Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Does King Midas teach a lesson?

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In return for a favor received from the king, Dionysus, god of the life force, offered to grant him one wish. King Midas, as everyone knows, wished that everything he touched be turned to gold. For a while he had no end of fun, but he soon found what a mixed blessing his wish was when anything he tried to eat or drink turned to gold. Then he touched his beloved daughter—and killed her by turning her into a golden statue.

King Midas was lucky; when he asked Dionysus to lift the spell, which had become a curse, all he had to do was go and bathe in a particular purifying river. There'd be no such luck for a modern King Midas: These days the river would probably be full of industrial scum and plastic bottles and dead fish.

In our insatiable quest for evermore wealth and oil and power, we seem to be turning our entire planet not into gold, but into pollution and ruin. Apparently, we can't learn from history, or from our own mistakes. Is it too late to learn from a Greek myth?

Diana Fassino

Ketchum

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