From the book
Stobaeus, Volume I
John Stobaeus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Day
ἡμέρα
hēmeraHēmera can mean daylight or a day as a unit of time.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordHēmera can mean daylight or a day as a unit of time.
- In StobaeusSophocles contrasts the long testing needed to reveal a just person with the single day sufficient to recognize a bad one.
- In this edition“Day” is sufficient; here the expression does not require a distinction between daylight and twenty-four hours.
- A place to beginA single day contrasts with the longer disclosure of justice over time.
- English renderings
- day
Meaning
Hēmera can mean daylight or a day as a unit of time. Its rhetorical force may depend on brevity rather than astronomical measurement.
Use in the book
Sophocles contrasts the long testing needed to reveal a just person with the single day sufficient to recognize a bad one. The day functions as an emphatically short interval. The saying concerns the difficulty of knowing character and does not prescribe an exact timetable for judging particular people.
Places to read
- I.8.21A single day contrasts with the longer disclosure of justice over time.
Translation in this edition
“Day” is sufficient; here the expression does not require a distinction between daylight and twenty-four hours.
Source note
Wachsmuth, volume I, printed pp. 97. The verses are quoted from Oedipus; the contrast is a dramatic maxim rather than an empirical rule.
From the book
Centuries of Meditations
Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Day
day; daylight; diurnal; day and night
Day names the illuminated portion of ordinary time, a complete daily circuit, or a figurative duration.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordDay names the illuminated portion of ordinary time, a complete daily circuit, or a figurative duration.
- In TraherneA day is both a practical benefit and a revelation of ordered variety.
- In this editionTraherne’s language of the sun moving around the universe belongs to this passage’s cosmological description.
- A place to beginThe sun’s daily movement gathers numerous useful effects into a single providential order.
Meaning
Day names the illuminated portion of ordinary time, a complete daily circuit, or a figurative duration. “Diurnal” means occurring in the course of a day; its immediate setting here is the sun’s apparent motion.
Use in the book
A day is both a practical benefit and a revelation of ordered variety. The changing light permits work, refreshment, and repose; permanent noon would destroy other kinds of delight. In the childhood account, daylight makes eternity manifest, not because the child has measured an endless duration but because everything appears abiding and inexhaustibly significant. The Psalms then teach the adult to recognise day and night together as divine possessions given for human joy. Temporal succession and the apprehension of eternity thus meet in one familiar experience.
Places to read
In this edition
Traherne’s language of the sun moving around the universe belongs to this passage’s cosmological description. Its devotional force should not be mistaken for a claim grounded in present-day astronomy.