FABLES
Midas
THERE WAS A KING named Midas, and what he loved best in the world was gold. He had plenty of his own, but he could not bear the thought of anyone else having any. Each morning he awoke very early to watch the sunrise and said, “Of all the gods, if gods there be, I like you least, Apollo. How dare you ride so unthriftily in your sun-chariot scattering golden sheaves of light on rich and poor alike—on king and peasant, on merchant, shepherd, warrior? This is an evil thing, oh wastrel god, for only kings should have gold; only the rich know what to do with it.”
After a while these words of complaint, uttered each dawn, came to Apollo, and he was angry. He appeared to Midas in a dream and said, “Other gods would punish you, Midas, but I am famous for my even temper. Instead of doing you violence, I will show you how gracious I can be by granting you a wish. What is it to be?”
Midas cried, “Let everything I touch turn to gold!”
He shouted this out of his sleep in a strangling greedy voice, and the guards in the doorway nodded to each other and said, “The king calls out. He must be dreaming of gold again.”
Wearied by the dream, Midas slept past sunrise; when he awoke it was full morning. He went out into his garden. The sun was high, the sky was blue. A soft breeze played among the trees. It was a glorious morning. He was still half asleep. Tatters of the dream were in his head.
“Can it be true?” he said to himself. “They say the gods appear in dreams. That’s how men know them. On the other hand I know that dreams are false, teasing things. You can’t believe them. Let us put it to the test.”
He reached out his hand and touched a rose. It turned to gold—petals and stalk, it turned to gold and stood there rigid, heavy, gleaming. A bee buzzed out of its stiff folds, furious; it lit on Midas’ hand to sting him. The king looked at the heavy golden bee on the back of his hand and moved it to his finger.
“I shall wear it as a ring,” he said.
Midas went about touching all his roses, seeing them stiffen and gleam. They lost their odor. The disappointed bees rose in swarms and buzzed angrily away. Butterflies departed. The hard flowers tinkled like little bells when the breeze moved among them, and the king was well pleased.
His little daughter, the princess, who had been playing in the garden, ran to him and said, “Father, Father, what has happened to the roses?”
“Are they not pretty, my dear?”
“No! They’re ugly! They’re horrid and sharp and I can’t smell them anymore. What happened?”
“A magical thing.”
“Who did the magic?
“I did.”
“Unmagic it, then! I hate these roses.”
She began to cry.
“Don’t cry,” he said, stroking her head. “Stop crying, and I will give you a golden doll with a gold-leaf dress and tiny golden shoes.”
She stopped crying. He felt the hair grow spiky under his fingers. Her eyes stiffened and froze into place. The little blue vein in her neck stopped pulsing. She was a statue, a figure of pale gold standing in the garden path with lifted face. Her tears were tiny golden beads on her golden cheeks. He looked at her and said, “This is unfortunate. I’m sorry it happened. I have no time to be sad this morning. I shall be busy turning things into gold. But, when I have a moment, I shall think about this problem; I promise.” He hurried out of the garden which had become unpleasant to him.
On Midas’ way back to the castle he amused himself by kicking up gravel in the path and watching it tinkle down as tiny nuggets. The door he opened became golden; the chair he sat upon became solid gold like his throne. The plates turned into gold, and the cups became gold cups before the amazed eyes of the servants, whom he was careful not to touch. He wanted them to continue being able to serve him; he was very hungry.
With great relish Midas picked up a piece of bread and honey. His teeth bit metal; his mouth was full of metal. He felt himself choking. He reached into his mouth and pulled out a golden slab of bread, all bloody now, and flung it through the window. Very lightly now he touched the other food to see what would happen. Meat…apples…walnuts…they all turned to gold even when he touched them with only the tip of his finger…and when he did not touch them with his fingers, when he lifted them on his fork, they became gold as soon as they touched his lips, and he had to put them back onto the plate. He was savagely hungry. Worse than hunger, when he thought about drinking, he realized that wine, or water, or milk would turn to gold in his mouth and choke him if he drank. As he thought that he could not drink, thirst began to burn in his belly. He felt himself full of hot dry sand, felt that the lining of his head was on fire.
