Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition

John Stobaeus

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.31.18–II.31.21

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Ancient Greek Page · Branch 386 of 516

Book II Chapter 31 · II.31.18–II.31.21

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Ancient Greek

p. 768

Μενάνδρου

II.31.18

Ὅταν λέγῃς μὲν πολλά, μανθάνῃς δὲ μή, τὸ σὸν διδάξας τοὐμὸν οὐ μαθὼν ἔσῃ.

Τοῦ αὐτοῦ Καρχηδονίῳ

II.31.19

Ἔργον ἐκ πολλοῦ χρόνου ἄνοιαν ἡμέρᾳ μεταστῆσαι μιᾷ.

Τοῦ αὐτοῦ Φιλαδέλφοις

II.31.20

Οὐ ῥᾴδιον ἄνοιαν ἐν μικρῷ μεταστῆσαι χρόνῳ.

Εὐριπίδου Μελεάγρῳ

II.31.21

Ἐκ γὰρ πατρὸς καὶ μητρὸς ὅστις ἐκπονεῖ σκληρὰς διαίτας, οἱ γόνοι βελτίονες.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 31

p. 769

Menander

II.31.18

When you speak a great deal but do not learn, you will have taught your own lesson without learning mine.¹¹⁰⁹

Menander, from The Carthaginian

II.31.19

To dislodge long-established folly in a single day is hard work.¹¹¹⁰

Menander, from The Affectionate Brothers

II.31.20

It is not easy to dislodge folly in a short time.¹¹¹¹

Euripides, from Meleager

II.31.21

For from father and mother, when one endures harsh regimens, the offspring are better.¹¹¹²

1109.Τὸ σόν and τοὐμόν mean what is yours and what is mine, here rendered as the respective lessons or contributions to an exchange. The printed ending οὐ μαθὼν ἔσῃ is retained: the talker ends without learning the other person’s contribution. The excerpt identifies no play or particular speaker.

1110.The same author is Menander, and the heading names The Carthaginian. The wording contrasts ἄνοια, folly or lack of understanding, established over a long time with the hope of changing it in one day. The fragment supplies no speaker or dramatic circumstances.

1111.The same-author heading continues the attribution to Menander. Φιλάδελφοι expresses brotherly affection, rendered The Affectionate Brothers, brothers who love one another; this does not reconstruct the lost play’s plot. Both ἄνοια and μεταστῆσαι recur from the preceding excerpt: folly is something to be moved from its established position.

1112.Wachsmuth cites fragment 529 in Nauck’s numbering. The construction is compressed: singular ὅστις ἐκπονεῖ, whoever labors through, does not agree regularly with the preceding father and mother. “When one” cautiously renders the indefinite relative; Clement’s alternative plural participle, ἐκπονουμένων, is not substituted. Δίαιτα is a regimen or way of life. The printed γόνοι means offspring, rather than πόνοι, toils, found in another transmission.

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.