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.31.16a–II.31.17

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Facing Pages · Branch 385 of 516

Book II Chapter 31 · II.31.16a–II.31.17

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Ancient Greek

p. 766

⟨Tragici incerti⟩

II.31.16a

Ἀεί τι βούλου χρήσιμον προσμανθάνειν.

Φιλήμονος

II.31.17

Ἤκουσα τούτων αὐτός· οὐδὲ φύεται αὐτόματον ἀνθρώποισιν, ὦ βέλτιστε, νοῦς, ὥσπερ ἐν ἀγρῷ θύμ’· ἐκ δὲ τοῦ λέγειν τι καὶ ἑτέρων ἀκούειν καὶ θεωρῆσαί ⟨τί που⟩ κατὰ μικρὸν ἀεί, φασί, φύονται φρένες.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 31

p. 767

⟨Unidentified tragedian⟩

II.31.16a

Always desire to learn something useful in addition.¹¹⁰⁵

Philemon

II.31.17

I heard them myself.¹¹⁰⁶ Understanding does not grow of its own accord in human beings, my good fellow, like thyme in a field;¹¹⁰⁷ but by saying something, listening to others, and observing ⟨something here or there⟩, minds keep growing little by little, they say.¹¹⁰⁸

1105.The supplied attribution is printed in Latin: Tragici incerti, of an unidentified tragedian. Wachsmuth’s apparatus records Nauck’s separation of this saying from the preceding Sophoclean excerpt and cites anonymous tragic fragment 228 in his numbering. Προσμανθάνειν means to learn further or add to one’s learning; βούλου urges the desire to do so.

1106.The heading names Philemon without identifying a play or speaker. The opening retains I heard them myself; the isolated excerpt does not identify the people or subject matter to which τούτων refers. The printed text is not replaced by Meineke’s proposed singular wording.

1107.Νοῦς is understanding or intelligence. The contrast is with thyme growing in a field without cultivation: human understanding requires the activities named next. Wachsmuth retains the unusual neuter αὐτόματον beside the masculine νοῦς, rather than silently adopting the proposed masculine form. The image concerns the growth of understanding, not a denial that human beings have natural intellectual capacities.

1108.The main text has λέγειν τι, saying something, which the English retains. Wachsmuth questions that wording and records alternatives including experiencing or looking; those conjectures are not substituted for speaking. The supplied ⟨τί που⟩ is represented by ⟨something here or there⟩, leaving its object indefinite. Φρένες here names the mental faculties, rendered minds. Both gradual growth and the qualification they say remain explicit.

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.