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Not all stories have a moral, but this one from ancient Greece certainly does. Midas has a gift – everything he touches turns to gold. But he soon learns that an excessive love of riches squeezes the truly valuable things out of life.
The story begins with Silenus, a satyr, half man, half goat, who follows Dionysus the god of Wine.
Read by Natasha. Version for Storynory by Bertie. Duration 9.42
There was once a dreadfully ugly beast called Silenus. He pranced over the mountains on a pair of hairy goat’s legs. A long tail swished behind him. But from the waist up, he was a man, more or less. His big belly bounced up and down as he ran along. A pair of horns sprouted out of his bald and shiny head. Quite often, slobber dribbled from his thick and purple lips. In short, this delightful creature was a satyr.
Silenus was a friend of Dionysus, the God of Wine. Dionysus often used to gather his wild band of followers in the woods for a noisy, riotous party. They included satyrs as well as Maenids, who were wild women of the woods. They would bang drums, blow pipes and horns, and crash cymbals and they danced themselves into a mad frenzy. But above all, they liked to drink wine.
One time after Silenus had been partying all night, he staggered out of the woods, and into the palace grounds of Midas, king of Phrygia. He lay down between the rose bushes and fell into a deep sleep. Around mid-morning Princess Zoe was walking through the gardens collecting rose blossoms. She saw the hairy hoof of Silenus sticking out from among the bushes, and she thought that a poor sick goat had come into the garden to lie down. As he was dirty and smelled not very nice, she called the gardener. When he came, he pulled on the leg and found, not a goat, but a satyr.
“Ugh, he’s horrible,” exclaimed Zoe. “Throw him on the compost heap.”
“Ah, I’d better ask the king before I do that,” said the Gardener. “After all, a satyr can bring good fortune.”
When King Midas learned that there was a satyr sleeping in the rose garden, he ordered that he be given a bed in the palace until he felt better. The servants carried him on a stretcher to the best guest room. And there he remained, snoring loudly and smelling like – well, a goat – for almost another day.
When finally he arose, he staggered into the palace kitchen and noisily demanded cheese, eggs, and wine.
The cook wanted to chase him out with a meat cleaver, but steward held him back saying that the satyr was a guest of the king. Silenus took the wine and went
wandering around the palace leaving dirty hoof prints as he went.
When the queen saw him, she was horrified: “Who or what is this vile creature that’s come to stay with us?” she asked the king.
Midas replied that he was a friend of Dionysus, and everyone must treat him great courtesy.
Although Princess Zoe and the Queen did their best to stay out of the way of the satyr, King Midas entertained his guest, eating and drinking with him until late at night, and playing music on the pan pipes. All in all, Silenus stayed with Midas for a week.
And no one was more pleased about this show of hospitality than Dionysus, because in his eyes, anyone who honoured Silenus, honoured Dionysus.
A few days after Silenus had left, Midas was walking in his rose garden when he heard some strange but lovely music. He followed the sound and discovered a perfectly beautiful man sitting on the grass and playing a pipe. He knew right away that the stranger was one of the gods and he fell down on one knee. The god said:
“Get up man. I’m not one for ceremonies.
I wish to reward you. What gift would you like more than any other in the world? Power isn’t really my thing, but I can offer you wine, women or song.”
“I need money’, said Midas.
“Money. What good comes of money?” asked the god.
“Well of course a god like you has no use for money,” said Midas, “But we mortals can never have enough of it. I wish that everything I touched turned to gold.”
And although Dionysus thought it was a foolish wish, he granted it with the words: “Midas, all that you touch shall turn to gold.”
The god disappeared, and King Midas rejoiced in his curse. He reached out and touched a rose blossom and it turned to gold. He picked up a stone, and that too became golden. Even a clod of earth became gold.
He plucked an apple from a low branch, and it immediately became cold and shiny. He held it in his hand and said:
“Oh, how pure and perfect it is.”
And then he tossed the golden apple over his shoulder, and hurried into the palace to try his touch on random objects: columns, statues, furniture, doorknobs.
The servants heard his voice laughing and shouting : “Gold, Glorious Gold!” And they wondered what had got into the king.
Princess Zoe heard him too. She found him turning peas into little golden nuggets.
“Father. What has happened?” she asked.
“The most wonderful thing,” he replied. And he hugged her.
But this was not what he had expected. He was holding not his daughter in his arms, but a cold, still statue.
Distraught, he went to the fountain to wash his hot tears from his face. But as he scooped up the water in his hands, it turned into liquid gold.
