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.31.124.3

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Book II Chapter 31 · II.31.124.3

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Ancient Greek

p. 930

Θεοφράστου — συνέχεια

II.31.124.3

Καὶ μὴν καὶ πολλῷ γ’ ἐπισφαλεστέρα τῆς διαιρέσεως ἡ ἐκτροπὴ τῷ μὴ τὴν ὀρθὴν βαδίζοντι· καὶ γὰρ αἱ βλάβαι μεγάλαι καὶ ἡ ἀναστροφὴ χαλεπή, μᾶλλον δὲ σχεδὸν ἀδύνατος· οὔτε γὰρ ὁ χρόνος δίδωσιν ἐξουσίαν μεταθέσεως, οὔθ’ ἡ φύσις δύναται μεταμανθάνειν τὸ βέλτιον ὅταν ἐντραφῇ τοῖς χείροσιν, ἀλλὰ προαιρεῖται ⟨μὲν⟩ καὶ ἕτερά γε προκρίνει βελτίω, καταζῇ δ’ ὅμως ἐν τοῖς εἰωθόσιν· ἀλλ’ ὅπερ πολλάκις λέγεται, τοῦτο ἀληθὲς ἔοικεν εἶναι, διότι πάντες ἥκιστα περὶ ἑαυτῶν βουλεύονται.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 31

p. 931

Theophrastus continued

II.31.124.3

For someone not taking the right road, turning aside is also far more perilous than “the division.”¹³⁶⁴ For the harms are great and the return difficult—rather, almost impossible. Time does not allow a change, nor can nature learn the better anew once it has been reared in worse ways. It chooses ⟨indeed⟩ and judges other things better, yet still lives out its life in accustomed habits.¹³⁶⁵ But what is often said seems true: all people deliberate least about themselves.¹³⁶⁶

1364.Wachsmuth prints τῆς διαιρέσεως, than the division or distinction. Its relation to the comparative and the road image is uncertain. A branching point or choice may be intended, but the English preserves the difficult comparison rather than silently replacing the Greek.

1365.Nature remains the subject through the contrast between choosing better things and living in established habits. The passage concerns relearning the better after formation in worse ways. Wachsmuth supplies ⟨μὲν⟩, reflected by ⟨indeed⟩; almost qualifies the preceding claim of impossibility.

1366.The main text has ἥκιστα, least. The apparatus proposes κάκιστα, worst, as a different reading; that conjecture is not adopted here. The conclusion thus concerns how little people deliberate about themselves.

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.