Talk:Midas/Archive 1

Pronunciation
How is Midas pronounced in English? To me, it seems that English pronunciations of Greek and Latin words rarely follow the original.

Old talk threads
I think the story of King midas changes the veiws of our current society's maturity. Now, we view maturity as leadership, responsibility and some other things including some traits that Midas obtained towrad the end of his story.Immaturity today includes greed, held by Midas, selfishness and other traits that Midas showed in this story. I think that this story helps people find good traits to show that reflect maturity. By Ella McDougall

The citation of the Iliad gives a line number, but not the book number. I can't seem to find the reference.

I believe that Adrastus was the son of Gordias, not Midas. Pokemonfanboy (talk) 13:35, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Am I missing something here? One of the most notable archeological finds of our time

http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/research/Exp_Rese_Disc/Mediterranean/Midas/intro.shtml

and we devoted king midas' page to two fables? I'm going to dig around for the page on the historical king and then edit this thing if I can't find it. Asdfff 09:30, 25 January 2006 (UTC)asdfff

NEW COMMENT--There is a discussion of the mythical versus the historical Midas with a short bibliography at

http://www.phrygians.com/midas.html http://www.phrygians.com/midasbiblio.html

The historical Midas is mentioned in Herodotus 1.14.. See the Perseus Project links at

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0004&layout=&loc=midas

As noted above, the U Penn site discusses the archeology of his tomb and funerary feast.

Hearsay?

 * "Other versions of the myth portray Midas as a peasant who performed a good deed and became king, where greed then swept him over." This transformation of a peasant Midas is an improvisation? --Wetman 19:38, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
 * "[Alternatively, Midas jumped into the water and immediately, the water turned into gold, killing Midas]." Such "alternatives" are often based on rememberings of Xena Warrior Princess episodes, etc. I didn't remove this, however. Is there a source? --Wetman 19:40, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

King midas-golden Touch
i am a journalist and i was writing about midas a few days ago i have hear that the bush he touch is still gold and still living in greece! ??wanna know were and how??

go to www.midashouse.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.239.201.217 (talk) 08:25, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Myth
This appears to be the long version. I think some severe editing is needed. Looking at the articles at some of the other gods, who, after all, were total myths, there is (mercifully) almost no tales. Just a credible article on the worship of the god and enough detail to understand that worship. No more. Several pages dedicated to a myth is too much IMO. Direct the reader to a online site and briefly summarize please. Student7 (talk) 02:35, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Pulling out what appears to be gibberish: "Their was A Pawn Abourd The Land Of the Shoppe, Upon The~Ship~Midas, The Prince of the Ship Was upon the waves of the 18 Double Oughts, "waving on the River" of the Mt.of.Pleasant was the Red~Jackel, and upon a Black~Mary was a Christina. "Gold Is Gold and the Love Of a Woman Sailing The Seas, Sets Free The Soul From the Midas Touch" - "We Sailed in our youth With Beauty and upon the Ground We Marched upon the Air We Flew and in Love We knew" - "Upon the Pen after our Sailings end is The Begin of our Sailing Begin" "Where was the White-Mary?"Bobzchemist (talk) 20:21, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Anatolian (today=Turkish) Name of Midas
As most of the direct descendants of ancient anatolians today speak Turkish, the turkish version of the name of the king should also be provided. It should also be provided because, the name of Midas is even today used by anatolians in some idioms such as "He has the gold of Mida" to say that someone has lots of wealth.

.. In the nineteenth century, at Midas Sehri, another "Tomb of Midas" was discovered. The name was given on the basis of the word "Mida", identified in incompletely translated Phrygian inscriptions. That "tomb" is no longer believed to be a tomb, but rather a sacred site to Cybele. ..

Lycianhittite (talk) 00:16, 18 January 2009 (UTC)


 * So what does that prove? El Greco(talk) 16:10, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

caitlan louise hartle —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.146.143.32 (talk) 22:56, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism
This article looks messy from vandalism. Does it need a soft protect? PowerUserPCDude (talk) 01:53, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

More vandalism
The first line of the Great Tumulus section now reads; "In 1930, dentists connected with the University of Texas opened a chamber tomb at the foot of the Great Tumulus..." I am changing dentists to archaeologists. Lily20 (talk) 18:53, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Popular culture
The entire section was a collection of irrelevant trivia. The references that were included were to lyrics; while that does confirm that some songs mention Midas it doesn't tell the reader why it's worth mentioning. Which, in most cases, it is not. So until someone provides a good argument for the inclusion of any or all of the pop culture material I've moved it here. Nev1 (talk) 17:58, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

"Disney comics and TV cartoons feature Magica De Spell, a sorceress who wants to create a magic amulet that will give her the Midas Touch. The amulet is to be made from coins touched by rich men, so Magica is out to steal Scrooge McDuck's Number One Dime—the coin touched most by the world's richest man. In another episode of DuckTales, a golden goose also had the power to turn anything into gold. To activate its powers, Scrooge had to say gold and point it to anything and it would turn into gold. After his nephews were inadvertently turned to gold, Scrooge lost his initial excitement over the goose.

