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Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition

John Stobaeus

Stobaeus, Volume II

Greek and English with an introduction and explanatory footnotes.

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Stobaeus, Volume IIBook II Chapter 4 · II.4.17.2

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Ancient Greek Page · Branch 48 of 516

Book II Chapter 4 · II.4.17.2

Ancient Greek

p. 92

Πλάτωνος ἐκ τοῦ Σοφιστοῦ · συνέχεια

II.4.17.2

— Εἰπὲ ἑκάτερον.

— Τὸ μὲν ἐπὶ ταῖς πράξεσιν ὂν δήλωμα, ῥῆμά που λεγόμενον.

— Ναί.

— Τὸ δέ γε ἐπ’ αὐτοῖς τοῖς ἐκείνας πράττουσι σημεῖον τῆς φωνῆς ἐπιτιθὲν ὄνομα.

— Κομιδῇ μὲν οὖν.

— Οὐκοῦν ἐξ ὀνομάτων μὲν μόνων συνεχῶς λεγομένων οὐκ ἔστι ποτέ λόγος, οὐδ’ αὖ ῥημάτων χωρὶς ὀνομάτων λεχθέντων.

— Ταῦτ’ οὐκ ἔμαθον.

— Δῆλον γὰρ ὡς πρὸς ἕτερόν τι βλέπων ἄρτι ξυνωμολόγεις· ἐπεὶ τοῦτ’ αὐτὸ ἐβουλόμην εἰπεῖν, ὅτι ξυνεχῶς ὧδε λεγόμενα ταῦτ’ οὐκ ἔστι λόγος.

— Πῶς;

— Οἷον, βαδίζει, τρέχει, καθεύδει, καὶ τἄλλα ὅσα πράξεις σημαίνει ῥήματα, κἂν πάντα τις ἐφεξῆς αὐτὰ εἴπῃ, λόγον οὐδέν τι μᾶλλον ἀπεργάζεται.

— Πῶς γάρ;

92

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 4

p. 93

Plato from the Sophist · 2

II.4.17.2

“Explain each.”

“The indication applied to actions is, I take it, called a verb.”

“Yes.”

“And the vocal sign applied to those who perform the actions is a name.”

“Quite so.”

“Then names alone, spoken in sequence, never make a statement; nor do verbs spoken without names.”

“I did not understand that.”

“Clearly you were looking at something else when you agreed just now. For this was precisely what I meant: these things spoken in sequence in this way are not a statement.”

“How?”

“For example, ‘walks,’ ‘runs,’ ‘sleeps,’ and all the other verbs that signify actions—even if someone says them all in succession, he still produces no statement.”

“How could he?”116

93

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.