“You play very nicely, my man. But nobody can do much with those harps and fiddles and trumpery stringed things. You should learn the flute; then you’d know what music means!”
“Indeed?” said Apollo. “I’m sorry, for your sake, that your ears are so hard to please. As for me, I don’t care for whistles and squeaking machines.”
“Ah!” said Marsyas, “that’s because you never heard Me!”
“And you dare to tell me,” said Apollo, “that you put a wretched squeaking flute before the lyre, which makes music for the gods in the sky?”
“And you dare to say,” said Marsyas, “that a miserable twanging, tinkling lyre is better than a flute? What an ignorant blockhead you must be!”
At last their wrangling about their instruments grew to quarreling; and then Apollo said:—
“We shall never settle the question in this way. We will go to the next village and give a concert. You shall play your flute and I will play my lyre, and the people shall say which is the best—yours or mine.”
“With all my heart,” said Marsyas. “I know what they will say. But we must have a wager on it. What shall it be?”
“We will bet our skins,” said Apollo. “If I lose, you shall skin me; and if you lose, I will skin you.”
“Agreed,” said Marsyas.