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.1.9–II.1.12

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Book II Chapter 1 · II.1.9–II.1.12

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Ancient Greek

p. 14

Ἰοφῶντος Βακχῶν

II.1.9

Ἐπίσταμαι δὲ καὶ τόδ’, οὖσά περ γυνή, ὡς μᾶλλον ὅστις εἰδέναι τὰ τῶν θεῶν ζητεῖ, τοσούτῳ μᾶλλον ἧσσον εἴσεται.

Σιμωνίδου

II.1.10

Ῥεῖα θεοὶ κλέπτουσιν ἀνθρώπων νόον.

Δημώνακτος

II.1.11

⟨Δημῶναξ⟩ ἐξεταζόντων τινῶν, εἰ ὁ κόσμος ἔμψυχος, καὶ αὖθις εἰ σφαιροειδής, Ὑμεῖς, ἔφη, περὶ μὲν τοῦ κόσμου πολυπραγμονεῖτε, περὶ δὲ τῆς αὐτῶν ἀκοσμίας οὐ φροντίζετε;

Δημοκρίτου

II.1.12

Μὴ πάντα ἐπίστασθαι προθύμεο, μὴ πάντων ἀμαθὴς γένῃ.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 1

p. 15

Iophon from the Bacchae

II.1.9

This too I know, woman though I am: the more someone seeks to know the gods’ affairs, the less, by that much more, he will know.¹⁶

Simonides

II.1.10

Easily the gods steal away the human mind.¹⁷

Demonax

II.1.11

When some people were investigating whether the world is ensouled, and again whether it is spherical, ⟨Demonax⟩ said: “You busy yourselves with the order of the world, but take no thought for your own disorder?”¹⁸

Democritus

II.1.12

Do not be eager to know everything, lest you become ignorant of everything.¹⁹

16.The feminine participle οὖσα marks a female dramatic speaker. The poem is attributed to Iophon in the heading; this Bacchae must not silently be substituted with Euripides’s surviving play of that name.

17.The metaphor is retained. “Steal away” suggests that people can be deprived of their judgment or deceived, without specifying a physical mechanism.

18.The personal name in angle brackets is supplied in the text; it also appears in the heading. The joke turns on κόσμος, “world” or “order,” and ἀκοσμία, “disorder.” “Ensouled” means possessing a soul; the anecdote redirects inquiry toward the inquirers’ conduct.

19.The second μή is read as the warning or feared outcome: indiscriminate ambition may defeat learning. The maxim counsels a limit to one’s pursuit, not a refusal to learn anything.

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.