How Apollo found his Lyre — page 2

He would not have made such a generous offer, except to save himself from being cast into the deepest, darkest Tartarus.

Having said all this, Hermes held out the lyre; bright Apollo took it and willingly gave him a gift in exchange. He handed him his magic wand, a stick entwined with two wooden snakes. This stick became on of Hermes’s most precious possessions, alongside his broad hat and his wooden sandals. When he grew up to be the messenger of the gods, he always took it with him, and the snake wand became the ancient symbol of messengers.

As for Apollo, he loved his lyre made from a tortoise shell and a bull’s horns. He is often depicted making the music of the gods.

And that’s the ancient myth of how Apollo acquired his lyre. I do hope you enjoyed it. In a minute or so, I shall tell you another story about Apollo and his lyre, and I shall also mention the origins of the flute. So don’t go away. But first, I’d like to tell you about our Wonderful Sponsor, Little Passports.

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Now to return to our theme of ancient music.

There’s a story that the flute was invented by the goddess Athena. She revealed her invention at one of those immortal parties on Mount Olympus, when the gods and goddesses lounge for centuries around sipping ambrosia. Athena thought some flute playing would make a welcome distraction from all the gossip and back-biting. She took out her invention, but when she blew into the flute, her eyes went cross-eyed and her cheeks hollowed out and went bright red, before turning purple.

The queen of the gods, whose name was Hera, was highly amused by Athena’s puffing.

“Our goddess of wisdom looks like a perfect fool,’ she said .

“And quite ugly too,” added Aphrodite.

This was not the effect that Athena was aiming for. She dropped down to earth where dhr practised her flute by the side of a lake. Her reflection in the water showed her that the gossipy goddesses were not far wrong - she did not look at all her best when she was blowing nto a flute. In disgust, she cast the flute away and never gave it another thought.

Now some time later, a god of the woods called Pan found the flute. Pan was a minor god, with legs of a goat, and did not have the right to live on Mount Olympus and look down on the world from a great height. In fact, he is generally thought to be a hanger-on of Dionysus, the god of wine. But he did have musical talent, and he practised and practised on the flute until he became pretty proficient at it. He was so pleased with his progress that he challenged the Olympian god Apollo to a musical contest.It was quite an occasion.The judges were to be the nymphs and satyrs and demigods of the woods, and presiding over all the judges was King Midas, who happened to live nearby. You may have heard of him. He was the king who had a golden touch - all that he touched turned to gold. He had been cured of that terrible curse, but now he was about to incur an even worse fate, fool that he was.First Pan made a magical sound on his flute.

And then it was the turn of Apollo to perform on his lyre.

Now I cannot say who was the better player, but the judges understood that it was only wise and safe to pick Apollo. Apollo was a much more powerful god than Pan, and to go against him was dangerous. Everyone understood this well, except for King Midas. He thought the point of being a judge was to give his honest opinion. Poor fool.

“I adored the playful flute, and therefore I give my vote to Pan,” he declared.

In a life famous for its foolishness, this was probably the most foolish thing King Midas ever said. Apollo grew so hot with anger that he almost set alight to the woods.

“Since you have the musical taste of a donkey,” he said, “From now on you shall have the ears of a donkey.”

And poor Midas found that his ears had grown long and furry. He felt such terrible shame, that he had not choice but to wear a turban around his head for the rest of his days. Only his barber knew his secret. How he wished that he was bald! But his hair grew thick and long like a lion’s, and he had to have it trimmed once a month.

At first the barber kept this terrible secret, but eventually he could hold it inside him no more. He went for a long lonely walk and spoke to some reeds: “King Midas has donkey’s ears.” Little did he know that the reeds would repeat the wonderful secret to anyone who would listen. All day long they whispered, Midas has Donkey’s Ears, Midas has Donkey’s ears. And the gossip and scandal grew so great that Midas had no choice but to leave his palace and go to live in a cave where nobody could see the king with donkey’s ears.