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.heading–II.31.2

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Book II Chapter 31 · II.31.heading–II.31.2

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Ancient Greek

p. 742

Κεφάλαιον ΛΑʹ

II.31.heading

Περὶ ἀγωγῆς καὶ παιδείας.

Εὐριπίδου Ἑκάβῃ

II.31.1

Ἔχει γέ ⟨τοι⟩ τι καὶ τὸ θρεφθῆναι καλῶς δίδαξιν ἐσθλοῦ· τοῦτο δ’ ἤν τις εὖ μάθῃ, οἶδεν τό γ’ αἰσχρόν, κανόνι τοῦ καλοῦ μαθών.

Τοῦ αὐτοῦ

II.31.2

Παῖς ὢν φυλάττου πραγμάτων αἰσχρῶν ἄπο· ὡς ἢν τραφῇ τις μὴ κακῶς, αἰσχύνεται ἀνὴρ γενόμενος αἰσχρὰ δρᾶν· νέος δ’ ὅταν πόλλ’ ἐξαμάρτῃ, τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ἔχει εἰς γῆρας αὐτοῖς τοῖς τρόποισιν ἔμφυτον.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 31

p. 743

Chapter 31

II.31.heading

On Upbringing and Education.¹⁰⁶⁵

Euripides, from Hecuba

II.31.1

A good upbringing also, ⟨you know⟩, teaches something of goodness;¹⁰⁶⁶ and whoever learns this well recognizes what is shameful, having learned by the standard of what is noble.¹⁰⁶⁷

From the same author

II.31.2

While still a boy, keep clear of shameful deeds; for one who is not badly brought up is ashamed, once a man, to do shameful things.¹⁰⁶⁸ But when someone commits many wrongs in youth, he carries that fault into old age, rooted in his very character.¹⁰⁶⁹

1065.Ἀγωγή is upbringing or the guidance through which character is formed; παιδεία is education or training in a broader sense than formal schooling. Surviving excerpts resume here after the preserved headings and missing-text notices of Chapters 16–30.

1066.Hecuba 600–602. The supplied particle ⟨τοι⟩, which addresses or assures the listener, is marked as ⟨you know⟩. In the play Hecuba reflects on character and upbringing after hearing of Polyxena’s courageous death. The anthology selects these three verses from her speech.

1067.Κανών is a rule or measuring standard. What is noble, τὸ καλόν, supplies the standard by which the shameful, τὸ αἰσχρόν, is recognized. The educational comparison concerns moral discrimination; it does not turn the isolated verses into an exhaustive statement of Euripides’s own views.

1068.The same author refers to Euripides. Wachsmuth cites fragment 926 in Nauck’s numbering without naming a play. The Greek has μὴ κακῶς, not badly: good upbringing fosters reluctance to do shameful things in adulthood. Neither a particular speaker nor a lost dramatic setting is supplied.

1069.The closing phrase αὐτοῖς τοῖς τρόποισιν means in the very dispositions or traits of character. Repeated wrongdoing in youth is described as taking root and persisting into old age. The noun ἁμαρτία here is fault or wrongdoing; a later technical or theological meaning is not imposed.

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.