Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Midas.
The gallery
Midas Washing at the Source of the Pactolus
Nicolas Poussin, c. 1627
Poussin's Metropolitan canvas shows the Phrygian king scrubbing the golden curse from his hands in the Pactolus. Ovid's remedy made landscape: desire rinsed into a river that will run with gold dust.
Midas and Bacchus
Nicolas Poussin, c. 1624
In the Bavarian State collections, Poussin stages Midas before Bacchus — the mortal king begging release from the gift that starves him. The golden touch as a theological bargain, not a fairy-tale joke.
Apollo as Victor over Pan
Jacob Jordaens, 1637
Jordaens' Prado contest paints Midas among the judges who prefer Pan's pipes to Apollo's lyre — and earn the donkey ears. The Phrygian king as bad critic: taste punished in fur and long ears.
King Midas
Nicolas Tournier, c. 1620
Tournier's half-length Midas wears the ass's ears as royal attribute — the king who judged the music contest wrong, fixed in Caravaggesque light. Punishment become portrait.
The Punishment of Midas
Nicolas Régnier, c. 1650
Régnier shows Apollo fastening the donkey ears on Midas after the verdict for Pan. The golden-touch king here is pure hubris of judgment — ears as the visible price of preferring the wrong music.
On screen
In play
Midas touch
English still calls a gift for making money the Midas touch — the Phrygian king's blessing rewritten as a business compliment.
Midas
The king who wished everything gold remains the emblem of desire that backfires — donkey ears, the Pactolus, and a lesson in enough.