As everyone knows, Samuel Clemens, AKA Mark Twain, once had a famously public international quarrel with Arthur Sidgwick over ancient Greek and translation.
For a description, see Mark Twain’s July 1900 version of the conflict in Private History of the ‘Jumping Frog’ Story from The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg and other stories and sketches.
For his 1903 version, see page 64 of The jumping frog : in English, then in French, then clawed back into a civilized language once more by patient, unremunerated toil.
What Mark Twain was not aware of, was that Sidgwick had composed his stories in Greek before translating them into English for his exercise book. He made the “Key” before the “Exercise”. So an original Greek version of the Sidgwick story does exist, and is as follows:
Περιέτυχέ ποτε Βοιωτῷ Ἀθηναῖος, παρὰ τῇ ὁδῷ καθημένῳ καὶ βάτραχόν τινα ἀθροῦντι. ἰδὼν δὲ τοῦτον προσιόντα θαυμαστὸν ἔφη εἶναι τὸν βάτραχον· καὶ ἐπήρετο εἰ θέλοι βατράχων ἀγῶνα παρασκευάζειν, ἐφ᾿ ᾧ τε ἐκεῖνος, ὁποτέρῳ ἐπὶ πλεῖστον πηδῴη ὁ βάτραχος, πολὺ λήψεται ἀργύριον. ὁ δὲ Ἀθηναῖος θέλειν ἔφη εἰ ἐκεῖνος βάτραχον ἑαυτῷ φέροι· ἐγγὺς γὰρ εἶναι τὴν λίμνην· συγχωρήσαντος δὲ καὶ ἀποιχομένου τοῦ ἑτέρου, λαβὼν τὸν βάτραχον ὁ Ἀθηναῖος καὶ ἀνοίξας τὸ στόμα λίθους κατέχεεν ἐς τὴν κοιλίαν, ὥστε φαίνεσθαι μὲν μηδὲν μείζω τοῦ πρότερον, πηδᾶν δὲ μηκέτι οἷόν τ᾿ εἶναι. τοῦ δὲ ἥκοντος καὶ τὸν ἕτερον βάτραχον ἐνεγκόντος ἤρχετο ὁ ἀγών. πιεζόμενος οὖν τῇ χειρὶ ὁ δεύτερος μετρίως ἐπήδησε· εἶτα δὲ τὸν τοῦ Βοιωτοῦ ἐπίεζον. ὁ δὲ συλλέξας ἑαυτὸν ὡς πηδησόμενος καὶ πάσῃ τέχνῃ χρησάμενος ὅμως οὐδ᾿ ὁτιοῦν ἐδύνατο τὸ σῶμα κινῆσαι. ἀποιχομένου δὲ τοῦ Ἀθηναίου μετὰ τοῦ ἀργυρίου, ὁ Βοιωτὸς θαυμάσας τί ἄρα πάσχει ὁ βάτραχος καὶ ἐπάρας ἐξήταζε. ὁ δὲ ἀνατετραμμένος καὶ τὸ στόμα ἀνοίξας ἐξήμεσε δὴ τοὺς λίθους.
How ancient is the above? I expect that many will immediately see that the main elements of the Greek “Celebrated Jumping Frog” story are ancient indeed. It is, in fact, a variation of the Cronus/Rhea myth, as Sidgwick’s original version makes abundantly clear. Beyond the identical mechanism of the cheat (swallowing a stone), and a long journey to cover the trick, it will be seen that the conclusion is the same in Twain, Sidgwick, and Hesiod: “ἐξήμεσε δὴ τοὺς λίθους”/“πρῶτον δ’ ἐξήμησε λίθον”/“and he belched out a double handful of shot”.
But where does jumping come in? The Greek scholiast commentary on Hesiod sheds light here, describing the Hesiod myth as being an analogy for the human soul jumping from body to body, “ἀφ’ ἑνὸς σώματος εἰς ἕτερον μετεπήδησε.” Exactly how the metempsychozing human soul has morphed into a leaping frog in Twain is difficult to say precisely, and worthy of future scholastic endeavor, perhaps joining separate academic disciplines and a deep knowledge of American folk tradition together with the most obscure limits of Greek Neo-Platonic philosophic study.