Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece

Marsyas skidded to a halt, the assorted satyrs, fauns and Maenads behind bumping into him and each other in a concertina of confusion.

‘Well, Marsyas,’ said Apollo. ‘Are you ready to put your brave words to the test?’

‘Words? What words?’ Marsyas had forgotten his drunken boast of the night before.

‘ “If there was a competition between me and Apollo,” you said, “I would beat him hands down.” Now is your chance to find out if that is true. The Muses themselves have travelled from Parnassus to hear us and judge. Their word is final.’

‘B-b-but … I …’ Marsyas’s mouth was suddenly very dry and his legs suddenly very wobbly.

‘Are you or are you not a finer musician than I?’

Marsyas heard behind him a murmur of doubt from his followers and the flames of his pride flared up again.

‘In a fair contest,’ he declared with a burst of bravado, ‘I can certainly outplay you.’

Apollo’s smile widened. ‘Excellent. Join me up on the stage here. I shall start. Here is a little air. See if you can reply to it.’

Marsyas took up a position next to Apollo, who bent to tune his lyre. When this was done he gently strummed and delicately plucked. The most beautiful melody emerged – subtle, sweet and seductive. It came in four phrases, and as the last one sounded, Marsyas’s followers broke into appreciative applause.

Immediately Marsyas put the aulos to his mouth and repeated the phrases. But he gave each a little tweak and modulation – a shower of grace notes here, a riffle of accidentals there. A gasp of admiration from his followers and even a nod from Calliope herself encouraged him to end with a flourish.

Apollo replied at once with a variation on the phrases in double time. The complexity of his picking and strumming was marvellous to the ear, but Marsyas responded with even greater speed, the melody bubbling and singing from his pipes with a magical splendour that provoked yet more applause from the audience.

Now Apollo did something extraordinary. He turned his lyre upside down and played the phrases backwards – they still held up as a tune, but now they were imbued with a mystery and a strangeness that enthralled all who heard. When he finished Apollo nodded to Marsyas.

Marsyas had an excellent ear and he started to play the inverted tunes just as Apollo had, but the god interrupted him with a sneer. ‘No, no, satyr! You must turn your instrument upside down as I did mine.’

‘But that’s … that’s not fair!’ Marsyas protested.

‘How about this then?’ Apollo played on his lyre and sang, ‘Marsyas can blow down the infernal thing. But while he does it, can he sing?’

Infuriated, Marsyas played for all he was worth. His face purple with the effort and his cheeks swollen so that it looked as if they must rupture, hundreds of notes exploded in a volley of quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes – filling the air with a music that the world had never heard before. But Apollo’s divine voice, the chords and arpeggios that flew from the golden strings of his lyre – how could Marsyas’s pipes compete with such a sound?

Panting with exhaustion, sobbing with frustration, Marsyas cried aloud, ‘Not fair! My voice and breath sing into my aulos just as much as your voice sings out into the air. Of course I cannot turn the instrument upside down, but any unbiased judge can tell that my skill is the greater.’

Judgement

With a final glissando of triumph Apollo turned to the jury of Muses. ‘Sweet sisters, it is not for me to say, it is of course for you to decide. To whom do you award the palm of victory?’

Marsyas was out of control now. Humiliation and a burning sense of injustice drove him to turn on the judges. ‘They can’t be impartial, they are your aunts or your step-sisters or some such incestuous thing. They are family. They will never dare to …’

‘Hush, Marsyas!’ pleaded a Maenad.

‘Don’t listen to him, great god Apollo!’ urged another.

‘He’s hysterical.’

‘He’s good and honourable.’

‘He means well.’

It did not take the Muses long to confer and to announce the results.

‘We unanimously declare,’ said Euterpe, ‘that Apollo is the winner.’

Apollo bowed and smiled sweetly. But what he did next might make you for ever think less of this golden and beautiful god, the melodious Apollo of reason, charm and harmony.

He took Marsyas and flayed the skin off him. There is no nice way of saying it. To punish Marsyas for his hubris in daring to challenge an Olympian he peeled the skin from the living body of the screaming satyr and hung it on a pine tree as a lesson and warning to all.fn5

The ‘Flaying of Marsyas’ became a favourite subject for painters, poets and sculptors. For some his tale echoes the fate of Prometheus: a symbol of the artist-creator’s struggle to match the gods, or of the gods’ refusal to accept that mortal artists can outdo the divine.fn6

Arachne

The Weaver