Diotimos Reading Desk

Tap the page, move to the top or bottom edge, swipe down, or press Tab to reveal reading controls. Use the arrow keys or swipe sideways to turn pages.

← ExitStobaeus, Volume II

Reading language

Book II Chapter 31

The Stronger Argument continued

Nor would he go about softening ⟨his⟩ voice toward his lover, acting as his own pimp with his eyes.¹⁰⁹¹ At dinner he was not allowed to take the head of the radish, or snatch his elders’ dill or celery, or gobble delicacies, or giggle, or keep his feet crossed. —¹⁰⁹²

The rival Arguments continued

[Weaker Argument] Ancient stuff indeed, Dipolieia stuff, brimming with cicadas, and Kekeides and the Bouphonia! —¹⁰⁹³ [Stronger Argument] Yet these are the very things by which my schooling reared the men who fought at Marathon. You teach the moderns to wrap themselves in cloaks right from the start: enough to make me hang myself when they ought to dance the Panathenaic dances, but a lad holds out the shield of modesty and neglects Tritogeneia.¹⁰⁹⁴ So, young fellow, take heart and choose me, the Stronger Argument.

The Stronger Argument continued

And you will know to hate the marketplace and keep away from bathhouses, to be ashamed of shameful things and blush if someone mocks you, to rise from your seat when your elders approach, and ⟨not⟩ behave rudely toward your own parents, nor do anything else shameful, since you are going to shape an image of Modesty.¹⁰⁹⁵ Nor rush into a dancing girl’s house, lest, gaping at the spectacle, you be hit by an apple from a prostitute and chipped away from your good name.¹⁰⁹⁶ Nor contradict your father in anything, nor call him Iapetus and bear a grudge against the age that reared you in the nest. —¹⁰⁹⁷

The rival Arguments continued

[Weaker Argument] If you obey him in this, young fellow, by Dionysus, you will turn out like Hippocrates’s sons, and they will call you a vegetable-pap fool. —¹⁰⁹⁸ [Stronger Argument] Yet you will be sleek and blooming, spending your time in the gymnasia, not jabbering thorny quips in the marketplace like the moderns, nor dragged about over some sticky, quibbling, pettifogging little case.¹⁰⁹⁹ Instead, going down to the Academe, you will run beneath the sacred olive trees, wreathed in white reed, with a temperate companion of your own age, smelling of smilax, an untroubled life, and poplar shedding its leaves, rejoicing in the season of spring, when plane-tree whispers to elm.¹¹⁰⁰

Menander

Whatever task you happen to be inexperienced in, it is a good thing to ask those who know it.¹¹⁰¹

Euripides, from Rhesus

One should learn something wise from a wise man.¹¹⁰²

Menander

Far better to have learned one thing well than to have draped oneself poorly in many subjects.¹¹⁰³

Sophocles, from Women of Phthiotis

You are young: you must learn many things, hear many things, and be taught at length.¹¹⁰⁴

⟨Unidentified tragedian⟩

Always desire to learn something useful in addition.¹¹⁰⁵

Philemon

I heard them myself.¹¹⁰⁶ Understanding does not grow of its own accord in human beings, my good fellow, like thyme in a field;¹¹⁰⁷ but by saying something, listening to others, and observing ⟨something here or there⟩, minds keep growing little by little, they say.¹¹⁰⁸

Menander

When you speak a great deal but do not learn, you will have taught your own lesson without learning mine.¹¹⁰⁹

Menander, from The Carthaginian

To dislodge long-established folly in a single day is hard work.¹¹¹⁰

Menander, from The Affectionate Brothers

It is not easy to dislodge folly in a short time.¹¹¹¹

Euripides, from Meleager

For from father and mother, when one endures harsh regimens, the offspring are better.¹¹¹²

1091.Προαγωγεύων means acting as a procurer or pimp: the boy is imagined offering himself through glances and an affected voice. Supplied ⟨τὴν⟩, the Greek article before voice, is represented by ⟨his⟩. The sexual language continues the same pederastic setting as the preceding verses.

1092.The speaker now extends discipline from posture and courtship to table manners and deference to elders. Ὀψοφαγεῖν is to eat relishes or delicacies greedily; it is not simply the ordinary act of eating a meal. The closing dash marks the rival Argument’s interruption.

1093.The Weaker Argument mocks the old-fashioned catalogue. The Dipolieia and Bouphonia evoke archaic rites for Zeus; the cicadas recall golden hair ornaments associated with older Athenians. Kekeides is explained by the ancient scholia as an earlier dithyrambic poet. The Stronger Argument answers by claiming that his schooling produced the Marathon generation.

1094.The Panathenaic dance evokes armed dancing in Athena’s festival, and Tritogeneia is Athena. Wachsmuth prints τῆς αἰδοῦς, of modesty, where separate play editions commonly have τῆς κωλῆς, an anatomical word used here for the genitals according to the ancient scholia. The English preserves the unusual shield of modesty. The complaint concerns covering oneself instead of serving the goddess.

1095.Αἰδώς is personified Modesty or moral regard, an ideal to be embodied. Φλέγεσθαι, to burn, here describes blushing under mockery. Supplied ⟨μή⟩ is marked as ⟨not⟩. Σκαιουργεῖν is to behave rudely or abusively toward the parents; the printed wording is retained.

