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.7.21.1–II.7.21.2

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Facing Pages · Branch 249 of 516

Book II Chapter 7 · II.7.21.1–II.7.21.2

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Ancient Greek

p. 494

Ἀστεῖα φαῦλα καὶ μέσα πάθη

II.7.21.1

[Περὶ παθῶν ψυχῆς].

Τῶν δὲ παθῶν καὶ ὁρμῶν τὰ μὲν εἶναι ἀστεῖα, τὰ δὲ φαῦλα, τὰ δὲ μέσα. Ἀστεῖα μὲν φιλίαν, χάριν, νέμεσιν, αἰδῶ, θάρσος, ἔλεον· φαῦλα δὲ φθόνον, ἐπιχαιρεκακίαν, ὕβριν· μέσα δὲ λύπην, φόβον, ὀργήν, ἡδονήν, ἐπιθυμίαν.

Αἵρεσις ὅρος καὶ ἡδονὴ καὶ λύπη

II.7.21.2

Τούτων δὲ τὰ μὲν αἱρετέον καθάπαξ, τὰ δὲ ὁριστέον. Πᾶν δὲ πάθος περὶ ἡδονὴν συνίστασθαι καὶ λύπην, δι’ ὃ καὶ περὶ ταύτας τὰς ἠθικὰς ἀρετὰς ὑπάρχειν.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 7

p. 495

Admirable Base and Intermediate Passions

II.7.21.1

Of passions and impulses, some are admirable, some base, and some intermediate.⁶⁶³ Admirable are friendship, gratitude, indignation, modesty, confidence, and pity.⁶⁶⁴ Base are envy, malicious joy, and insolence; intermediate are pain, fear, anger, pleasure, and desire.⁶⁶⁵

Choice Limits Pleasure and Pain

II.7.21.2

Of these, some are to be chosen without qualification, while others are to be limited.⁶⁶⁶ Every passion takes shape in relation to pleasure and pain; hence the ethical virtues also concern these.⁶⁶⁷

663.The bracketed summary heading reads “On the passions of the soul.” It is retained in Greek and translated here. Πάθη and ὁρμαί are passions and impulses. Μέσα, intermediate things, names a class here; it is distinct from the virtuous means, μεσότητες, discussed in section 20. The final numbered subdivisions and their descriptive labels serve layout only.

664.All six admirable examples are retained. Χάρις is gratitude here; section 23 distinguishes its several senses. Νέμεσις is indignation rather than envy: compare Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics II.7, 1108b1–5, where indignation concerns undeserved good fortune. Αἰδώς is modesty or a sense of shame, and θάρσος confidence, distinct from ἀνδρεία, courage. The printed θάρσος is retained; the apparatus records Meineke’s preference for θάρρος, another form of the word for confidence.

665.All three base and five intermediate examples remain. Ἐπιχαιρεκακία is malicious joy at another’s misfortune, the term used in the earlier Stoic account; ὕβρις is insolence or outrage, rather than merely high self-esteem. The classifications differ from the Stoic treatment: pity is now admirable, while pain, fear, anger, pleasure, and desire are intermediate. The next sentence concerns their choice or limitation. Wachsmuth also notes that this threefold classification differs from Aristotle’s.

666.Καθάπαξ is without qualification, and ὁριστέον means that limits must be set. The sentence does not repeat the three classes or explicitly assign each of them to one of its two clauses. Its wording is preserved without inventing a third instruction. In context, the intermediate feelings require determination rather than being automatically good or bad.

667.Pleasure and pain are the objects of περὶ ταύτας, concerning these. The account thus returns to the field of ethical virtue already described in II.7.20.6. Συνίστασθαι is takes shape or is constituted; the sentence relates every passion to pleasure and pain without reducing every named feeling to an identical experience.

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.