An English Reading of King Midas and the Golden Touch brought to you by Idioms Online.
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This version of King Midas and the Golden Touch comes from A Book of Myths by Jean Lang,
published in 1914.
In the plays of Shakespeare, we have three distinct divisions—three separate volumes.
One deals with Tragedy, another with Comedy, a third with History.
And, a mistake made by the young in their aspect of life is that they do the same thing,
and keep tragedy and comedy severely apart, relegating them to separate volumes that,
so they think, have nothing to do with each other.
But those who have passed many milestones on the road know that “History” is the
only right label for the Book of Life’s many parts, and that the actors in the great
play are, in truth, tragic comedians.
This is the story of Midas, one of the chief tragic comedians of mythology.
Once upon a time, the kingdom of Phrygia lacked a king, and in much perplexity, the people
sought help from an oracle.
The answer was very definite:
“The first man who enters your city riding in a car shall be your king.”
That day there came slowly jogging into the city in their heavy, wooden-wheeled wain,
the peasant Gordias and his wife and son, whose destination was the marketplace, and
whose business was to sell the produce of their little farm and vineyard —fowls, a
goat or two, and a couple of skinsful of strong, purple-red wine.
An eager crowd awaited their entry, and a loud shout of welcome greeted them.
And their eyes grew round and their mouths fell open in amazement when they were hailed
as King and Queen and Prince of Phrygia.
The gods had indeed bestowed upon Gordias, the low-born peasant, a surprising gift, but
he showed his gratitude by dedicating his wagon to the deity of the oracle and tying
it up in its place with the wiliest knot that his simple wisdom knew, pulled as tight as
his brawny arms and strong rough hands could pull.
Nor could anyone untie the famous Gordian knot, and therefore he become, as the oracle
promised, lord of all Asia, until centuries had passed, and Alexander the Great came to
Phrygia and sliced through the knot with his all-conquering sword.
In time Midas, the son of Gordias, came to inherit the throne and crown of Phrygia.
Like many others not born and bred to the purple, his honors sat heavily upon him.
From the day that his father’s wain had entered the city amidst the acclamations of
the people, he had learned the value of power, and therefore, from his boyhood onward, power,
always more power, was what he coveted.
Also, his peasant father had taught him that gold could buy power, and so Midas ever longed
for more gold, that could buy him a place in the world that no descendant of a long
race of kings should be able to contest.
And from Olympus, the gods looked down and smiled, and vowed that Midas should have the
chance of realizing his heart’s desire.
Therefore one day when he and his court were sitting in the solemn state that Midas required,
there rode into their midst, tipsily swaying on the back of a gentle full-fed old grey
ass, ivy-crowned, jovial and foolish, the satyr Silenus, guardian of the young god Bacchus.
With all the deference due to the friend of a god Midas treated this disreputable old
pedagogue, and for ten days and nights on end, he feasted him royally.
On the eleventh day Bacchus came in search of his preceptor, and in deep gratitude, bade
Midas demand of him what he would, because he had done Silenus honor when to dishonor
him lay in his power.
Not even for a moment did Midas ponder.
“I would have gold,” he said hastily—“much gold.
I would have that touch by which all common and valueless things become golden treasures.”
And Bacchus, knowing that here spoke the son of peasants who many times had gone empty
to bed after a day of toil on the rocky uplands of Phrygia, looked a little sadly in the eager
face of Midas, and answered: “Be it as thou wilt.
Thine shall be the golden touch.”
Then Bacchus and Silenus went away, a rout of singing revelers at their heels, and Midas
quickly put to proof the words of Bacchus.
An olive tree grew near where he stood and from it he picked a little twig decked with
leaves of softest grey, and lo, it grew heavy as he held it, and glittered like a piece
of his crown.
He stooped to touch the green turf on which some fragrant violets grew, and turf grew
into cloth of gold, and violets lost their fragrance and became hard, solid golden things.
He touched an apple whose cheek grew rosy in the sun, and at once it became like the
golden fruit in the Garden of the Hesperides.
The stone pillars of his palace as he brushed past them on entering, blazed like a sunset
sky.
The gods had not deceived him.
