Plato, Critias 113d · 113d
Evenor, Cleito and the rings of Poseidon
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Critias — γῆς ἀνδρῶν γεγονότων Εὐήνωρ μὲν ὄνομα, γυναικὶ δὲ συνοικῶν Λευκίππῃ· Κλειτὼ δὲ μονογενῆ θυγατέρα ἐγεννησάσθην. ἤδη δʼ εἰς ἀνδρὸς ὥραν ἡκούσης τῆς κόρης ἥ τε μήτηρ τελευτᾷ καὶ ὁ πατήρ, αὐτῆς δὲ εἰς ἐπιθυμίαν Ποσειδῶν ἐλθὼν συμμείγνυται, καὶ τὸν γήλοφον, ἐν ᾧ κατῴκιστο, ποιῶν εὐερκῆ περιρρήγνυσιν κύκλῳ, θαλάττης γῆς τε ἐναλλὰξ ἐλάττους μείζους τε περὶ ἀλλήλους ποιῶν τροχούς, δύο μὲν γῆς, θαλάττης δὲ τρεῖς οἷον τορνεύων ἐκ μέσης τῆς νήσου,
Critias: the earth. His name was Evenor, and he lived with his wife Leucippe, and the two had an only daughter, Cleito. By now the girl had come to the age for a husband, when her mother dies, and her father too. Poseidon, coming into desire for her, unites with her. And the hill on which she had been settled he makes well-fenced, breaking around it in a circle and making rings of sea and land, alternately smaller and larger, around one another, two of land and three of sea, as if turning them on a lathe from the middle of the island,
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The setting
Critias introduces the earth-born man Evenor, his wife Leucippe and their only daughter Cleito. After her parents die, Poseidon falls in love with her and rings her hill with alternate belts of sea and land.
A note on this passage
Critias gives the first inhabitants a family. The father is Evenor, the mother Leucippe, and the verb for their one child is a dual, egennēsasthēn, "the two of them begot," which fits a single married pair. Their daughter is monogenē, "only-born," and her name is Kleitō. The marriageable age is andros hōran, literally "a man's season," said of a girl who is ready for a husband. After her parents die, Poseidon is eis epithymian elthōn, "coming into desire," and the verb for what follows is symmeignytai, "mixes with."
The work on the hill is told in a chain of participles. He makes it euerkē, well-fenced, and perirrēgnysin, a verb that means to break or burst around, so he breaks the ground into circles. The circles are trochoi, wheels or rings, and they alternate: dyo men gēs, thalattēs de treis, two of land and three of sea. The picture Critias offers is hoion torneuōn, "as if turning on a lathe," with the island's centre as the pivot, and the clause carries on into the next section.
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