“What good is all my gold?” he cried, “if I cannot eat and cannot drink?”
He shrieked with rage, pounded on the table, and flung the plates about. All the servants ran from the room in fright. Then Midas raced out of the castle, across the bridge that spanned the moat, along the golden gravel path into the garden where the stiff flowers chimed hatefully, and the statue of his daughter looked at him with scooped and empty eyes. There in the garden, in the blaze of the sun, he raised his arms heavenward, and cried, “You, Apollo, false god, traitor! You pretended to forgive me, but you punished me with a gift!”
Then it seemed to him that the sun grew brighter, that the light thickened, that the sun-god stood before him in the path, tall, stern, clad in burning gold. A voice said, “On your knees, wretch!”
He fell to his knees.
“Do you repent?”
“I repent. I will never desire gold again. I will never accuse the gods. Pray, revoke the fatal wish.”
Apollo reached his hand and touched the roses. The tinkling stopped, they softened, swayed, blushed. Fragrance grew on the air. The bees returned, and the butterflies. He touched the statue’s cheek. She lost her stiffness, her metallic gleam. She ran to the roses, knelt among them, and cried, “Oh, thank you, Father. You’ve changed them back again.” Then she ran off, shouting and laughing.
Apollo said, “I take back my gift. I remove the golden taint from your touch, but you are not to escape without punishment. Because you have been the most foolish of men, you shall wear always a pair of donkey’s ears.”
Midas touched his ears. They were long and furry. He said, “I thank you for your forgiveness, Apollo…even though it comes with a punishment.”
“Go now,” said Apollo. “Eat and drink. Enjoy the roses. Watch your child grow. Life is the only wealth, man. In your great thrift, you have been wasteful of life, and that is the sign you wear on your head. Farewell.”
Midas put a tall pointed hat on his head so that no one would see his ears. Then he went in to eat and drink his fill.
For years he wore the cap so that no one would know of his disgrace. But the servant who cut his hair had to know so Midas swore him to secrecy, warning that it would cost him his head if he spoke of the king’s ears. But the servant who was a coward was also a gossip. He could not bear to keep a secret, especially a secret so mischievous. Although he was afraid to tell it, he felt that he would burst if he didn’t.
One night he went out to the banks of the river, dug a little hole, put his mouth to it, and whispered, “Midas has donkey’s ears, Midas has donkey’s ears…” and quickly filled up the hole again, and ran back to the castle, feeling better.
But the river-reeds heard him, and they always whisper to each other when the wind seethes among them. They were heard whispering, “Midas has donkey’s ears…donkey’s ears…” and soon the whole country was whispering, “Have you heard about Midas? Have you heard about his ears?”
When the king heard, he knew who had told the secret and ordered the man’s head cut off; but then he thought, “The god forgave me, perhaps I had better forgive this blabbermouth.” Therefore he let the treacherous man keep his head.
Then Apollo appeared again and said, “Midas, you have learned the final lesson, mercy. As you have done, so shall you be done by.”
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nbsp; And Midas felt his long hairy ears dwindling back to normal.
He was an old man now. His daughter, the princess, was grown. He had grandchildren. Sometimes he tells his smallest granddaughter the story of how her mother was turned into a golden statue, and he says, “See, I’m changing you too. Look, your hair is all gold.”
And she pretends to be frightened.
Pygmalion
THE WOMEN OF CYPRUS were displeased with Pygmalion. He was one of the few unmarried young men on the island, and it seemed that he meant to stay that way. He was a sculptor who lived alone in a house he had knocked together out of an old stable, one enormous room on a hill overlooking the sea, far away from any neighbor. Here he spent the days very happily. Great unhewn blocks of marble stood about, and tubs of clay, and a crowd of figures, men and women, nymphs, satyrs, wolves, lions, bulls, and dolphins. Some of them were half-carved, some of them clay daubs, almost shapeless; and others were finished statues, marvelous gleaming shapes of white marble.