In her 1999 anthology, The World's Wife, poet Carol Ann Duffy writes a poem called 'Mrs Midas'. The poem tells the story of when Midas' fictional wife discovers her husband's ability to turn what he touches to gold.

"Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)", the fourth single from Lungs, the debut album from indie pop band Florence + The Machine, includes the lyric: "Midas is king and he holds me so tight/ And turns me to gold in the sunlight" in the chorus.

In Dan Abnett's science-fiction series, Eisenhorn, a pilot named Midas Betancore has electrical circuiting built into his fingers to allow him to interface directly with vehicles he is flying.

The song "Bang Bang You're Dead" by the band Dirty Pretty Things contains the lyric "Well I gave you the Midas touch".

The song " Oath Of Silence" by the band Sylosis contains the lyrics " But unlike the hand of Midas, what you touch will turn to Shit..."

Musical group Midnight Star has a song called "Midas Touch" that came out in 1986. The alternative indie band Sunset Rubdown have a song entitled magic Vs. Midas on their album Random Spirit Lover.

Part of the main storyline of the third Aladdin movie, Aladdin and the King of Thieves, is Aladdin and his father searching for the Hand of Midas which will turn anything it touches to gold.

"Ambrosia", a song by post hardcore band Alesana tells about King Midas and his golden touch.

In episode 9 of the third season of Mad Men titled "The Wee Hours" on AMC, Conrad Hilton (Founder of Hilton Hotels) discusses that he feels like King Midas sometimes.

Tomb Raider and Tomb Raider: Anniversary have a level set in ancient Greece featuring a statue of King Midas; anything that touches the statue's hand turns to gold.

In Max Payne 2, during a nightmare sequence a whiskey advertisement can be seen which says "Sadim. Everyone I touch dies.""

Recent Developments
I wonder what this piece of text is doing in this article, it's not related nor does it refer to any source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Beathoven (talk • contribs) 11:42, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

It needs to go. It has no relevance to the article GK (talk) 13:17, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It was from, I dont have rollback so I boldly copypasta-ed--Savonneux (talk) 01:40, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Midas died in 695 BC
http://www.livius.org/gi-gr/gordium/gordium_tumulus_MM.html Böri (talk) 12:01, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Nonsensical paragraph
"Some storytellers and script writer of the movies and television for children, made the King Midas version of the story spread into a fairy tale, stereotypically. With the replace of the gods. They used the part was a fairy, genie, a fairy godmother, and even the wizard and the witch." This is the last bullet point in the "See Also" section. It looks almost like proper English, but doesn't really make sense. Can anyone make head or tail of it, or should it be deleted? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.38.244 (talk) 16:47, 23 October 2011 (UTC)


 * That was grammatically and syntactically very bad English, but I think it is not hard to understand what was meant. Perhaps it was translated with Google translator from some other language, which often results as something like that. But the meaning was clearly this: There are many books, movies and children's television programs which contain some version of the King Midas story. But in such versions, the god Dionysos, who in the original myth gave Midas his (fatal) ability to change everything he touched to gold, has often been replaced with some other figure who gave him the same ability. This may be, for example, a fairy, a fairy godmother, a wizard or a witch. -FKLS (talk) 07:55, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
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Sources, links, extensions and blood drinking
I don't like the way this article is structured, particularly in terms of the section on the myth of king Midas. The stories of the "golden touch" and the "ass ears" are listed separately but nowhere at the top of the section it's explained that they came together in two different stories first through Hyginus in Fabulae, 191 and secondly through Ovid in Metamorphoses in book XI, 85-145/146-193.

Also, link 14 currently says " On-line text at Theoi.com" and it points to http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidMetamorphoses11.html rather than to http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidMetamorphoses11.html#2 for the "golden touch" and http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidMetamorphoses11.html#3 for the "ass ears".

I would like to also point out that the stories by Hyginus and Ovid are essentially the same and they overlap quite a bit except for a few details, with the difference that Hyginus provides a synthesis and Ovid is more descriptive, Hyginus tells about the "ass ears" and then about the "golden touch" whereas Ovid does the same but in reversed order.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys (1852) is an extension of the earlier myths and should not be listed under the myth section but under something like "modern literature".

The article also claims "Some sources said that Midas killed himself by drinking the blood of an ox" but does not provide any source for that claim. It also states "Greek sources including Strabo say that Midas committed suicide by drinking bulls' blood". The first statement is attributed to the first Midas from the second millennium BC. The second statement is attributed to the second Midas from the late 8th century BC. I do not know if it's simply a coincidence that one died by drinking an ox's blood and the other by drinking a bull's blood. It sounds to me too much of a coincidence and more of a distortion of the story of Midas, maybe even referred to a single king Midas.

ICE77 (talk) 22:22, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Alchemy?
OK, is there a good reason for a footnote about (medieval European) alchemy in an article about a classical myth from Greece? Currently it's footnote 1. IAmNitpicking (talk) 11:07, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

BLM
Midas was black no cap Rogerjeboy (talk) 10:48, 14 January 2021 (UTC)