Stobaeus, Volume II

Name: Stobaeus, Volume II
Author: John Stobaeus

Greek and English with an introduction and explanatory footnotes.

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Stobaeus, Volume IIBook II Chapter 4 · II.4.6–II.4.8

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Ancient Greek Page · Branch 42 of 516

Book II Chapter 4 · II.4.6–II.4.8

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Ancient Greek

p. 80

Εὐριπίδου Ἡρακλέους

II.4.6

Οὐ παύσομαι τὰς Χάριτας Μούσαις συγκαταμιγνὺς ἁδίσταν συζυγίαν. μὴ ζῴην μετ’ ἀμουσίας.

Εὐριπίδου Ἀνδρομέδας

II.4.7

Ὦ τλῆμον, ὥς σοι τὰς τύχας μὲν ἀσθενεῖς ἔδωχ’ ὁ δαίμων· μέγα φρονοῦσι δ’ οἱ λόγοι.

Εὐριπίδου Παλαμήδῃ

II.4.8

Τὰ τῆς γε λήθης φάρμακ’ ὀρθώσας μόνος ἄφωνα καὶ φωνοῦντα συλλαβάς τε θεὶς ἐξηῦρον ἀνθρώποισι γράμματ’ εἰδέναι, ὥστ’ οὐ παρόντα ποντίας ὑπὲρ πλακὸς τἀκεῖ κατ’ οἴκους πάντ’ ἐπίστασθαι καλῶς, παισίν τ’ ἀποθνῄσκοντα χρημάτων μέτρον γράψαντας εἰπεῖν, τὸν λαβόντα δ’ εἰδέναι. ἃ δ’ εἰς ἔριν πίπτουσιν ἀνθρώποις κακά, δέλτος διαιρεῖ, κοὐκ ἐᾷ ψευδῆ λέγειν.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 4

p. 81

Euripides in Heracles

II.4.6

I shall not cease to mingle the Graces with the Muses, in sweetest union. May I never live without the Muses’ arts.¹⁰³

Euripides in Andromeda

II.4.7

Poor soul, how feeble a fortune the divine power has given you! Yet your words think highly of themselves.¹⁰⁴

Euripides in Palamedes

II.4.8

I alone devised remedies against forgetfulness, voiceless and yet speaking, and arranged syllables: I invented letters for human beings to learn, so that, though absent across the sea’s expanse, they might know clearly all that happens at home, and, when dying, tell their children the extent of their property by writing it down, and the recipient might know. The troubles that fall into dispute among people a tablet settles, and does not allow falsehoods to be spoken.¹⁰⁵

103.Heracles 673–676. The Graces and Muses unite beauty or charm with artistic cultivation. Ἀμουσία is the absence of the Muses’ arts, especially music and song, rather than merely silence. “Sweetest” follows the Doric ἁδίσταν printed here.

104.The contrast is between the person’s weak circumstances and the pride expressed in speech. The English retains the personification in μέγα φρονοῦσι δ’ οἱ λόγοι, literally “the words have high thoughts.” Δαίμων here names the divine power responsible for the allotment of fortune.

105.Palamedes describes the invention of writing. The paradox “voiceless and yet speaking” characterizes written signs; the following examples concern communication at a distance, inheritance, and the settling of disputes. The Greek shifts between singular and plural constructions in the inheritance clause. The English supplies the people doing the writing without changing the examples or silently adopting the apparatus’s proposed wording.

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.