Sometimes people came and bought Pygmalion’s figures. He sold only those he was tired of looking at, but would never set a price. He took anything offered. Often, he would give his work away, if he thought that someone enjoyed looking at it and had no money to pay. He ate when he was hungry, slept when he was tired, worked when he felt like it, swam in the sea when hot, and spent days without seeing anyone.
“Oh, I have plenty of company,” he’d say. “Plenty of statues around, you know. Not very good conversationalists, but they listen beautifully.”
Now, all this irritated the mothers and daughters of Cyprus exceedingly. A bachelor is bad enough, a happy bachelor is intolerable. And so they were resolved that he should marry.
“He’s earning enough to keep a wife…or he would be if he charged properly. That’s another reason he needs one. My Althea is a very shrewd girl. She’d see he got the right prices for his work…”
“My Laurel is an excellent housekeeper. She’d clean out that pig-sty of his, and make it fit to live in…”
“My daughter has very strict ideas. She’d make him toe the mark. Where does he get the models for those nymph statues? Tell me that? Who knows what goes on in that stable of his?…”
“My daughter…”
And so it went. They talked like this all the time, and Pygmalion was very much aware of their plans for him. More than ever he resolved to keep himself to himself.
Now Cyprus was an island sacred to Aphrodite, for it was the first land she touched when she arose from the sea. The mothers of the island decided to use her favor for their own purposes. They crowded into the temple of Aphrodite and recited this prayer:
“Oh, great goddess of Love, you who rose naked and dripping from the sea and walked upon this shore, making it blossom with trees and flowers, you, Aphrodite, hear our plea: touch the heart of young Pygmalion, who has become as hard as his own marble. Weave your amorous spell, plaiting it into the tresses of one of the maidens, making it a snare for his wild loneliness. Bid your son, the Archer of Love, plant one of his arrows in the indifferent young man so that he becomes infected with a sweet sickness for which there is only one cure. Please, goddess, forbid him all solitary joy. Bind him to one of our maidens. Make him love her and take her as his wife.”
That night Pygmalion, dreaming, was visited by the goddess who said, “Pygmalion, I have been asked to marry you off. Do you have any preferences?”
Pygmalion, being an artist, was acquainted with the terrible reality of dreams and knew that the matter was serious, that he was being threatened. He said, “There is one lady I fancy. But she is already married.”
“Who?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“You, Aphrodite, queen of beauty, lady of delight. How can you think that I who in my daily work will accept nothing less than the forms of ideal beauty, how can you think that I could pin my highest aspiration on any but the most perfect face and form? Yours, Aphrodite. Yours, yours. I love you, and you alone. And until I can find a mortal maid of the same perfection, I will not love.”
Now, Aphrodite, although a goddess, was also a woman. In fact, her divinity was precisely this, womanliness raised to its highest power. She was much pleased by this ardent praise. She knelt beside Pygmalion and, stroking his face, said, “Truly, you are a fair-spoken young man. I find your arguments very persuasive. But what am I to do? I have promised the mothers of Cyprus that you shall wed, and I must not break my promise.”
“Did you tell them when?”
“No, I set no time.”
“Then grant me this: permit me to remain unwed until I do one more statue. It will be my masterwork, the thing I have been training myself for. Let me do it now, and allow me to remain unmarried until I complete it for the vision is upon me, goddess. The time has come. I must do this last figure.”
“Of whom?”
“Of you, of course! Of you, of you! I told you that I have loved you all my life without ever having seen you. And now that you have appeared to me, now that I do see you, why then I must carve you in marble. It is simple. This is what my life is for; it is my way of loving you, a way that you cannot deny me.”
“I see…And how long will this work take?”
