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 5 · II.5.heading–II.5.2

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Book II Chapter 5 · II.5.heading–II.5.2

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Ancient Greek

p. 106

Κεφάλαιον Εʹ

II.5.heading

⟨Περὶ ποιητικῆς⟩

Πλάτωνος Νόμων δʹ

II.5.1

Παλαιὸς μῦθος, ὦ νομοθέτα, ὑπό τε αὐτῶν ἡμῶν ἀεὶ λεγόμενός ἐστι καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις πᾶσιν ξυνδεδογμένος, ὅτι ποιητὴς ὁπόταν ἐν τῷ τρίποδι τῆς Μούσης καθίζηται, τότε οὐκ ἔμφρων ἐστίν, οἷον δὲ κρήνη τις τὸ ἐπιὸν ῥεῖν ἑτοίμως ἐᾷ· καὶ τῆς τέχνης οὔσης μιμήσεως ἀναγκάζεται, ἐναντίως ἀλλήλοις ἀνθρώπους ποιῶν διατιθεμένους, ἐναντία λέγειν αὑτῷ πολλάκις· οἶδε δὲ οὔτ’ εἰ ταῦτα οὔτ’ εἰ θάτερα ἀληθῆ τῶν λεγομένων.

Τοῦ αὐτοῦ ἐκ τοῦ Φαίδρου

II.5.2

Ὃς δ’ ἂν ἄνευ μανίας Μουσῶν ἐπὶ ποιητικὰς θύρας ἀφίκηται, πεισθεὶς ἄρα ὡς ἐκ τέχνης ἱκανὸς ποιητὴς ἐσόμενος, ἀτελὴς αὐτός τε καὶ ἡ ποίησις.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 5

p. 107

Chapter 5

II.5.heading

⟨On Poetry⟩¹²⁵

Plato from Laws Book Four

II.5.1

There is an old story, lawgiver, which we ourselves are always telling and which everyone else accepts as well: whenever a poet sits on the Muse’s tripod, he is then not in his right mind, but, like a spring, freely lets whatever comes to him flow. Since his art is imitation, he is often compelled to contradict himself when he portrays people whose dispositions oppose one another; and he does not know whether one set of things he says or the other is true.¹²⁶

The same author from the Phaedrus

II.5.2

Whoever comes to the gates of poetry without the Muses’ madness, persuaded that art will make him an adequate poet, remains unfulfilled, both he himself and his poetry.¹²⁷

125.Wachsmuth’s apparatus credits Heeren with supplying the title from Photius. Ποιητική denotes the poetic art. The chapter brings together three Platonic accounts of inspiration; their language of divine possession should be read within the particular arguments from which they are excerpted.

126.Laws IV 719C. The Athenian Stranger imagines a speech to the lawgiver on behalf of the poets. Their contrasting characters explain the contradictions in their utterances; the excerpt does not say that every utterance is false. The tripod associates the poet with an inspired oracular speaker, while the spring presents speech as an unimpeded flow. Μίμησις, “imitation,” here includes portraying people and their different dispositions.

127.Phaedrus 245A; Socrates speaks. Μανία is the divinely inspired madness associated here with the Muses, and τέχνη is art understood as an acquired skill. Ἀτελής means incomplete or unfulfilled, with a possible resonance of being uninitiated at the poetic gates. Stobaeus’s excerpt ends here; the following comparison in Plato between inspired and merely skillful poetry is not appended.

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.