Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition

John Stobaeus

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 1 · II.1.5b–II.1.8

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English Page · Branch 8 of 516

Book II Chapter 1 · II.1.5b–II.1.8

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Ancient Greek

p. 12

⟨Τοῦ αὐτοῦ⟩

II.1.5b

Εἴτ’ ἔστιν εἴτ’ οὐκ ἔστι μὴ βούλου μαθεῖν· ὡς ⟨δ’⟩ ὄντα τοῦτον καὶ παρόντ’ ἀεὶ σέβου.

⟨Τοῦ αὐτοῦ⟩

II.1.5c

Τί ἐστιν, ὁ θεὸς οὐ θέλει σε μανθάνειν.

Μενάνδρου Ὑποβολιμαίῳ

II.1.6

Δυσπαρακολούθητόν τι πρᾶγμ’ ἐστὶν τύχη.

Ἡσιόδου

II.1.7

Κρύψαντες γὰρ ἔχουσι θεοὶ βίον ἀνθρώποισι.

Πινδάρου Παιάνων

II.1.8

Τί ἔλπεαι σοφίαν ἔμμεναι, ᾇ τ’ ὀλίγον τοι ἀνὴρ ὑπὲρ ἀνδρὸς ἰσχύει; οὐ γὰρ ἔσθ’ ὅπως τὰ θεῶν βουλεύματ’ ἐρευνάσαι βροτέᾳ φρενί.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 1

p. 13

⟨From the same author⟩

II.1.5b

Do not wish to learn whether he exists or not; ⟨but⟩ revere him as existing and always present.¹¹

⟨From the same author⟩

II.1.5c

What he is, God does not wish you to learn.¹²

Menander in The Supposititious Child

II.1.6

Fortune is a thing that is hard to follow.¹³

Hesiod

II.1.7

For the gods keep people’s livelihood hidden.¹⁴

Pindar from the Paeans

II.1.8

What do you expect wisdom to be, by which one man has but little advantage over another? There is no way to search out the gods’ counsels with a mortal mind.¹⁵

11.Angle brackets retain the editor’s supplied author-heading and connective δ’. “The same author” refers to the preceding Philemon attribution; it is not a new attribution independently furnished by this extract.

12.The question now concerns what God is, rather than whether he exists. The supplied attribution continues the preceding sequence.

13.“Hard to follow” means difficult to trace or comprehend. Τύχη can name fortune, chance, or what befalls someone; the single line does not define a systematic doctrine of chance.

14.Works and Days 42. Βίος here is livelihood or the means of living, not simply biological life. In its new setting the line contributes an image of divine concealment.

15.The question and the qualification “but little” are retained. The Greek line wrapping is regularized here; the excerpt crosses printed pp. 4–5. “Counsels” renders βουλεύματα, the gods’ deliberations or purposes.

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.