“Until it is finished. What else can I say? If you will be good enough to visit me like this whenever you can spare the time, I will fill my eyes with you and work on your image alone, putting all else aside. Once and for all I shall be able to cast in hard cold marble the flimsy, burning dream of man, his dream of beauty, his dream of you…”
“Very well,” said Aphrodite, “you may postpone your marriage until my statue is completed.” She smiled at him. “And every now and again I shall come to pose.”
Pygmalion worked first in clay. He took it between his hands and thought of Aphrodite—of her round arms, of the strong column of her neck, of her long, full thighs, of the smooth swimming of her back muscles when she turned from the waist—and his hands followed his thinking, pressing the clay to the shape of her body. She came to him at night, sliding in and out of his dreams, telling him stories about herself. He used a whole tub-full of clay making a hundred little Aphrodites, each in a different pose. He caught her at that moment when she emerged from the sea, shaking back her wet hair, lifting her face to the sky which she saw for the first time. He molded her in the Hall of the Gods receiving marriage offers, listening to Poseidon, and Hermes, and Apollo press their claims, head tilted, shoulders straight, smiling to herself, pleasing everyone, but refusing to answer. He molded her in full magnificent fury, punishing Narcissus, kneeling on the grass, teasing the shy Adonis, and then mourning him, slain.
He caught her in a hundred poses, then stood the little clay figures about, studying them, trying to mold them in his mind to a total image that he could carve in marble. He had planned to work slowly. After all, the whole thing was a trick of his to postpone marriage; but as he made the lovely little dolls and posed them among her adventures, his hands took on a schedule of their own. The dream invaded daylight, and he found himself working with wild fury.
When the clay figures were done, he was ready for marble. He set the heavy mass of polished stone in the center of the room and arranged his clay studies about it. Then he took mallet and chisel, and began to work—it was as if the cold tools became living parts of himself. The chisel was like his own finger, with a sharp fingernail edge; the mallet was his other hand, curled into a fist. With these living tools he reached into the marble and worked the stone as if it were clay, chopping, stroking, carving, polishing. And from the stone a body began to rise as Aphrodite had risen from the white foam of the sea.
He never knew when he had finished. He had not eaten for three days. His brain was on fire, his hands flying. He had finished carving; he was polishing the marble girl now with delicate files. Then, suddenly, he knew that it was finished. His head felt full of ashes; his hands hung like lumps of meat. He fell onto his pallet and was drowned in sleep.
He awoke in the middle of the night. The goddess was standing near his bed, he saw. Had she come to pose for him again? It was too late. Then he saw that it was not Aphrodite, but the marble figure standing in the center of the room, the white marble gathering all the moonlight to her. She shone in the darkness, looking as though she were trying to leap from the pediment.
He went to the statue and tried to find something unfinished, a spot he could work on. But there was nothing. She was complete. Perfect. A masterwork. Every line of her drawn taut by his own strength stretched to the breaking point, the curvings of her richly rounded with all the love he had never given to a human being. There she was, an image of Aphrodite. But not Aphrodite. She was herself, a marble girl, modeled after the goddess, but different; younger; human.
“You are Galatea,” he said. “That is your name.”
He went to a carved wooden box and took out jewels that had belonged to his mother. He decked Galatea in sapphires and diamonds. Then he sat at the foot of the statue, looking at it, until the sun came up. The birds sang, a donkey brayed; he heard the shouting of children, the barking of dogs. He sat there, looking at her. All that day he sat, and all that night. Still he had not eaten. And now it seemed that all the other marble figures in the room were swaying closer, were shadows crowding about, threatening him.
She did not move. She stood there, tall, radiant. His mother’s jewels sparkled on her throat and on her arms. Her marble foot spurned the pediment.
Then Aphrodite herself stepped into the room. She said, “I have come to make you keep your promise, Pygmalion. You have finished the statue. You must marry.”
“Whom?”
“Whomever you choose. Do you not wish to select your own bride?”
“Yes.”
“Then choose. Choose any girl you like. Whoever she is, whatever she is, she shall love you. For I am pleased with the image you have made of me. Choose.”
Heroes, Gods and Monsters of the Greek Myths Page 16