Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition
Stobaeus, Volume II
Greek and English with an introduction and explanatory footnotes.
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Facing Pages · Branch 49 of 516
Book II Chapter 4 · II.4.17.3
Ancient Greek
p. 94Πλάτωνος ἐκ τοῦ Σοφιστοῦ · συνέχεια
— Οὐκοῦν καὶ πάλιν ὅταν λέγηται, λέων, ἔλαφος, ἵππος, ὅσα τε ὀνόματα τῶν τὰς πράξεις αὖ πραττόντων ὠνομάσθη, καὶ κατὰ ταύτην δὴ τὴν συνέχειαν οὐδείς πω ξυνέστη λόγος. Οὐδεμίαν γὰρ οὔτε οὕτως οὔτ’ ἐκείνως πρᾶξιν, οὐδ’ ἀπραξίαν, οὐδὲ οὐσίαν ὄντος οὐδὲ μὴ ὄντος δηλοῖ τὰ φωνηθέντα, πρὶν ἄν τις τοῖς ὀνόμασι τὰ ῥήματα κεράσῃ· τότε δ’ ἥρμοσέ τε καὶ λόγος ἐγένετο εὐθὺς ἡ τοιαύτη συμπλοκὴ σχεδὸν τῶν λόγων, ὁ πρῶτός τε καὶ σμικρότατος.
— Πῶς ἄρ’ ὧδε λέγεις;
— Ὅταν εἴπῃ τις, ἄνθρωπος μανθάνει, λόγον εἶναι φῂς τοῦτον ἐλάχιστόν τε καὶ πρῶτον;
— Ἔγωγε.
Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 4
p. 95Plato from the Sophist · 3
“Likewise, when someone says ‘lion,’ ‘deer,’ ‘horse,’ and the other names given to those who perform actions, this sequence too has not yet formed a statement. For neither way of speaking makes clear any action or inaction, or the being of what is or is not, until someone mixes verbs with names. Then they fit, and such a combination at once becomes a statement—virtually the first and smallest of statements.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“When someone says ‘a human being learns,’ do you call this the smallest and first statement?”
“I do.”117
Socrates
Reading Stobaeus, Volume II · Book II Chapter 4 · II.4.17.3
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Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.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.