MIDAS.
Begone, ye slaves!
Go clothe your wretched limbs in ragged skins!
Take an old carpet to wrap round your legs,
A broad leaf for your feet—ye shall not wear
That dress—those golden sandals—monarch like.
ASPHALION.
If you would have us walk a mile a day
We cannot thus—already we are tired
With the huge weight of soles of solid gold.
MIDAS.
Pitiful wretches! Earth-born, groveling dolts!
Begone! nor dare reply to my just wrath!
Never behold me more! or if you stay
Let not a sigh, a shrug, a stoop betray
What poor, weak, miserable men you are.
Not as I—I am a God! Look, dunce!
I tread or leap beneath this load of gold!
(Jumps & stops suddenly.)
I’ve hurt my back:—this cloak is wondrous hard!
No more of this! my appetite would say
The hour is come for my noon-day repast.
LACON.
It comes borne in by twenty lusty slaves,
Who scarce can lift the mass of solid gold,
That lately was a table of light wood.
Here is the heavy golden ewer & bowl,
In which, before you eat, you wash your hands.
MIDAS.
(lifting up the ewer)
This is to be a king! to touch pure gold!
Would that by touching thee, Zopyrion,
I could transmute thee to a golden man;
A crowd of golden slaves to wait on me!
(Pours the water on his hands.)
But how is this? the water that I touch
Falls down a stream of yellow liquid gold,
And hardens as it falls. I cannot wash—
Pray Bacchus, I may drink! and the soft towel
With which I’d wipe my hands transmutes itself
Into a sheet of heavy gold.—No more!
I’ll sit and eat:—I have not tasted food
For many hours, I have been so wrapt
In golden dreams of all that I possess,
I had not time to eat; now hunger calls
And makes me feel, though not remote in power
From the immortal Gods, that I need food,
The only remnant of mortality!
(In vain attempts to eat of several dishes.)