1096.An ὀρχηστρίς is a female dancer or entertainer; the following πορνίδιον is a disparaging diminutive for a prostitute. The apple has an erotic role as an invitation or token of desire. The speaker warns that accepting such attention damages respectable reputation; the comic image chips that reputation away like a piece broken off.

1097.Iapetus, a figure of the ancient mythical generation, serves as a contemptuous label for an old man. The nest image in ἐνεοττοτροφήθης refers to being reared: the son is told to respect the older generation that brought him up. The closing dash introduces another interruption by the Weaker Argument.

1098.The ancient scholia explain εἴξεις as becoming like, not yielding to, and identify this Hippocrates as an Athenian, not the physician. Βλιτομάμμαν is a comic insult glossed as fool: its food imagery combines leafy greens and pap. Vegetable-pap fool is a deliberately approximate rendering of the wordplay.

1099.The extended compounds mock the verbal cleverness and petty litigation of the rival education. Wachsmuth’s γλισχαντιλογεξεπιτρίπτου is retained without inserting the rho found in γλισχραντι- in other texts. Ἀπραγμοσύνη below, an untroubled life or freedom from meddling, answers this picture of contentious business.

1100.Here the Academe is a gymnasium ground with sacred olive trees. Καλάμῳ λευκῷ is white reed; λεύκη later is poplar, and smilax a climbing plant. Φυλλοβολούσης is rendered shedding leaves; putting out leaves is also proposed for this disputed phrase. The spring setting and whispering plane-tree and elm are retained.

1101.Wachsmuth prints [Μανθάνειν], to learn, as rejected wording before the couplet. His apparatus records Meineke’s removal of it as a repetition from the following Euripidean verse, II.31.14. It is omitted from the English. The heading gives Menander’s name but no play or speaker; the advice concerns seeking knowledge when one lacks experience.

1102.Rhesus 206. The Chorus speaks to Dolon while asking about the disguise he proposes for spying on the Greeks; he goes on to describe a wolfskin. Σοφός can therefore imply cleverness or skill in this setting as well as wisdom. The anthology preserves the line as a general maxim and attributes the play to Euripides in its heading.

1103.Περιβεβλῆσθαι suggests covering or clothing oneself with many things. The contrast concerns how well something is learned and how poorly a larger range may be acquired. Πράγματα is broad, matters or subjects; the excerpt names no particular field of study or Menandrian play.

1104.Φθιωτίδες is a feminine plural title, rendered Women of Phthiotis; Wachsmuth cites fragment 627 in Nauck’s numbering. No particular speaker is identified here. Μακρά is the printed neuter plural, rendered at length: the advice joins learning and listening with extended instruction.

1105.The supplied attribution is printed in Latin: Tragici incerti, of an unidentified tragedian. Wachsmuth’s apparatus records Nauck’s separation of this saying from the preceding Sophoclean excerpt and cites anonymous tragic fragment 228 in his numbering. Προσμανθάνειν means to learn further or add to one’s learning; βούλου urges the desire to do so.

1106.The heading names Philemon without identifying a play or speaker. The opening retains I heard them myself; the isolated excerpt does not identify the people or subject matter to which τούτων refers. The printed text is not replaced by Meineke’s proposed singular wording.

1107.Νοῦς is understanding or intelligence. The contrast is with thyme growing in a field without cultivation: human understanding requires the activities named next. Wachsmuth retains the unusual neuter αὐτόματον beside the masculine νοῦς, rather than silently adopting the proposed masculine form. The image concerns the growth of understanding, not a denial that human beings have natural intellectual capacities.

1108.The main text has λέγειν τι, saying something, which the English retains. Wachsmuth questions that wording and records alternatives including experiencing or looking; those conjectures are not substituted for speaking. The supplied ⟨τί που⟩ is represented by ⟨something here or there⟩, leaving its object indefinite. Φρένες here names the mental faculties, rendered minds. Both gradual growth and the qualification they say remain explicit.

1109.Τὸ σόν and τοὐμόν mean what is yours and what is mine, here rendered as the respective lessons or contributions to an exchange. The printed ending οὐ μαθὼν ἔσῃ is retained: the talker ends without learning the other person’s contribution. The excerpt identifies no play or particular speaker.

1110.The same author is Menander, and the heading names The Carthaginian. The wording contrasts ἄνοια, folly or lack of understanding, established over a long time with the hope of changing it in one day. The fragment supplies no speaker or dramatic circumstances.

1111.The same-author heading continues the attribution to Menander. Φιλάδελφοι expresses brotherly affection, rendered The Affectionate Brothers, brothers who love one another; this does not reconstruct the lost play’s plot. Both ἄνοια and μεταστῆσαι recur from the preceding excerpt: folly is something to be moved from its established position.

1112.Wachsmuth cites fragment 529 in Nauck’s numbering. The construction is compressed: singular ὅστις ἐκπονεῖ, whoever labors through, does not agree regularly with the preceding father and mother. “When one” cautiously renders the indefinite relative; Clement’s alternative plural participle, ἐκπονουμένων, is not substituted. Δίαιτα is a regimen or way of life. The printed γόνοι means offspring, rather than πόνοι, toils, found in another transmission.