Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.100-193
Bacchus, rejoicing in the safe return
Of old Silenus (once his guardian),
Granted the king to choose his heart’s desire,
A choice that seemed a boon, but proved a bane.
So Midas chose, a sorry choice: ‘Ordain
That everything I touch shall turn to gold.’
The god indulged his wish, gave the reward,
Dire as it was, and mourned a choice so bad.
The king departed, happy with his bane,
And tried its truth by touching this and that,
And, scarce believing, from a low oak branch
Broke a green twig; the twig was changed to gold.
He stooped and grasped a stone; at once the stone
Shone with a golden sheen. He touched a clod;
His magic touch made it a lump of gold.
He picked ripe heads of wheat and in his hand
He held a golden crop. He plucked an apple;
It seemed the gift of the Hesperides.
And if he laid his fingers on the pillars
Of his high palace, lo! the pillars gleamed.
When he but rinsed his hands in running water,
The water might have cheated Danae.
His heart could hardly hold his golden hopes
When everything was gold. As he rejoiced,
His serving-men arrayed a sumptuous feast
And there were splendid wheaten loaves. But then,
Ah, then! when Midas reached his hand and touched
Kind Ceres’ gift, that gift grew hard and stiff;
And when with watering mouth he tried to bite
The tempting food, he bit but golden flakes;
When wine, when water filled his glass, behold
Between his lips there flowed a stream of gold!
Aghast at his grotesque calamity,
So rich, so wretched, he would fain escape
His wealth and hates what was but now his hope.
No plenty can relieve his hunger; thirst
Burns in his throat; justly the loathsome gold
Tortures him and, with hands upraised, he cries,
‘Grant pardon, Bacchus, father, I have sinned!
Have mercy, I beseech thee! Hear my prayer
And save me from the curse that gleams so fair!’
The gods are kind. Bacchus, the sin confessed,
Restored him and discharged the pact and pledge.
‘And lest’, he said, ‘you stay bedaubed with gold—
Your foolish choice—betake you to that river
That girdles mighty Sardis* and ascend
The Lydian hills against the tumbling stream
Up to its source and, where with fullest flood
It issues foaming, plunge your head and body,
And in its waters wash your crime away.’
The king obeyed and plunged beneath the flow,
And in the foam, passing from man to river,
The golden power dissolved and tinged the stream;
And still today, washed by that ancient vein,
The water-meadows gleam with seeds of gold.
Then, loathing riches, Midas gave his heart
To fields and forests and the countryside
And Pan who dwells among the mountain caves.
But crass his wits* remained, in folly set
To bring their master trouble as before.
The crags of Tmolus, steep and wide and high,
Gazing across the sea, at one side fall
To Sardis, at the other reach their end
At small Hypaepae. There Pan sang his songs,
Flaunting among the gentle nymphs, and played
Light airs upon his pipes, and dared to boast
Apollo’s music second to his own,
Essaying with old Tmolus as the judge
Unequal contest. On his mountain top
The judge was seated; from his ears he freed
The forest trees; only a wreath of oak
Fringed his green locks, with acorns dangling round
His hollow temples. Then, looking towards
The shepherd-god, he said, The judge attends.’
So Pan made music on his rustic reeds
And with his uncouth song entranced the king.
(Midas by chance was there.) To Phoebus next
Grave Tmolus turned and, as he turned, his fringe
Of trees turned too. Apollo’s golden hair
Was garlanded with laurel of Parnassus;
His mantle, rich with Tyrian purple, swept
The ground he trod; in his left hand he bore
His lyre, inlaid with gems and ivory;
His right the plectrum held; his very pose
Proclaimed the artist. Then with expert touch
He plucked the strings and, won by strains so sweet,
Old Tmolus bade the reed bow to the lyre.
The sacred mountain’s judgement and award
Pleased all who heard; yet one voice challenging,
Crass-witted Midas’ voice, called it unjust.
Apollo could not suffer ears so dull
To keep their human shape. He stretched them long,
Filled them with coarse grey hairs, and hinged their base
To move and twitch and flop; all else was man;
In that one part his punishment; he wears
Henceforth a little ambling ass’s ears.
Disfigured and ashamed he sought to hide
His temples with a clinging purple turban.
Even so the slave whose scissors used to trim
His flowing hair saw all, and longed to spread
The news, but neither dared betray the shame
Nor yet could keep it close. So off he went
And dug a hole, and whispered in the hole
What sort of ears his master had, and then
Threw back the earth again and buried deep
His voice’s evidence, and when the hole
Was full and smooth he stole home silently.
But there a waving bed of whispering reeds
Began to grow and, as the year came full,
Stood ripe and tall and, by and by, betrayed
His husbandry. For in the soft south wind
They sway and speak the buried words and tell
The tale of Midas and his ass’s ears.
Translation by A. D. Melville