Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold

by Stephen Fry

  Phrygia and the Gordian Knot

  The Greeks loved to mythologize the founders of towns and cities. Athena’s gift of the olive to the people of Athens and her raising of Erechtheus (the issue of Hephaestus and the semen-soaked fillet, you will recall) to be the founder of the city seems to have helped foster the Athenian sense of self. The story of Cadmus and the dragon’s teeth did the same for Thebans. Sometimes, as is the case with the founding of the city of Gordium, elements of the story can move from myth to legend to actual, identifiable history.

  In Macedonia there lived a poor but ambitious peasant called GORDIAS. One day, as he laboured in his barren stony fields, an eagle landed on the pole of his oxcart and fixed him with a fierce glare.

  ‘I knew it!’ Gordias said to himself, ‘I have always felt that I was marked for greatness. This eagle proves it. I have a destiny.’

  He raised his plough and drove the ox and cart many hundreds of miles towards the oracle of Zeus Sabazios.fn1 As Gordias lumbered along, the eagle gripped the pole fast with its talons, never flinching no matter how violently the cart bumped and swayed over the potholes and boulders.

  On the way, Gordias encountered a young Telmissian girl endowed in equal measure with great prophetic powers and an alluring beauty that stirred his heart. She seemed to have been expecting him and urged that they make haste at once to Telmissus, where he should sacrifice his ox to Zeus Sabazios. Gordias, fired by the coming together of all his hopes, undertook to follow her advice so long as she agreed to marry him. She bowed her head in assent and they set off for the city.

  It so happened that, at this very moment, the King of Phrygia had just died in his bed. Since he left no heir or obvious successor, the people of his capital hurried to the shrine of Zeus Sabazios to find out what should be done. The oracle told them to anoint and crown the first man to enter the city in a cart. So it was that the townspeople were clustering excitedly round the gates at the very moment that Gordias and the prophetess arrived. The eagle flew from his perch with a great cry as they crossed the threshold. The populace threw their caps in the air and cheered until they were hoarse.

  In a very short time Gordias had gone from scratching a lonely living in the Macedonian dirt to being wed to a beautiful Telmissian seer and crowned King of Phrygia. He drew up plans to rebuild the city (which he immodestly named Gordium in his own honour) and settled down to reign over Phrygia and live happily ever after. Which he did. Sometimes, even in the world of Greek mythology, things go well.

  The oxcart became a holy relic, a symbol of Gordias’s divine right to rule. A carved post of polished dogwood was placed in the agora and the yoke of the cart secured to it with a rope tied up in the most intricate knot the world had seen. Gordias was determined that the cart should never be stolen from the town square. The legend arose, in that mysterious and unattributable way that legends do arise, that whoever untied this fiendish knot would one day rule Asia. Many tried – master mariners, mathematicians, toymakers, artists, artisans, tricksters, philosophers and ambitious children, but none could even begin to unpick its elaborate interwoven hitches, loops and twists.

  The great Gordian knot lay unsolved for more than a thousand years until a reckless and brilliant young Macedonian conqueror and king called Alexander rode with his army into town. When told of the legend he took one look at the great tangle of rope, raised his sword and swept it down, cutting the Gordian knot and earning the delighted praise of his own and future generations.fn2

  Meanwhile, back in time, Gordias’s son Prince MIDAS grew up to be a friendly, merry young man, loved and admired by all who knew him.

  Midas

  The Ugly Stranger

  In due time Gordias died and his son Midas succeeded him as king. His life was simple but elegant – who had grown up to be a friendly, merry young man, bred and admired by all – Phrygia was not an especially rich kingdom, but most of the time and money that Midas did possess were lavished on a magnificent rose garden in the palace grounds. It became known as one of the wonders of the age. Midas loved nothing more than to roam this paradise of colour and fragrance and tend to his plants – each one of which bore sixty glorious blooms.

  One morning, as he wandered the garden, noting with habitual delight how exquisitely the beads of dew twinkled on the delicate petals of his darling roses, Midas tripped over the slumbering form of an ugly, pot-bellied old man, curled up on the ground and snoring like a pig.