Midas had the Golden Touch.
Joyously he strode into the palace and commanded a feast to be prepared — a feast worthy
of an occasion so magnificent.
But when Midas, with the healthy appetite of the peasant-born, would have eaten largely
of the savory food that his cooks prepared, he found that his teeth only touched roast
kid to turn it into a slab of gold, that garlic lost its flavor and became gritty as he chewed,
that rice turned into golden grains, and curdled milk became a dower fit for a princess, entirely
unnegotiable for the digestion of man.
Baffled and miserable, Midas seized his cup of wine, but the red wine had become one with
the golden vessel that held it.
Nor could he quench his thirst, for even the limpid water from the fountain was melted
gold when it touched his dry lips.
Only for a very few days was Midas able to bear the affliction of his wealth.
There was nothing now for him to live for.
He could buy the whole earth if he pleased, but even children shrank in terror from his
touch, and hungry and thirsty and sick at heart he wearily dragged along his weighty
robes of gold.
Gold was power, he knew well, yet of what worth was gold while he starved?
Gold could not buy him life and health and happiness.
In despair, at length he cried to the god who had given him the gift that he hated.
“Save me, O Bacchus!” he said.
“A witless one am I, and the folly of my desire has been my undoing.
Take away from me the accursed Golden Touch, and faithfully and well shall I serve thee
forever.”
Then Bacchus, very pitiful for him, told Midas to go to Sardis, the chief city of his worshippers,
and to trace to its source the river upon which it was built.
And in that pool, when he found it, he was to plunge his head, and so he would, for evermore,
be freed from the Golden Touch.
It was a long journey that Midas then took, and a weary and a starving man was he when
at length he reached the spring where the river Pactolus had its source.
He crawled forward, and timidly plunged in his head and shoulders.
Almost he expected to feel the harsh grit of golden water, but instead there was the
joy he had known as a peasant boy when he washed his face and drank at a cool spring
when his day’s toil was ended.
And when he raised his face from the pool, he knew that his hateful power had passed
from him, but under the water, he saw grains of gold glittering in the sand, and from that
time forth the river Pactolus was noted for its gold.
One lesson the peasant king had learnt by paying in suffering for a mistake, but there
was yet more suffering in store for the tragic comedian.
He had now no wish for golden riches, nor even for power.
He wished to lead the simple life and to listen to the pipings of Pan along with the goat-herds
on the mountains or the wild creatures in the woods.
Thus it befell that he was present one day at a contest between Pan and Apollo himself.
It was a day of merry-making for nymphs and fauns and dryads, and all those who lived
in the lonely solitudes of Phrygia came to listen to the music of the god who ruled them.
For as Pan sat in the shade of a forest one night and piped on his reeds until the very
shadows danced, and the water of the stream by which he sat leaped high over the mossy
stones it passed, and laughed aloud in its glee, the god had so gloried in his own power
that he cried:
“Who speaks of Apollo and his lyre?
Some of the gods may be well pleased with his music, and mayhap a bloodless man or two.
But my music strikes to the heart of the earth itself.
It stirs with rapture the very sap of the trees, and awakes to life and joy the innermost
soul of all things mortal.”
Apollo heard his boast and heard it angrily.
“Oh, thou whose soul is the soul of the untilled ground!” he said, “wouldst thou
place thy music, that is like the wind in the reeds, beside my music, which is as the
music of the spheres?”
And Pan, splashing with his goat’s feet amongst the water-lilies of the stream on
the bank of which he sat, laughed loudly and cried:
“Yea, would I, Apollo!
Willingly would I play thee a match—thou on thy golden lyre—I on my reeds from the
river.”
Thus did it come to pass that Apollo and Pan matched against each other their music, and
King Midas was one of the judges.
First of all Pan took his fragile reeds, and as he played, the leaves on the trees shivered,
and the sleeping lilies raised their heads, and the birds ceased their song to listen
and then flew straight to their mates.
And all the beauty of the world grew more beautiful, and all its terror grew yet more
grim, and still Pan piped on, and laughed to see the nymphs and the fauns first dance
in joyousness and then tremble in fear, and the buds to blossom and the stags to bellow
in their lordship of the hills.
