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 31 · II.31.24–II.31.25

Swipe or use the arrow keys.

Ancient Greek Page · Branch 389 of 516

Book II Chapter 31 · II.31.24–II.31.25

Book Mode

Ancient Greek

p. 774

Εὐριπίδου κωμ̅

II.31.24

Ὅστις νέος ὢν Μουσῶν ἀμελεῖ, τόν τε παρελθόντ’ ἀπόλωλε χρόνον, καὶ τὸν μέλλοντα τέθνηκε.

⟨Comici incerti.⟩

II.31.25

Φύσιν ἔχειν ἄριστόν ἐστι· δεύτερον δὲ ⟨μανθάνειν.⟩

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 31

p. 775

Euripides (attribution uncertain)

II.31.24

Whoever neglects the Muses while young¹¹²⁰ has wasted the time already past and is dead to the time ahead.¹¹²¹

⟨Unidentified comic poet.⟩

II.31.25

To have natural ability is best; next comes ⟨learning.⟩¹¹²²

1120.The printed heading names Euripides, followed by an unresolved abbreviation, here transcribed κωμ̅ with an overline marking abbreviation. Wachsmuth cites fragment 927 in Nauck’s numbering but questions the heading: his apparatus suggests that a play title is concealed and considers a different author. No complete title or secure dramatic attribution can be recovered from this heading alone.

1121.The Muses evoke the cultivation supplied by poetry, music, and education. The final verse describes the neglectful person as dead with respect to the future, keeping the metaphor rather than making future time itself die. No speaker or dramatic setting is identified.

1122.Both the Latin attribution and the concluding μανθάνειν, learning, are editorial supplements and remain visibly supplied in English. Wachsmuth records Meineke’s addition of the infinitive. Φύσις here is natural capacity or aptitude. The fragment ranks that capacity first and learning second; it does not identify a particular skill, poet, or play.

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.