Now he realised the cruelty of his gift. He called out:
“Lord Dionysus. Save me from this cursed metal!’
And Dionysus heard him and took pity on the foolish king. He appeared sitting on the edge of the fountain and said:
“Go to the river that flows by the great city of Sardis. make your way up stream until you come to the source. Plunge your head and body at the same moment into the foaming fountain, where it gushes out, and wash away your foolishness.”
Midas did as he was told. And when he plunged into the stream, the banks and the flowers that grew on them became yellow and golden. But Midas emerged from the waters free of his wish for riches and gold. And as long as he lived, he rejoiced in all that was simple and natural.
Text Copyright Hugh Fraser 2009 –
58 Comments
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttttttttttttttttttttttt wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasssssssssssssssssssssss ggggggggggooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooddddddddddddddd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yay! im first
anyway bertie the story rocked all of ur stories do but can u make some more of the origenal stories lik katie bertie the wicked uncle or even tick tock turkie! cuz the originals roc!
I know it as’ The Golden Touch’ and it is a king not a creature
Dear Nikki, Glad you liked the story. There will be a Katie story next week… hope you enjoy that too ! The Greek Myths are semi-original, in that the text is our own adaptation.
Dear Cattien, The story has lots of names. Listen on though, because the king does appear.
Im 7th
I am a teacher on holiday, and would you believe, loved the story. I shall use this in my classroom next term.
I HAVE READ THIS STORY AND I THINK IT IS COOL.I WANT U 2 PUBLUSH MORE STORIES LIKE THIS
Hi Finoa, Fantastic. We always like it when teachers find our stories useful.
YOU SAID YOU WOULD put in another katie story.
My opinion, storynory has many popular stories so i guess storynory is best reading story website that i’ve think ever!
heard* (not “think”)
i am learning English, so it’s very useful to me. thank u so much ^^.
i need all the story of the kids
I like ths story me and my class
have done a play of it. we also
did a pop up book about it.
THANK YOU NATASHA FOR READING
IT TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ve heard this story before, but isn’t it supposed to be called ‘Golden Tragedy’ with a king midas that has the touch?
Dear Michelle, this is a very old story. It comes under lots of names. And yes, in this story, Midas has the golden touch…listen on. The satyr at the beginning is in an old version by the Roman Poet Ovid, so he is authentic !
Hello
I love all of Natasha’s stories, but I was wondering if she could record ‘The Story of Deirdre’, my favourite 
Dear Eva Many thanks for the suggestion. I’ll take a look at the Story of Deirdre which seems to be a Celtic Legend.
thank you Bertie. I luv it
hello
Bertie,
Could you do The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander? It’s a really good book about an assistant pig keeper to an oracular pig, A princess who has placed herself as a gaurdian of a magical sword and does spells to help the others,Gwydyon a son of Don and a prince,Fflewwder Fflam a wanna-be bard and a king over a small cantrev, And of course there’s Gurgi a little hairy creature who’ll do almost anything for “munchings and crunchings” (food)! Disney did a movie of the next in the series but they changed alot and left out a whole ton of important parts and characters,Like Arawn,Coll,Achren,and even Gwydyon and more.
Hannah~
Dear Hannah, The book of Three by Lloyd Alexander is a good suggestion, but I’m afraid it seems to be under copyright, which means we don’t have the rights to do this. From what I can see it’s part of the Chronicles of Prydain, which are loosely based on Welsh Mythology. We will be doing more Welsh tales as part of our Arthur series. We could perhaps suggest the Book of Three as an Audible download.
does princess Zoe turn back into a human?
Maria, that’s a good question. I think that princess Zoe probably did turn back into a human. By the way, “zoe”means “life” in Greek.
I love your stories, use them for lesson plans in South Korea. But I did notice some mistakes Zoe is not Zoey (spoken) and waste (written) is waist also you pronounced it as Sat-tire when I think you mean SayTar in phonics. But all in all great job and can not complain for FREE teaching resources.
Kind Regards
Kevin
Dear Kevin, Many thanks for your comment and help. We are really glad that our stories are being used for teaching in South Korea. You might like to look at the power point presentation of the Hare and the Tortoise for schools. http://storynory.com/2008/05/18/the-hare-and-the-tortoise/.