When he ceased, it was as though a tensely-drawn string had broken, and all the earth lay breathless
and mute.
And Pan turned proudly to the golden-haired god who had listened as he had spoken through
the hearts of reeds to the hearts of men.
“Canst, then, make music like unto my music, Apollo?” he said.
Then Apollo, his purple robes barely hiding the perfection of his limbs, a wreath of laurel
crowning his yellow curls, looked down at Pan from his godlike height and smiled in
silence.
For a moment his hand silently played over the golden strings of his lyre, and then his
finger-tips gently touched them.
And every creature there who had a soul felt that that soul had wings, and the wings sped
them straight to Olympus.
Far away from all earth-bound creatures they flew and dwelt in magnificent serenity amongst
the Immortals.
No longer was there strife, or any dispeace.
No more was there fierce warring between the actual and the unknown.
The green fields and thick woods had faded into nothingness, and their creatures, and
the fair nymphs and dryads, and the wild fauns and centaurs longed and fought no more, and
man had ceased to desire the impossible.
Throbbing nature and passionately desiring life faded into dust before the melody that
Apollo called forth, and when his strings had ceased to quiver and only the faintly
remembered echo of his music remained, it was as though the earth had passed away and
all things had become new.
For the space of many seconds, all was silence.
Then, in low voice, Apollo asked:
“Ye who listen—who is the victor?”
And earth and sea and sky, and all the creatures of earth and sky, and of the deep, replied
as one:
“The victory is thine, Divine Apollo.”
Yet was there one dissentient voice.
Midas, sorely puzzled, utterly un-understanding, was relieved when the music of Apollo ceased.
“If only Pan would play again,” he murmured to himself.
“I wish to live, and Pan’s music gives me life.
I love the woolly vine-buds and the fragrant pine-leaves, and the scent of the violets
in the spring.
The smell of the fresh-ploughed earth is dear to me, the breath of the kine that have grazed
in the meadows of wild parsley and of asphodel.
I want to drink red wine and to eat and love and fight and work and be joyous and sad,
fierce and strong, and very weary, and to sleep the dead sleep of men who live only
as weak mortals do.”
Therefore he raised his voice, and called very loud:
“Pan’s music is sweeter and truer and greater than the music of Apollo.
Pan is the victor, and I, King Midas, give him the victor’s crown!”
With scorn ineffable the sun-god turned upon Midas, his peasant’s face transfigured by
his proud decision.
For a little he gazed at him in silence, and his look might have turned a sunbeam to an
icicle.
Then he spoke:
“The ears of an ass have heard my music,” he said.
“Henceforth shall Midas have ass’s ears.”
And when Midas, in terror, clapped his hands to his crisp black hair, he found growing
far beyond it, the long, pointed ears of an ass.
Perhaps what hurt him most, as he fled away, was the shout of merriment that came from
Pan.
And fauns and nymphs and satyrs echoed that shout most joyously.
Willingly would he have hidden in the woods, but there he found no hiding-place.
The trees and shrubs and flowering things seemed to shake in cruel mockery.
Back to his court he went and sent for the court hairdresser, that he might bribe him
to devise a covering for these long, peaked, hairy symbols of his folly.
Gladly the hairdresser accepted many and many oboli, many and many golden gifts, and all
Phrygia wondered, while it copied, the strange headdress of the king.
But although much gold had bought his silence, the court barber was unquiet of heart.
All day and all through the night he was tormented by his weighty secret.
And then, at length, silence was to him a torture too great to be borne; he sought a
lonely place, there dug a deep hole, and, kneeling by it, softly whispered to the damp
earth:
“King Midas has ass’s ears.”
Greatly relieved, he hastened home, and was well content until, on the spot where his
secret lay buried, rushes grew up.
And when the winds blew through them, the rushes whispered for all those who passed
by to hear: “King Midas has ass’s ears!
King Midas has ass’s ears!”
Those who listen very carefully to what the green rushes in marshy places whisper as the
wind passes through them may hear the same thing to this day.
And those who hear the whisper of the rushes may, perhaps, give a pitying thought to Midas—the
tragic comedian of mythology.