ τὴν γῆν κοσμῆσαι.

31a ⟨Ἀδεσπότου ποιητοῦ⟩

I.1.31a

Ἡρακλέους κρατεροῦ ὃς γᾶν ἐκάθαρεν ἅπασαν, πετροβάτα τε θεοῦ, Πανὸς νομίοιο βριάκτα, θείου ἰατῆρος τ’ Ἀσκληπιοῦ ὀλβιοδώτα, πρεσβίστας τε θεᾶς Ὑγιείας μειλιχοδώρου, ναυσί τ’ ἐπ’ ὠκυπόροισι Διοσκούρων ἐπιφαντᾶν, Κουρήτων θ’, οἳ ματρὶ Διὸς Ῥέᾳ ἐντὶ πάρεδροι, καὶ Χαρίτων μεμνᾶσθαι ἐν ἔργῳ παντὶ μέγιστον, ἠδὲ Χρόνου παίδων Ὡρᾶν, αἳ πάντα φύοντι, Νυμφᾶν τ’ οὐρειᾶν, αἳ νάματα κάλ’ ἐφέποντι.

31b ⟨Ἀδήλου λυρικοῦ ποιητοῦ⟩

I.1.31b

Ὑμνέωμες μάκαρας, Μοῦσαι Διὸς ἔκγονοι ἀρτίποις αὐδαῖς.

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 1

p. 75

30 ⟨Hermes, from The Mixing Bowl⟩

I.1.30

For such is his body: neither tangible nor visible, neither measurable nor extended, nor like any other body. It is neither fire nor water nor air nor breath; rather, all things come from him. For, being good, he wished to reserve this for himself alone, and to order the earth.⁷⁶

31a ⟨An unidentified poet⟩

I.1.31a

To remember mighty Heracles, who cleansed the whole earth, and the rock-walking god, powerful Pan of the pastures, and the divine healer Asclepius, giver of prosperity, and most august Hygieia, the goddess of gentle gifts, and the Dioscuri, appearing over swift-sailing ships, and the Curetes, attendants of Rhea, the mother of Zeus, and the Graces, is of highest importance in every undertaking, and the Seasons, children of Time, who bring forth all things, and the mountain Nymphs, who tend the lovely streams.⁷⁷

31b ⟨An unidentified lyric poet⟩

I.1.31b

Let us hymn the blessed gods, Muses born of Zeus, with voices perfectly attuned.⁷⁸

76.Wachsmuth supplies the heading from the Hermetic treatise called The Mixing Bowl or The Monad. The description deliberately denies ordinary bodily attributes to what it calls God’s “body.” The final clause follows the wording printed here, including “earth”; its relation to the preceding statement is compressed.

77.The opening names depend on “to remember,” which occurs later in the Greek. The English brings that verb forward. Hygieia personifies health; the Dioscuri are the divine brothers associated here with aid at sea. The poem calls the Seasons children of Chronos, “Time”; this is not the name Kronos, Zeus’s father. Its Doric forms are retained in Greek.

78.The printed artipois, literally “sound-footed,” is unusual with “voices”; “perfectly attuned” is an interpretive rendering of its metrical image. The first-person form hymneōmes means “let us hymn,” not “hymn” as a command to the Muses alone.

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.