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.5.3.3–II.5.3.4

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English Page · Branch 57 of 516

Book II Chapter 5 · II.5.3.3–II.5.3.4

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Ancient Greek

p. 110

Πλάτωνος ἐκ τοῦ Ἴωνος · συνέχεια

II.5.3.3

Λέγουσι γὰρ δήπουθεν πρὸς ἡμᾶς οἱ ποιηταί, ὅτι ἀπὸ κρηνῶν μελιρρύτων ἢ ἐκ Μουσῶν κήπων τινῶν καὶ ναπῶν δρεπόμενοι τὰ μέλη ἡμῖν φέρουσιν ὥσπερ αἱ μέλιτται, καὶ αὐτοὶ οὕτω πετόμενοι, καὶ ἀληθῆ λέγουσι. Κοῦφον γὰρ χρῆμα ποιητής ἐστι καὶ πτηνὸν καὶ ἱερὸν καὶ οὐ πρότερον οἷός τε ποιεῖν πρὶν ἂν ἔνθεος γένηται καὶ ἔκφρων, καὶ ὁ νοῦς ἐν αὐτῷ μηκέτι ᾖ .....

Πλάτωνος ἐκ τοῦ Ἴωνος · συνέχεια

II.5.3.4

Ἐπεὶ εἰ περὶ ἑνὸς τέχνῃ καλῶς ἠπίσταντο λέγειν, κἂν περὶ τῶν ἄλλων πάντων. Διὰ ταῦτα δὲ ὁ θεὸς ἐξαιρούμενος τούτων τὸν νοῦν τούτοις χρῆται ὑπηρέταις καὶ τοῖς χρησμῳδοῖς καὶ τοῖς μάντεσι τοῖς θείοις, ἵνα ἡμεῖς οἱ ἀκούοντες εἰδῶμεν, ὅτι οὐχ οὗτοί εἰσιν οἱ ταῦτα λέγοντες, τὰ οὕτω πολλοῦ ἄξια, οἷς νοῦς μὴ πάρεστιν, ἀλλὰ ὁ θεός ἐστιν αὐτὸς ὁ λέγων ταῦτα, διὰ τούτων δὲ φθέγγεται πρὸς ἡμᾶς.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 5

p. 111

Plato from the Ion · 3

II.5.3.3

For surely the poets tell us that they bring us their songs, gathering them from honey-flowing springs or from certain gardens and glades of the Muses, like bees, themselves flying in the same way; and what they say is true. For a poet is a light, winged, sacred thing, unable to compose until he becomes divinely inspired and out of his mind, and understanding is no longer within him. …¹³⁰

Plato from the Ion · 4

II.5.3.4

For if they knew by art how to speak well on one subject, they would know how to speak on all the others as well. For these reasons the god takes away their understanding and uses them as his servants, along with singers of oracles and divinely inspired seers, so that we who hear may know that these people, whose understanding is absent, are not the ones who utter these things of such great worth. Rather, it is the god himself who says these things and speaks to us through them.¹³¹

130.The poet’s comparison with a bee extends the preceding image of honey. Ποιεῖν means to make or compose poetry here. The dots reproduce a break already marked in Wachsmuth’s text, rather than an omission made for this translation: his apparatus says that Stobaeus apparently omitted about eight lines of Plato deliberately. Parts 3–4 remain one ancient excerpt; their division serves the bilingual layout.

131.Socrates contrasts a systematic art with the inspired poet’s restricted ability. “Understanding” renders νοῦς, connecting this conclusion with the poet’s loss of understanding before the marked omission. The god’s use of poets as servants or instruments is a claim within the dialogue’s argument, not an editorial assertion about every work of poetry. Χρησμῳδοί are singers or chanters of oracles; μάντεις are seers.

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.