  ‘Oh,’ said Midas, ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you there.’

  With a belch and a hiccup, the old man rose to his feet and bowed low. ‘Beg pardon,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t help but be drawn by the sweet scent of your roses last night. Fell asleep.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Midas politely. He had been brought up always to show respect for his elders. ‘But why don’t you come into the palace and partake of some breakfast?’

  ‘Don’t mind if I do. Handsome of you.’

  Midas had no way of knowing that this ugly, pot-bellied old man was Silenus, boon-companion of the wine god Dionysus.

  ‘Perhaps you would like a bath?’ he suggested as they made their way indoors.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. Just a thought.’

  Silenus stayed for ten days and ten nights, making deep inroads into Midas’s meagre cellar, but rewarding him with outrageous songs, dances and stories.

  On the tenth night Silenus announced that he would be leaving the next morning.

  ‘My master will be pining for me,’ he said. ‘Don’t suppose your people could conduct me to him, could they?’

  ‘With pleasure,’ said Midas.

  The next day Midas and his retinue led Silenus on the long journey to the southern vineyards that Dionysus liked to frequent at that time of year. After many hours of struggling through the heat and tangle of choked lanes, steep hills and narrow byways they came upon the wine god and his attendants picnicking in a field. Dionysus was overjoyed to see his old friend.

  ‘Wine tastes sour without you,’ he said. ‘Dances go wrong and music falls flat on the ears. Where have you been?’

  ‘I got lost,’ said Silenus. ‘This kind fellow –’ he pushed the reluctant Midas forward to face the god, ‘– took me in to his palace and gave me the run of the place. I drank most of his wine, ate most of his food, pissed in his water jars and sicked up over his silk cushions. Never complained. Thoroughly good soul.’ Silenus slapped Midas on the back. Midas smiled as best he could. He hadn’t known about the water jars and the silk cushions.

  Dionysus, like many deep drinkers, could easily become very emotional and affectionate. He pawed gratefully at Midas. ‘You see?’ he declared to the world in general. ‘You see? Just when you lose faith in humanity, they show their worth like this. This is what my father means by xenia. Makes my heart burst. Name it.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Midas was keen to leave. Ten days and nights of Silenus had been quite enough. He yearned now to be alone with his flowers. A drunken Dionysus with a full entourage of Maenads and satyrs might just be too much even for his patience.

  ‘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 wis
h 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.

  Atop his golden bed, whose hard heavy sheets offered no warmth or comfort, he fell into a fevered sleep. He dreamed of his flowers blooming back into soft, delicate life – his roses, yes, but most of all the flowers that he now understood mattered most, his wife and child. In the wild, contorted dream he saw the soft colours returning to their cheeks and the light shining once more in their eyes. As these beguiling images danced and flickered in his mind the voice of Dionysus boomed inside him.

  ‘Foolish man! It is fortunate for you that Silenus is so fond of you. Only for his sake do I show you mercy. When you awaken in the morning, betake yourself to the River Pactolus. Plunge your hands in its waters and your enchantment will be dissolved. Whatever you wash in the fast-flowing stream will be restored to you.’

  The next morning Midas did what the voice in his dream had instructed. As promised, contact with the waters of the river relieved him of his golden touch. Mad with joy, he spent a good week shuttling back and forth immersing his wife, his daughter, his guards, servants, roses and all of his possessions in the river and clapping his hands in delight as they returned to their valueless – but priceless – original state.

  After this, the waters of the Pactolus, which wind around the foothills of Mount Tmolus, became the single greatest source of electrum, a natural alloy of gold and silver, in all the Aegean.

  King Midas’s Ears

  You would think that Midas had learned his lesson by now. The lesson that repeats and repeats throughout the story of man. Don’t mess with the gods. Don’t trust the gods. Don’t anger the gods. Don’t barter with the gods. Don’t compete with the gods. Leave the gods well alone. Treat all blessings as a curse and all promises as a trap. Above all, never insult a god. Ever.

