Book 11
not lessen hunger and no remedy
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relieved his dry, parched throat. The hated gold
tormented him no more than he deserved.
Lifting his hands and shining arms to heaven,
he moaned. “Oh pardon me, father Lenaeus!
I have done wrong, but pity me, I pray,
and save me from this curse that looked so fair.”
How patient are the gods! Bacchus forthwith,
because King Midas had confessed his fault,
restored him and annulled the promise given,
annulled the favor granted, and he said:
“That you may not be always cased in gold,
which you unhappily desired, depart
to the stream that flows by that great town of Sardis
and upward trace its waters, as they glide
past Lydian heights, until you find their source.
Then, where the spring leaps out from mountain rock,
plunge head and body in the snowy foam.
At once the flood will take away your curse.”
King Midas did as he was told and plunged
beneath the water at the river's source.
And the gold virtue granted by the god,
as it departed from his body, tinged
the stream with gold. And even to this hour
adjoining fields, touched by this ancient vein
of gold, are hardened where the river flows
and colored with the gold that Midas left.
Abhorring riches he inhabited
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the woods and fields, and followed Pan who dwells
always in mountain-caves: but still obtuse
remained, from which his foolish mind again,
by an absurd decision, harmed his life.
He followed Pan up to the lofty mount
Tmolus, which from its great height looks far
across the sea. Steep and erect it stands
between great Sardis and the small Hypaepa.
While Pan was boasting there to mountain nymphs
of his great skill in music, and while he
was warbling a gay tune upon the reeds,
cemented with soft wax, in his conceit
