From the book
Stobaeus, Volume I
John Stobaeus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordAnalysis is a loosening or resolving into constituents.
- In StobaeusThe commentator reads Homer’s wish that warriors become water and earth as a statement about dissolution into the universe’s generative elements.
- In this edition“Dissolution” or “resolution” conveys the local physical meaning better than an unexplained modern “analysis.”
- A place to beginA Homeric verse is interpreted as resolution into generative elements.
- English renderings
- resolution; dissolution; analysis
Meaning
Analysis is a loosening or resolving into constituents. The English “analysis” can name an intellectual procedure, but the selected passage is concerned with physical resolution.
Use in the book
The commentator reads Homer’s wish that warriors become water and earth as a statement about dissolution into the universe’s generative elements. The interpretation turns a poetic rebuke into physical doctrine. The entry must distinguish what the verse says from the cosmological significance assigned by its reader.
Places to read
- I.10.6A Homeric verse is interpreted as resolution into generative elements.
Translation in this edition
“Dissolution” or “resolution” conveys the local physical meaning better than an unexplained modern “analysis.”
Source note
Wachsmuth, volume I, printed pp. 120. The commentary is transmitted under Plutarch’s name; its attribution is not secure. The quoted verse is Iliad 7.99.