SVF I.575
Stoic: Cleanthes of Assos · Ancient source: Stobaeus, Florilegium 108,59 Mein. — Flor. 108,59 · Source language: Ancient Greek · Source status: Testimonium
Original — Ancient Greek
ὁ δὲ Κλεάνθης ἔλεγε τὴν λύπην ψυχῆς παράλυσιν.
StoicOs Translation
Cleanthes used to say that grief is a paralysis of the soul.
Context
Stobaeus preserves the definition among consolatory sayings. The Stoics defined the passions with clinical care; Cleanthes' formula for lypē — grief, distress — is the most physical of them all.
Text verified against von Arnim, SVF I (1903), no. 575, p. 130 (OCR of the scanned edition). A one-line report with the speech-marker “Cleanthes used to say” (elege), in Stobaeus' chapter of consolatory material.
What the source actually tells us
A short named saying with a speech-marker. Its physicality fits Cleanthes' psychology, in which the soul is a bodily pneuma sustained by tension (tonos): grief appears as the literal slackening of that tension, consistent with his and Zeno's placing of the passions in the heart (SVF I.572).
Philosophical meaning
Grief does not merely hurt; it disables. Where fear flees and desire grasps, grief lames the soul's tension so that judgment and action fail together. The definition contains its own therapy: consolation restores tone — it does not argue the loss away but the paralysis (cf. Cleanthes' consolatory method, SVF I.576–577).
Scholarly uncertainty
Anthology sayings travel; the attribution rests on Stobaeus alone, and the original context is lost. The connection to the tonos-doctrine is interpretation, not part of the transmitted sentence.
Go deeper
- Read SVF I.574 — pleasure is like a cosmetic
- Read SVF I.527 — Lead me, Zeus: the prayer to Zeus and Fate
About this edition
StoicOs Ancient Library is a developing multilingual digital study edition of surviving early Stoic material. The Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta assembled by Hans von Arnim provides the traditional reference framework. StoicOs distinguishes carefully between fragments, testimonia, later reports and interpretation. StoicOs translations are prepared from the surviving ancient-language sources where available.
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