I’ve changed the spelling mistake (thanks !). I’m not sure I agree about the two pronunciations. A satyr might be SAT-IR but I can’t see it as Say-Tar. And Zoe is Zo-ey surely? But I did notice Natasha saying Dionysis instead of Dionysus, and just hoped that it wasn’t too obvious. Unfortunately it’s hard to change the audio once it’s recorded. But perhaps we do need a panel of will teachers and parents who might proof read our texts.
Thanks for listening and using our stories in your class !
I HATE and LIKE this STORY
Dear Rohan, Odi et Amo
c’etait magnifique!
est ce que tu peux lire plus?!
vraiment!
s il vous plait….
merci
Very good version of this story, I liked it! keep it up Bertie!
i like natasha and her voice
plz reply to me i wil be happy if she replys
my e-mail id : ramverma60@yahoo.com
Dear Ram, Many thanks for your very nice comment.
I feel kinda sad for the king when he touched his daughter and she turned into gold
really it`s a good fantasy story.
thank you
meoooooooooo
thank you for making this story when i was in year 3 my teacher told me this story ,and for homework we had to make up a litter and tell a friend what happend i told my friend katie and anyway i am in year 5 now so it was a long time
sometimes i wish that everthing i touch turn to gold but you know sometime i CH dont because if it did like in the story when i wanted to give my dad,mamaw,mom,papaw,grannyorsister thats why i would not want to turn in to gold but the reason why i would want everthing to because i want my family to be rich!!!!!!!!!!!!!!RICH RICH RICH!!!!!!!!
1.There was an ugly beast called silenus
2.From the waist up he was a men from the wais down he was a goat
3.He stopped in front of the kings garden and fell asleep
4.princess zoe saw a hairy hoof and it was the half men and goat
5.The gardener pulled onto the leg and the half men and goat
6.because a satyr is a good foutune
7.sevent had carried the half men and half goat on a strecher.
8.he damanded cheese,eggsand some wine.
9.the satyr went home and keft the castle
10.he got gold and and then he had hug his daughter and then tuned her into gold and a statue
11.he came out and broke the wish
the story is OK!!!!!!!!
I LIKE THE PART ABOUT THE GOLD!!!!!!
Taylor I hope all your dreams come to true. But the most important thing in life is to BE HAPPY !
This story is terrific, thanks. I would like to listen and read stories of Poe, those are my favorite ones.
Hi Lorena, Poe might be good for Halloween. Thanks for the suggestion. But some of his stories are really really creepy. We’ll have to find something suitable.
I like the info but the audio is a little slow
Just kiddin its a great site and a great story
Excuse me Bertie, but I believe that you are an imposter. I have been away on vacation, and I do not understand how my comments appeared above.
I like this story. Thanks Bertie for directing me to the Greek myths. I have heard other verisions of this story without a statry. I like satrys, I think they are fun-loving and pranksters. But that might because of the books I read. Did I mention I like this story? And I really really like story nory!
Cool. I’m really glad you like the Midas Touch and the Satyr. Although we wrote a version of this in our own words. the Satyr comes from the Latin (Roman) version by the poet Ovid.
Ah mazing lemme tell ya
its so goooooooooooood thanks
This was a great story! I enjoyed the moral of the story and how the King took pleasure in the simple things. I especially loved the accent.
Also the conflict of the story is that everything he touches turns to gold and he can’t even hug his daughter withut turning her into a gold statue.
The mood of this story is greed because that is what Midas feels; he starts wanting more and more money.
Near the end, the tone is sad when his daughter gets turned into gold.
the mood is greed because all midias wants is mony than he turns his daughter into gold
i hated it
wow. gold rose with gold thorns not a good idea. my friend pricked her finger on a glass roses that have glass thorns. That wasn’t a pretty sight.
we LOVED this story, Touched our smiles, and will remain there…..kat and jew
Hi I’ve recently become obsessed with this website. I am a 6th grade student and highly enjoy Greek Mythology. I love all the stories and myths and was wondering if you could possibly put some more myths and stories about the Greek Olympian gods, like stories about Athena or Apollo, that sort of thing. I already read/ listened to all the stories in the Greek column already. Thxs!!!
HI Heather, I’m delighted that you are enjoying Storynory so much, and our Greek myths. We will be adding more myths, but I am not quite sure when yet. One day we want to do Dido and Aeneas and make it quite special, perhaps with some music (it’s more Roman of course), and we haven’t yet done the Golden Fleece or Hercules. They are all on our to do list ! In the meantime, have you tried our Knights of the Round Table stories?… Especially Sir Gawain, you might enjoy them.