From the book
Stobaeus, Volume I
John Stobaeus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Stream and current
ῥεῦμα
rheumaRheuma is a flow or current, emphasizing the movement of water rather than simply the channel containing it.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordRheuma is a flow or current, emphasizing the movement of water rather than simply the channel containing it.
- In StobaeusIn the Phaedo afterlife account, the current ejects certain souls from Tartarus after a year and carries them along different rivers according to their offenses.
- In this edition“Current” suits the force carrying the souls; “stream” suits a flowing body more generally.
- A place to beginThe current carries souls from Tartarus toward further conditions of release.
- English renderings
- stream; current; flow
Meaning
Rheuma is a flow or current, emphasizing the movement of water rather than simply the channel containing it.
Use in the book
In the Phaedo afterlife account, the current ejects certain souls from Tartarus after a year and carries them along different rivers according to their offenses. The moving water thus organizes the next stage of punishment. Expulsion does not itself amount to final release.
Places to read
- I.49.58.46The current carries souls from Tartarus toward further conditions of release.
Translation in this edition
“Current” suits the force carrying the souls; “stream” suits a flowing body more generally.
Source note
Wachsmuth, volume I, printed pp. 443–444. The offenses described include regret after parental violence. Those who strike parents are not automatically being called their parents’ killers.
From the book
The Green Notebook
Maurice de Guérin · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Streams
ruisseau; fleuve; courant; torrent; filet d’eau
Running water ranges here from ruisseau, a small stream, to fleuve, a major river, and torrent, a forceful rush.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordRunning water ranges here from ruisseau, a small stream, to fleuve, a major river, and torrent, a forceful rush.
- In GuérinA stream in Coëtquen first looks unpleasantly black because of its slate bed.
- In this editionThe supplied English normally uses river for fleuve, without carrying the French distinction between a large river reaching the sea and other running waters.
- A reading distinctionThe final entry leaves its river unnamed.
Meaning
Running water ranges here from ruisseau, a small stream, to fleuve, a major river, and torrent, a forceful rush. Courant identifies the moving current and readily carries over into journeys, life, or thought. The size and continuity of a flow matter as much as its direction.
Use in the book
A stream in Coëtquen first looks unpleasantly black because of its slate bed. Attention alters the judgment: its colour belongs with dark trunks and ivy and contrasts with pale birches. This is a compact example of learning to see a part through its relations. Water does not need to become clear or bright to become beautiful.
Later rivers are especially useful for tracing diminishing vitality. The December 1834 inward river contracts to a trickle and a final drop; in April 1835 another river is lost in the sands of earning a living. Yet flow can also ease grief: the headlong movement of sorrow is slowed into a melancholy river when memories gather around it. The final journal entry returns to actual travel along a river toward the ocean, then converts travel itself into a current upon which the writer wishes to be carried. These transformations retain river properties: passage, continuity, narrowing, absorption, and the promise of a further destination.
Places to read
- 19 March 1833 · ¶1The slate-bottomed stream teaches a relational understanding of dark colour
- 10 December 1834 · ¶1Progressive reduction from river to trickle makes inward depletion temporal
- 12 February 1835 · ¶1Recollection slows painful thought into a measured river
- 13 October 1835 · ¶1An actual river journey becomes the desired current of further travel
Translation in this edition
The supplied English normally uses river for fleuve, without carrying the French distinction between a large river reaching the sea and other running waters. Filet d’eau becomes trickle of water, preserving the dwindling scale rather than the literal image of a thread.
Source note
The final entry leaves its river unnamed. This article does not infer a particular river from the closing imaginative appeal to the Nile.