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KING MIDAS

WHEN PERSEUS gave Athena the Gorgon's head, she fastened it on her breastplate, and it made her still more powerful. She also fetched two of Medusa's bones, and from them she made herself a double flute. She could not understand why Hera and Aphrodite burst out laughing every time she played on it, for she was very pleased with the music she made. But one day she saw her own image in her polished shield. With puckered lips and puffed cheeks she did not look at all like her stately self. In disgust she threw the flute down to earth and put a curse on it.
Marsyas, a satyr who was capering about in the Phrygian woods, found the flute and began to play on it. When he discovered he could play two melodies at the same time, he was wild with joy. He hopped through the woods, playing on his double flute, boasting that now he could make better music than Apollo himself.
Apollo frowned when he heard that a satyr dared compare himself to him, the god of music, and he stormed down from Olympus to the Phrygian woods. He found Marsyas who was so delighted with his own music that he even challenged Apollo to a contest.
"You shall have your contest," said Apollo, "but if I win, you shall lose your hide."
The nine Muses, of course, were to be the judges, and Marsyas insisted that King Midas of Phrygia also be a judge.
KING MIDAS was a kind but rather stupid man who had always been a friend to the Phrygian satyrs. One morning his servants had found an old satyr sleeping in the king's favorite flower bed.
Midas had spared the satyr from punishment and let him go. This old satyr was a follower of Dionysus, and the god had rewarded Midas for his kindness by granting him a wish. Shortsightedly, King Midas wished that everything he touched would turn to gold. His golden touch made him the richest man on earth, but he almost starved to death for even his food and drink turned to gold.
And when his little daughter ran to him to hug him, she too turned into gold! Midas had to beg Dionysus to undo his wish and make everything as it had been before.
Now again, King Midas showed poor judgment. The nine Muses all agreed that Apollo was by far the better musician, but Midas voted for the Phrygian satyr. Apollo disdainfully turned his lyre upside down and played just as well as before. He ordered Marsyas to turn his flute and do the same. Not a sound came from Marsyas' flute however hard he blew, and even Midas had to admit that the satyr's flute was inferior to Apollo's lyre. So Marsyas lost the contest and Apollo pulled off his skin and made a drum of it. Then he turned to King Midas and said, "Ears as stupid as yours belong to an ass. Ass's ears you shall have from now
on! "
Ever after, King Midas went about with a tall, peaked cap on his head to hide his long ears. His subjects thought he had started a new fashion, and it wasn't long before all the Phrygians wore tall, peaked caps.
The king's barber was the only one who knew what Midas was hiding. He had been forbidden to breathe a word about it and he almost burst from having to keep such an important secret. When he could bear it no longer he ran out to a lonesome field, dug a hole in the ground, and
whispered into it, "King Midas has ass's ears!" He quickly covered up the hole and thought the secret was safe. But the nearby reeds had heard and as they swayed in the wind they whispered, "Midas has ass's ears, Midas has ass's ears," and soon the secret spread all over the world.
King Midas was so ashamed that he left his throne and hid deep in the woods where no one could see him.
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