GORGIAS. He’s here. Come on, Sostratos.

KNEMON. He’s certainly been in the sun. A farmer, is he?

GORGIAS. Yes, and a good one, Father. He’s not soft, not the kind that strolls idly round all day.

[In two badly damaged lines, Knemon probably gives his consent to the marriage.]

KNEMON. Wheel me in. You see to him. And look after your sister.

[He is wheeled into his house.]

GORGIAS. You’d better consult your family about this, Sostratos.

SOSTRATOS. My father will make no difficulties.

GORGIAS. [Formally] Then I betroth her to you, Sostratos, giving her to you in the sight of heaven, as is right and proper. You’ve been frank and straightforward in approaching the business, without any deceit in your courtship. And you were ready to do anything to win the girl. You’ve lived soft, but you took a mattock and dug the land, you were willing to work. A man really proves his true worth when, although he’s well-off, he’s ready to treat a poor man as his equal. A man like that will bear any change of fortune with a good grace. You’ve given adequate proof of your character. Just stay that way!

THE CONTEST OF TWO MOUNTAINS

Fragmentary Poems

Corinna

Translated by I. M. Plant, 2004

This rare fragment comes from a poem by Corinna, a female poet from central Greece, and describes two mountains, Helicon and Cithaeron, engaging in a song contest. The mountains have just sung their songs, one of which described Rhea hiding her son Zeus away in a cave so that his father Kronos would not swallow him as he did his other children. It is now time for the gods to decide which mountain is the winner. Historically, Corinna was believed to have been a near contemporary of a sixth–fifth-century BC male poet named Pindar, and this poem a sort of allegory of the rivalry between them, but many scholars now believe that she lived hundreds of years later, in the third century BC.

The Contest of Helicon and Cithaeron

At once the Muses told the blessed gods

to cast their secret votes

in the golden-glowing urns

and together they all rose up.

Cithaeron took the majority

and at once Hermes shouted out and proclaimed

that he had taken the victory he so desired,

and the blessed gods crowned him

with a victor’s garland of fir,

and his mind was full of joy.

But Helicon was seized

by bitter pains and

ripped out a shinning rock

and the mountain shook. In pain

he cried and from above he smashed it down

into ten thousand pieces of stone.

HERCULES AND THE TWELVE LABOURS

Library of History, Book IV

Diodorus Siculus

Translated by G. Booth, 1814