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 7 · II.7.11s.8

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Facing Pages · Branch 193 of 516

Book II Chapter 7 · II.7.11s.8

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Ancient Greek

p. 382

Ἀναβολὴ καὶ ὑπέρθεσις

II.7.11s.8

Οὐδ’ ἀναβάλλεσθαι δέ ποτε τὸν σπουδαῖον οὐδέν, εἶναι γὰρ τὴν ἀναβολὴν ὑπέρθεσιν ἐνεργείας δι’ ὄκνον, ὑπερτίθεσθαι δέ τινα μόνον ἀνεγκλήτου τῆς ὑπερθέσεως οὔσης. Ἐπὶ γὰρ τοῦ ἀναβάλλεσθαι τὸν Ἡσίοδον ταῦτ’ εἰρηκέναι·

Μηδ’ ἀναβάλλεσθαι ἐς τ’ αὔριον ἐς τ’ ἔνηφι·

καὶ

Αἰεὶ δ’ ἀμβολιεργὸς ἀνὴρ ἄτῃσι παλαίει·

τῆς [δ’] ἀναβολῆς ἔκπτωσίν τινα τῶν προσηκόντων ἔργων ἐμποιούσης.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 7

p. 383

Procrastination and Postponement

II.7.11s.8

The virtuous person never procrastinates about anything, for procrastination is postponement of activity through reluctance. He puts some things off only when the postponement is blameless.⁵¹¹ For it was about procrastination that Hesiod said:

Do not put things off till tomorrow or the day after;

and:

The man who delays his work is always wrestling with ruin.

Procrastination brings about a falling short in the tasks that fall to one.⁵¹²

511.Ἀναβολή is defined here by ὄκνος, reluctance or shrinking from action, while ὑπέρθεσις is postponement more generally and can be blameless. The English reads τινα as some things postponed and retains the condition on permissible postponement. The distinction prevents the opening denial from becoming a ban on every change of timing.

512.Wachsmuth cites the verses as Hesiod, Works and Days 408 and 411; they correspond to 410 and 413 in the common modern numbering. His first quotation ends ἔνηφι, without the final ν recorded for Hesiod in the apparatus. Ἄτῃσι is ruin or destructive misfortune, retaining the wrestling image. The editorial references have been transferred from the Greek sentence to this note. The rejected δ’ remains bracketed in Greek and is omitted in English.

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.