Greek Gods HATE Him
Telling the truth even when it means Greek Gods will fuck up your life.
This is a deep cut King Midas story.
It takes place post-golden touch myth – you know that one, right? The one where King Midas is greedy, wants everything to turn into gold.
Pan stops by — being a God and kind of a dick, Pan decides to fuck with King Midas by giving him exactly what he wants. Which for Midas, is the ability to turn everything in his life to gold by touching it.
As you probably know — not everything should be gold.
So things go badly for Midas, until he relents. Then Pan feels bad and takes it back. Happily ever after, kind of.
Or as close to happily ever after as it gets in Greek myths.
—
Okay. So this story about King Midas takes place AFTER King Midas learned his valuable lesson about gold, greed, or something.
But unfortunately (and relatably), Midas did not integrate one of the most important takeaways from this experience into his day to day life.
That lesson is — do not fuck with Gods.
Not “don’t fuck w God” like NK Jemisen likes to write about.
Like — do not fuck with Gods, don’t provoke them.
Avoid opportunities to piss the Gods off.
You’d think this would be the most important lesson King Midas would learn from having the golden touch.
But, again, that he doesn’t learn it: relatable.
So one day, Apollo shows up at Midas‘ house unannounced. Apollo is like “hey dude what’s up? you wanna hear this song I’ve been working on?”
Midas is in the middle of a jam session with his friend, a panflute player, when Apollo busts in.
But that kind of request from a God doesn’t seem like one you could ignore in ancient Greece.
They listen to Apollo’s song and are polite, clap like — “wow man I love the synth you added to the third pipe.”
But Apollo isn’t satisfied with this.
He’s the God of Art so he has to start shit, up the ante to make things extra fraught.
So Apollo asks “Hey Midas — glad you liked the track. But who do you think is better at playing the Pan flute, me or your friend?”
Midas, ride or die to the end, immediately says “My friend, duh.”
Apollo, pissed off by this, gives Midas donkey ears in retribution.
Greek Gods fucking suck, man!
—
So King Midas and his PR team immediately fly into action: they do not want anyone to find out that Midas, king of wherever he’s king, has donkey ears.
Because you know, that’s super embarrassing.
I guess he’s able to hide them under his hair, kind of pat them down with hair gel under his crown?
But they can’t keep the ears a secret from everyone.
They especially can’t keep it a secret from Midas’ barber.
So, post-donkey ears, the Royal guard comes to get Midas’ barber like “Look dude. Do not tell a single freaking soul the king has donkey ears. Not your wife, not your kids, nobody. Got it? Because if you tell anyone what you see: boom. Beheaded.”
The barber is just a chill dude trying to pay his bills in a feudal society, so he goes in, cuts King Midas’ hair, all business. Then he goes home.
That’s when shit gets bad.
Because the barber immediately gets real sweaty.
Can’t sleep, can’t eat: he’s consumed by what he’s seen.
He can’t tell his family, his fellow barber coworker dudes, his local temple priest — nobody.
The secret is fucking eating at him.
And after a couple of days, the barber can’t take it anymore.
He goes up to the top of the tallest mountain, to a pond where a bunch of reeds are growing.
He wades into the reeds up to his knees, until he is surrounded by them in every direction.
Then he screams at the top of his lungs:
KING MIDAS HAS DONKEY EARS.
KING MIDAS HAS DONKEY EARS.
KING MIDAS HAS DONKEY EARS.
When he’s done, he feels a sense of peace.
Like extremely good EDMR session or Xanax level peace.
He’s dealt with the secret, his feelings, but it’s not gonna to get him beheaded.
He heads home relaxed and probably kind of smug. After all, he figured out a way to beat the system.
But this is a Greek myth — so he’s about to get completely wrecked.
—
It turns out the barber is not the only one that chills out in these reeds on the mountain.
There’s another guy, a hipster musician, who likes to hang out on the mountain too.
So one day, this particular musician is hanging out in the reeds, being emo about his art (ugh).
And the reeds start whispering to him, building to a pretty sick chorus:
KING MIDAS HAS DONKEY EARS.
KING MIDAS HAS DONKEY EARS.
KING MIDAS HAS DONKEY EARS.
The musician is like, “This song rocks.”
He immediately cuts down all of the reeds to build a pan flute that plays a single song.
Like an iPod Shuffle that only plays that one Apple Music song by Coldplay.
The panflute’s song goes like this:
KING MIDAS HAS DONKEY EARS.
KING MIDAS HAS DONKEY EARS.
KING MIDAS HAS DONKEY EARS.
The emo musician, self absorbed artist that he is, does not think about the political implications of this jam.
Or why a bunch of plants are telling him political secrets.
The musician is just happy to have made something that’s gonna be a hit.
He runs into town and plays it everywhere.
Soon everyone is singing it: in the bars, in the town square, on TikTok.
And once it’s on TikTok, it’s only a matter of time.
King Midas hears the song and flips his shit.
He and his PR team figure out the only possible leak is the barber.
They arrest the Barber, ready to do a whole public punitive justice beheading, as you do when you’re pissed off and the King.
From here, in every version of this method I’ve heard, things go badly for both Midas and the barber.
—
Here’s the deal: I wrote all of this not remembering how this myth ends.
I figured Apollo eventually was like — “sorry dude, my bad. Hope u learned your lesson.” Just like Pan with the Golden Touch.
I also wasn’t entirely sure what the moral was: by my modern non-ancient Greek sensibilities, neither Midas or the barber have done anything wrong here.
Midas is being kind of noble: he says my friend is the best at panflute to a Greek fucking God when he has a history of getting fucked over by Greek Gods.
Good for him!
The Barber is good in my book too: he had overwhelming emotions he found an innovative and thoughtful way to cope with that should have harmed no one.
Good for him!
Maybe the musician could have sent his track around to a couple of friends before he put it on SoundCloud, but even that isn’t a significant transgression.
But I forgot — this is a Greek myth.
And every version of this story ends pretty badly.
Best case scenario Midas disappears, never to be seen again.
Sometimes Midas does usually stop the barber from being beheaded before he goes — good for him!
But uh, he doesn’t always.
RIP chill Barber.
RIP Midas.
—
Greekmythsonline.com tells me the moral of this myth is:
Always tell the truth.
By this reading, Midas was being a total poser by bragging on his friend when he knew that Apollo, the god of music, was better than his friend could ever be.
By the standards of Greek Myth, Midas should’ve said “You’re right, Apollo, literal God of music. You are the ultimate freethinking creative. You have crafted something my mortal friend will never be able to make in his lifetime.”
Greekmythsonline.com says nothing about what you’re supposed to learn from the fate of the barber.
What was he supposed to do, man?
Let the secret kill him?
Start a livejournal?
Do they even have those anymore?
—
So in my opinion, Midas and the Barber are heroes, even if they got screwed Greek Myth style.
The Barber got beheaded, bummer.
But at least he figured out how to deal with his feelings.
And instead of being a suck up, cowing to someone who could ruin this life, King Midas is like “yeah Apollo, fuck you, I don’t give a shit. My friend is the best pan flute player in the world. Like and subscribe to his page.”
They both told their truth.
Fuck the consequences.
(Good for them.)