Midas and Others

1
Midas and Others

• Part Six Less Important Myths
• Mythology
• Stariha

2
Midas
King Midas has asses ears!

• Midas, a king of Phrygia, performs a favor for
  Bacchus and is granted one wish in return.
• Midas foolishly wishes for the power to turn
  everything he touches into gold. As a result he
  is unable to eat or drink.
• Bacchus tells Midas to wash himself in the river
  Pactolus to remove the spell.
• Midas later serves as the judge of a music
  contest between Apollo and Pan. When Midas
  stupidly calls Pan the better musician, Apollo
  changes his ears to those of a donkey.
• The servant of Midas, who cut his hair, saw the
  ears that Midas hid under a special cap. He
  swore a solemn oath to never tell, but the secret
  weighed upon him so greatly he dug a little hole
  and whispered the above words into it, then
  covered the hole again!
• MORAL Always side with the strongest god!

3
Aesculapius
A gentle craftsman who drove pain away. Soother
of cruel pangs, a joy to men, bringing them
golden health.

• Apollo once loved a mortal woman named Coronis
  who, for a change, cheats on him.
• He learns of the treachery and kills her but
  saves her unborn child.
• He takes the infant boy, Aesculapius, to the
  centaur Chiron, who raises him and trains him in
  the arts of medicine.
• Aesculapius is such a good doctor that he raises
  a man, Theseuss son Hippolytus, from the dead.
• Because this is a power no mortal should have,
  the angry Zeus strikes Aesculapius dead with a
  thunderbolt. Apollo, enraged at his sons death,
  attacks the Cyclopes, makers of Zeuss
  thunderbolts.
• Zeus condemns Apollo to serve as a slave to King
  Admetus for a number of years.

4
The Danaïds

• The fifty daughters of Danaüs, the Danaïds are
  pursued by their fifty male cousins.
• Danaüs is opposed to the marriages, but the men
  somehow capture the women and arrange for a
  gigantic marriage ceremony.
• Danaüs gives each daughter a dagger.
• On the wedding night, each girl except one,
  Hypermnestra, kills her new husband.
• Danaüs imprisons Hypermnestra for her treachery,
  but the other girls receive worse torment in the
  afterlife.
• They must fill a series of jars with water. The
  jars are full of holes, so their task never ends.
  

5
Glaucus and Scylla

• A fisherman who eats magic grass, Glaucus becomes
  a sea-god.
• He falls in love with the nymph Scylla, who
  resists his advances.
• He asks Circe for a love potion, but she falls in
  love with him.
• Circe instead makes a magic poison and pours it
  into Scyllas bath water.
• When Scylla touches the water, she becomes the
  famous rock--monster that later torments the
  Argonauts, Odysseus, and Aeneas

6
Erysichthon

• Erysichthon dared to cut down Ceres sacred giant
  oak tree.
• As punishment, Ceres condemns him to starve to
  death, no matter how much food he eats.
• He sells everything he has, including his
  daughter, for food.
• His daughter prays to Poseidon to free her from
  slavery, and the god helps her by transforming
  her into a -fisherman so that her master will not
  recognize her.
• She returns to her father, and they perpetrate
  the scheme again and again Erysichthon sells her
  into slavery, and she then transforms and
  escapes.
• Erysichthon remains hungry, however, and he
  finally dies of starvation turning upon his own
  body and devouring it.

7
Pomona and Vertumnus

• Pomona, a Roman nymph, loves only her fruit
  orchards. Vertumnus loves her, but she ignores
  him.
• One day, he sneaks into her orchard disguised as
  an old woman, slips up to her, and kisses her.
• In disguise, he explains that a youth named
  Vertumnus cares for her and for the same fruit
  trees she loves.
• He reminds her that Venus hates women who reject
  love.
• He reveals himself as Vertumnus. Pomona relents,
  and the two cultivate the orchard for the rest of
  their lives.

Henceforward, her orchard had two gardeners...