  In one respect Midas had certainly changed. He now spurned not just gold, but all riches and possessions. Shortly after Dionysus lifted the curse, Midas became a devoted follower of Pan, the goat-footed god of nature, fauns, meadows and all the wild things of the world.

  With flowers in his hair, sandals on his feet and the merest suggestion of clothing covering his modesty, Midas left his wife and daughter in charge of Phrygia and devoted himself to a hippy-happy life of simple bucolic virtue.

  All might have been well had not his master Pan taken it into his head to challenge Apollo to a competition to determine which was the superior, the lyre or the pipes.

  One afternoon, in a meadow lying on the slopes of Mount Tmolus, Pan put the syrinx to his lips before an audience of fauns, satyrs, dryads, nymphs, assorted demigods and other lesser immortals. A coarse but likeable air in the Lydian mode emerged. It seemed to summon barking deer, rushing waters, gambolling rabbits, rutting stags and galloping horses. The rough, rustic tune delighted the audience, especially Midas, who really did worship Pan and all the frolicking mirth and madness that the goat-footed one represented.

  When Apollo stood and sounded the first notes of his lyre, a hush fell. From his strings arose visions of universal love, harmony and happiness, a deep abiding joy in life and a sense of heaven itself.

  When he had finished the audience rose as one to applaud. Tmolus, the deity of the mountain, called out, ‘The lyre of the great lord Apollo wins. All agreed?’

  ‘Aye, aye!’ roared the satyrs and fauns.

  ‘Apollo, Apollo!’ cried the nymphs and dryads.

  One lone voice demurred.

  ‘No!’

  ‘No?’ Dozens of heads turned to see who could have dared dissent.

  Midas rose to his feet. ‘I disagree. I say the pipes of Pan produce the better sound.’

  Even Pan was astonished. Apollo quietly put down his lyre and walked towards Midas.

  ‘Say that again.’

  It could at least be said of Midas that he had the courage of his convictions. He swallowed twice before repeating, ‘I – I say the pipes make a better sound. Their music is more … exciting. More artistic.’

  Apollo must have been in a soft mood that day, for he did not slaughter Midas on the spot. He did not peel the skin from him layer by layer as he had done to Marsyas when that unfortunate had had the temerity to challenge him. He did not cause Midas even the slightest amount of pain but just said softly, ‘You honestly think
Pan played better than me?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Well, in that case,’ said Apollo, with a laugh, ‘you must have the ears of an ass.’

  No sooner were these words out of the god’s mouth than Midas felt something strange and warm and rough going on in his scalp. As he put an enquiring hand to his head, howls and hoots and screams and screeches of mocking laughter started to come from the assembled throng. They could see what Midas could not. Two large grey donkey ears had pushed their way through his hair and were twitching and flicking back and forth for all the world to see.

  ‘It seems I was right,’ said Apollo. ‘You do indeed have the ears of an ass.’

  Crimsoning with shame and mortification, Midas turned and fled the meadow, the taunts and jeers of the crowd sounding all the more clearly in his great furry ears.

  His life as a camp-follower of Pan was over. Tying his head in a kind of turban, he returned to his wife and family in the palace of Gordium and – his carefree experiment in country living decidedly done with – settled back down into the life of a king.

  The only person who saw his ass’s ears was, necessarily, the servant who cut his hair every month. No one else in Phrygia knew the terrible secret and Midas was determined it should stay that way.

  ‘Here’s the deal,’ Midas told the barber. ‘I give you a bigger salary and a more generous pension than any other member of the palace staff and you keep quiet about what you have seen. If, however, you breathe a word to anyone I will slaughter your family before your eyes, cut out your tongue and leave you to wander the world in mute poverty and exile. Understood?’

  The frightened barber nodded.

  For three years each side kept to the bargain. The barber’s wife and family waxed fat and happy on the extra money that came in and no one found out about the king’s asinine auditory appendages. Turbans in the Midas style caught on throughout Phrygia, Lydia, Thrace and beyond. All was well.