Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece

‘Name your reward. Anything. Whatever you – hic! – desire I will providely divine. Which is to say,’ Dionysus amended with dignity, ‘I will divinely provide. So there,’ he added belligerently, turning suddenly round to face off no one in particular.

‘You mean, my lord, that I can ask anything of you?’

Which of us has not entertained joyous fantasies of genies and fairies granting us wishes? I am sorry to say that, at this offer from Dionysus, Midas had rather a rush of blood to the head.

I have mentioned that Phrygia was one of the poorer kingdoms, and while Midas was not considered by his friends to be rapacious or avaricious, he did long, like any ruler, for more money to spend on his armies, his palace, his subjects and his municipal amenities. The expenses of a royal household mount up and Midas had always been too benevolent a king to burden his people with heavy taxes. And so he found a most extraordinary wish making its way from his fevered brain to his mouth.

‘Then I ask this,’ he said; ‘that everything I touch be turned to gold.’

Dionysus smiled a rather diabolical smile. ‘Really? That’s what you want?’

‘That is what I want.’

‘Go home,’ said the god. ‘Bathe yourself in wine and go to bed. When you arise in the morning, your wish will be granted.’

Goldfinger

It is probable that Midas did not believe that anything would come of this exchange. The gods were notorious for dodging, twisting and sliding out of their obligations.

Nevertheless, just in case – after all, what harm could it do? I mean, one never knows – that night, Midas poured a few hogsheads from his diminishing store of wine into the royal bath. The fumes from it ensured that when he went to bed he enjoyed a deep and untroubled sleep.

Midas awoke to a sparkling morning that cast all ideas of wild wishes and drunken gods from his mind. With thoughts only for his flowers, he sprang from bed and hurried to his beloved garden.

Never had the roses looked more beautiful. He leaned down and sniffed a pink young hybrid that was in that perfect state midway between bud and full bloom. The exquisite fragrance made him giddy with joy. He lovingly made to unfurl the petals. In an instant the stem and flower had been transformed into gold. Solid gold.

Midas stared in disbelief.

He touched another rose and then another. The moment his fingers touched them they turned to gold. He ran up and down around the garden in a whooping frenzy, brushing his hands along the bushes until every one had been frozen into hard shining precious, priceless, glorious, golden gold.

Skipping and shouting with joy Midas beheld what had once been a garden of rare roses and was now the most valuable treasure in all the world. He was rich! He was insanely, monumentally rich! No man on earth had ever been richer.

The sound of his exultant shouts attracted his wife, who came out of the palace doors and stood looking down, their infant daughter in her arms.

‘Darling, why are you shouting?’

Midas ran up to her and encircled mother and child in a tight hug of excited joy. ‘You won’t believe it!’ he said. ‘Everything I touch turns to gold! Look! All I have to do is – oh!’

He stepped back to see that his wife and infant girl were now one fused golden statue, glittering in the morning sun, a frozen mother and child group that any sculptor would have been proud of.

‘I’ll attend to that later,’ Midas said to himself. ‘There must be a way to recover them … Dionysus wouldn’t be so … meanwhile – Zim! Zam! Zoo!’

A guard on sentry, the great side-door to the palace and his favourite throne were now entirely gold.

‘Vim! Vam! Voo!’

The side-table, his goblet, his cutlery – solid gold!

But what was this? Crack! His teeth almost broke on a hard golden peach. Tunk! His lips met metallic wine. Thwop! A heavy gold nugget that had once been a linen napkin crushed and bruised his lips.

The unbounded delight began to fade as Midas realized the full import of his gift.

You may imagine the rest. All at once the thrill and pleasure of his ownership of gold were changed to dread and fear. All Midas touched turned to gold, but his heart turned to lead. No words of his, no shrieks of imprecation to the heavens could return his cold solidified wife and daughter to quick warm life. The sight of his beloved roses dropping their heavy heads caused his own to bow in misery. Everything around him glinted and glittered, gleamed and glimmered with a gorgeous gaudy golden glow but his heart was as grim and grey as granite.

And the hunger and thirst! After three days of food and drink turning to inedible gold the moment it touched him, Midas felt ready for death.