A touch too much!

Suryakumari Dennison retells the legend of Midas, a king who received and returneda gift

We use the phrase ‘Midas touch’ to describe people who have the knack of making money. The story of Midas, however, is about avarice, not aptitude. The 19th-century American author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, recounts it in ‘A Wonder-Book for Boys and Girls’. He states that Midas “was fonder of gold than anything else in the world”. Hawthorne mentions the daughter of Midas, whom he calls Marygold. The child does not, however, feature in the original Greek legend, as related by the ancient Roman poet, Ovid.

In Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’, Dionysus grants Midas a boon. The deity’s counterpart in Hawthorne’s ‘Wonder Book’ is simply called ‘the stranger’. When offered anything he wants, Midas—already wealthy—needs no prompting. “I wish everything I touch would turn to gold,” he declares. There we have the Midas Touch, better known as the Golden Touch!

The next morning, according to Hawthorne, Midas runs around “in a kind of joyful frenzy”. Books and bedposts, clothes and curtains are transformed as Midas clutches them. The king is enraptured. He is not pleased, though, when a handkerchief, hemmed for him by Marygold, is altered. Midas loves gold but he also loves his daughter. As for Marygold, she is attached to her father, but considers his golden roses “blighted!”

After his enriching exertions, the king sits down for breakfast, only to find his food and drink inedible. Hawthorne gives us this delightful detail concerning one item: “The egg, indeed, might have been mistaken for one of those which the famous goose, in the story-book, was in the habit of laying; but King Midas was the only goose that had anything to do with the matter.” At this point in early narratives, the hungry Midas pleads for pity, and the curse is lifted. Hawthorne, however, deals Midas a bitter blow.

When Marygold throws her arms around her father, the king embraces her, and she becomes a golden statue. Midas cries out in agony, and the ‘stranger’ reappears. Seeing that Midas is repentant, he tells him to bathe in a river, and pour its water over everything that he wants returned to normal. Marygold — with no memory of her metallic moments — is restored to her father. The ‘stranger’ solemnly explains that the calamity could not have been countered, if it were not for Midas’s affection for Marygold.

“Your own heart,” he tells the king, “has not been entirely changed from flesh to gold.” Marygold’s hair retains a golden tinge so that her father may never forget his former folly. The message of the Midas misadventure is clear. Gold is valuable, but human relationships are priceless.

(The author is an English teacher and a freelance writer)