Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition
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Facing Pages · Branch 474 of 879
Book I Chapter 47 · I.47.14.3–I.47.14.4
Ancient Greek
p. 94414.3
Τὸ τοίνυν λεληθέναι μηδαμῶς ὑπολάβῃς, ὡς λέγω λήθης ἐνταῦθά που γένεσιν. Ἔστι γὰρ λήθη μνήμης ἔξοδος, ἡ δ᾽ ἐν τῷ λεγομένῳ νῦν οὔπω γέγονε· τοῦ δὲ μήτε ὄντος μήτε γεγονότος πω γίγνεσθαι φάναι τινὰ ἀποβολὴν ἄτοπον. Ἦ γάρ;
Τί μήν;
Τὰ τοίνυν ὀνόματα μετάβαλε μόνον.
Πῶς;
Ἀντὶ τοῦ λεληθέναι τὴν ψυχήν, ὅταν ἀπαθὴς αὕτη γίγνηται τῶν σεισμῶν τῶν τοῦ σώματος, ἣν νῦν λήθην καλεῖς, ἀναισθησίαν ἐπονόμασον.
Ἔμαθον.
14.4
Τὸ δ᾽ ἐν ἑνὶ πάθει τὴν ψυχὴν καὶ τὸ σῶμα κοινῇ γιγνόμενον κοινῇ καὶ κινεῖσθαι, ταύτην δὴ τὴν κίνησιν ὀνομάζων αἴσθησιν οὐκ ἀπὸ τρόπου φθέγγου ἄν.
Ἀληθέστατα λέγεις.
Οὐκοῦν ἤδη μανθάνομεν ὃ βουλόμεθα καλεῖν τὴν αἴσθησιν;
Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 47
p. 94514.3 · Being unnoticed is not forgetting
“But do not take my saying ‘to have escaped notice’ as though I were speaking of the occurrence of forgetting. Forgetting is the departure of memory, whereas in the case now under discussion memory has not yet arisen. It is absurd to speak of losing something that neither exists nor has yet come into existence. Is it not?”
“Certainly.”
“Then change only the terms.”
“How?”
“Instead of saying that something has escaped the soul’s notice when the soul is unaffected by the body’s shakings, call what you now name ‘forgetting’ ‘absence of sensation.’”
“I understand.”1213
14.4 · A shared movement
“When soul and body are jointly involved in a single affection and are jointly moved, you would speak appropriately by calling this movement sensation.”
“What you say is entirely true.”
“Do we now understand, then, what we mean to call sensation?”1214
Socrates
Reading Stobaeus, Volume I · Book I Chapter 47 · I.47.14.3–I.47.14.4
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.