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 8 · II.8.7–II.8.9

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Book II Chapter 8 · II.8.7–II.8.9

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Ancient Greek

p. 556

Μενάνδρου

II.8.7

Ἀτύχημα κἀδίκημα διαφορὰν ἔχει· τὸ μὲν διὰ τύχην γίγνεται, τὸ δ’ αἱρέσει.

Εὐριπίδου Ὀρέστῃ

II.8.8

Σὺ νῦν διάφερε τῶν κακῶν, ἔξεστι γὰρ καὶ μὴ μόνον λέγ’, ἀλλὰ καὶ φρόνει τάδε.

Μενάνδρου Ῥαπιζομένῃ

II.8.9

Ὁ μὴ δεχόμενος τῶν θεῶν τὸ σύμφορον αὐτῶν διδόντων ἕνεκα τοῦ ζῆν οὐ βούλεται.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 8

p. 557

Menander

II.8.7

Misfortune and wrongdoing differ: the one comes about through fortune, the other through choice.⁷⁸⁵

Euripides in Orestes

II.8.8

Now distinguish yourself from the bad, for you can; and do not merely say this, but think it too.⁷⁸⁶

Menander in The Woman Being Slapped

II.8.9

The man who refuses what is beneficial, when the gods themselves give it for living, does not wish to live.⁷⁸⁷

785.Ἀτύχημα is an unlucky occurrence, ἀδίκημα a wrongful act. Αἵρεσις is choice; the distinction concerns how the two occur, not simply whether their outcomes are painful. The manuscripts attribute this item only to Menander. Wachsmuth’s parenthetical comparison with The Woman Being Slapped does not supply an ancient play title to the heading.

786.Orestes 251–252. In the dialogue Orestes addresses Electra after her criticism of Helen’s family. Τῶν κακῶν accordingly means the bad or wicked people; διάφερε urges her to be different from them. The source excerpt retains the positive command φρόνει, think, following λέγ’, say. It is not rewritten into a different injunction drawn from a dramatic paraphrase.

787.The wording is difficult. Τῶν θεῶν αὐτῶν διδόντων means when the gods themselves give, with τὸ σύμφορον, what is beneficial, understood as their gift. The final οὐ βούλεται, does not wish, has no expressed infinitive; the English supplies to live from the nearby τοῦ ζῆν. Wachsmuth retains the negative and states that the passage is not resolved. The translation gives this contextual construction without silently adopting a conjecture that removes the negative or changes the statement into a question.

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.