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 31 · II.31.120.5

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Book II Chapter 31 · II.31.120.5

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Ancient Greek

p. 898

Ἀρχύτα — συνέχεια

II.31.120.5

Ταύταν δὲ οὔτε καττὰν ἀλάθειαν κρίνεν δύνανται τοὶ κακῶς ἔχοντες, οὔτε ἑλέσθαι ἰσχύοντι τοὶ μὴ ἐκδαλότατα ὁρέοντες αὐτάν· τίνοντι δὲ δίκας ἀφροσύνας τοὶ ἁδονᾷ τὸ ἄριστον διδόντες, κολάσδονται τοὶ τὰν ἀναλγησίαν πάντων προτιμέοντες, καθόλω δ’ εἰπέν, ἄγχονται ἐν κακᾷ ζάλᾳ τοὶ ἐν εὐπαθείᾳ σωμάτων ἢ ἐν ψυχᾶς ἀλόγῳ κατασκευᾷ ἀπολιπόντες τὰν εὐδαίμονα ζωάν. Οὐδὲ πολλὸν ἀπὸ τούτων εὐτυχέστεροί ἐντι τοὶ ἐξαίροντες μὲν τὸ καλόν, ὡς καττούτω τί μὴ λέγεν, ὁμότιμον δὲ αὐτῷ τὰν ἁδονὰν καὶ τὰν ἀναλγησίαν καὶ τὰς εὐπαθείας τὰς πράτας καὶ φυσικὰς καὶ ἀλόγως ὁρμὰς ἢ σώματος ἢ ψυχᾶς ἀντέχοντες· ἑκάτερα γὰρ ἀδικέοντι, τὰν μὲν ψυχικὰν ἀκρότατα καὶ τὰ ἔργα αὐτᾶς κατάγοντες ἐς ἰσότατα ποττὰν τοῦ σώματος τεληότατα, τὰν δὲ σωματικὰν εὐεξίαν ἐς ὕψος ἀντικαθιστάντες τᾷ ψυχικᾷ ἁδονᾷ· ἐνεμεσήθη δὲ καὶ ἁ φύσις καὶ τὸ θεῖον τᾷ τούτων διακράσι· οὐ γὰρ φυλάσσοντι τὰν ἀξίαν τῶ κάρρονος ποττὸ χεῖρον.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 31

p. 899

Archytas continued

II.31.120.5

Those in a bad condition cannot judge this truly, nor can those who do not see it very clearly choose it. Those who give pleasure first place pay the penalty of folly; those who prefer freedom from pain to everything are punished. In general, those who abandon the happy life in bodily comfort or an irrational condition of soul are choked in a cruel storm.¹³¹³

Not much more fortunate than these are those who exalt the noble [wording uncertain],¹³¹⁴ but hold pleasure, freedom from pain, primary and natural pleasant states, and irrational impulses of body or soul to be of equal worth with it. For they wrong both: they bring the soul’s eminence and its activities down to equality with the body’s perfection, while raising bodily well-being to the same height as the soul’s pleasure. Nature and the divine have also taken offense at their blending, for they do not preserve the worth of the better relative to the worse.¹³¹⁵

1313.This refers to happiness at the end of the preceding unit. Ἀναλγησία is absence of pain or insensibility to it; εὐπάθεια here concerns comfortable or pleasant conditions. The passage rejects treating these states as the highest good and continues the voyage image with a destructive storm.

1314.The English comment wording uncertain flags ὡς καττούτω τί μὴ λέγεν, retained unchanged in Greek. Wachsmuth reports that τί μὴ λέγεν seemed corrupt to Meineke. No secure translation of these intervening words is asserted; the contrast between exalting the noble and giving other states equal worth remains clear.

1315.The list of pleasant states and natural impulses is compressed in Greek, and its precise coordination is uncertain. Διακράσι describes their blending of these goods. Doric ἀκρότατα, ἰσότατα and τεληότατα correspond to eminence, equality and perfection. The text says soul’s pleasure at the end of the comparison; it does not replace that phrase with virtue. Both body and soul are wronged by the resulting hierarchy.

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.