King Midas and the Golden Touch
For helping Silenus, Midas receives a wish from Dionysus: everything he touches turns to gold. The gift becomes curse when food, drink, and his daughter transmute. He begs reversal, learning to balance wealth and life.
Story beats
- 1) Midas treats Silenus kindly; Dionysus grants one wish. Midas asks for the golden touch.
- 2) Joy turns to horror: bread, wine, even a loved one become lifeless gold.
- 3) Midas pleads; Dionysus orders him to bathe in the Pactolus River. The curse washes away; the river sands gain gold.
- 4) In a related tale, Midas judges a music contest, siding with Pan over Apollo; Apollo gives him donkey ears—another lesson in discernment.
Context & symbolism
The story warns about unchecked desire; wealth without restraint destroys joy. The river purge ties moral cleansing to geography (Pactolus gold). Donkey ears punish poor judgment and vanity.
Midas embodies flawed choices even as a king: greed, bad taste, and learning through humiliation.
Motifs
- Wish gone wrong
- Gold as both boon and burden
- River purification
- Ears of a donkey as shame
Use it in play
- A boon that turns items to valuable but unusable forms; creative solutions needed.
- Undoing a curse via ritual bath or specific river.
- A ruler hiding animal ears; secrecy and barber rumors as subplots.
- Weighing wealth vs. loved ones’ safety in choices.
Comparative threads
- Twisted wishes: Monkey’s paw variants.
- Judge punished: Similar to Minos, or other flawed judges.
Hooks and campaign seeds
- A PC gains a hazardous transmutation touch; find the cleansing river.
- Barber NPC knows a ruler’s secret ears; leverage or protect the secret.
- A cursed treasure turns food to gold—survive until cured.