Stobaeus, Volume II

Name: Stobaeus, Volume II
Author: John Stobaeus

Greek and English with an introduction and explanatory footnotes.

Explore the Lexicon

Stobaeus, Volume IIBook II Chapter 9 · II.9.4–II.9.5

Swipe or use the arrow keys.

English Page · Branch 331 of 516

Book II Chapter 9 · II.9.4–II.9.5

Book Mode

Ancient Greek

p. 658

⟨Τοῦ αὐτοῦ⟩

II.9.4

Οἱ θεοὶ τοῖσι ἀνθρώποισι διδοῦσι τἀγαθὰ πάντα καὶ πάλαι καὶ νῦν, πλὴν ὁκόσα κακὰ καὶ βλαβερὰ καὶ ἀνωφελέα. Τάδε δ’ οὔτε πάλαι οὔτε νῦν θεοὶ ἀνθρώποισι δωρέονται, ἀλλ’ αὐτοὶ τοῖσδεσι ἐμπελάζουσι διὰ νόου τυφλότητα καὶ ἀγνωμοσύνην.

⟨Τοῦ αὐτοῦ⟩

II.9.5

Τύχη μεγαλόδωρος, ἀλλ’ ἀβέβαιος, φύσις δὲ αὐτάρκης· διόπερ νικᾷ τῷ ἥσσονι καὶ βεβαίῳ τὸ μέζον τῆς ἐλπίδος.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 9

p. 659

⟨The same author⟩

II.9.4

The gods give human beings all good things, now as in the past, apart from whatever is bad, harmful, and useless.⁹²² Neither in the past nor now do the gods bestow these things on human beings; people themselves come upon them through blindness of mind and lack of judgment.⁹²³

⟨The same author⟩

II.9.5

Fortune is lavish in gifts but unreliable; nature is self-sufficient.⁹²⁴ Thus, with what is less but secure, nature prevails over the greater amount held out by hope.⁹²⁵

922.The attribution to the same author is supplied. The opening retains τἀγαθὰ πάντα, all good things, before the exception for evils. The apparatus records a proposed deletion of τἀγαθά, but the English does not simplify the printed sentence into all things.

923.Ἐμπελάζουσι expresses approaching or coming into contact with these evils, here come upon them. The stated cause is νόου τυφλότης, blindness of mind, and ἀγνωμοσύνη, lack of judgment. The contrast assigns the harmful encounter to human intellectual failure rather than to a harmful divine gift.

924.The attribution is supplied. Αὐτάρκης is self-sufficient, in contrast with Fortune’s unreliable generosity. The apparatus proposes adding and stable after self-sufficient, but that addition is not printed here; the assurance is expressed by βεβαίῳ, secure, in the following clause.

925.The printed μέζον is an Ionic form of the comparative μεῖζον, greater. The opposition is between the smaller but secure and the greater that is hoped for. Held out by hope conveys the compressed τῆς ἐλπίδος, of hope, without inserting a proposed grammatical repair.

About This Reading Edition

The complete surviving text of Stobaeus’s second book, through II.46.22, in Ancient Greek and English, with an introduction and 1,541 explanatory notes. All forty-six chapter headings remain, including the notices for chapters whose texts are missing.

Historical Text and Translation

Greek: Curt Wachsmuth, Ioannis Stobaei Anthologii libri duo priores, volumen II (Berlin: Weidmann, 1884), printed p. 1 and pp. 3–264. The supplied edition preserves consequential editorial signs, reconstructed joins, qualified attributions, and missing-text notices. English translation, introduction, and explanatory notes: Diotimos Editions, 2026.

About Diotimos Editions

This historical edition credits Diotimos Editions as its English translator.

Rights

Stobaeus’s ancient Greek work and Wachsmuth’s 1884 edition are in the public domain. The supplied English translation, introduction, and explanatory notes are published with the site owner’s authorization.