King Midas and the Golden Touch: a book club kit

Where it comes from. Ovid, a poet in Rome, wrote down this old Greek myth about 2,000 years ago. The king's daughter joined it in 1852, from Nathaniel Hawthorne.

In short (for the leader; it gives the ending away). King Midas loves gold so much that when the god Dionysus offers him a gift, he wishes that everything he touches would turn to gold. At first it is wonderful, but his food turns to gold, and then his daughter does too when she hugs him. Midas begs to give the gift back and washes in the river Pactolus, which undoes it, and he learns that people matter more than gold.

The lesson, in one line. The people we love matter more than gold.

Reading plan, by the story's parts. Meeting 1: Part One, “The Wish” and Part Two, “The Golden Touch”, pages 1–8 (about 6 minutes aloud); Meeting 2: Part Three, “The River”, pages 9–12 (about 3 minutes aloud). Each stop's own questions, which never give away what comes next: King Midas and the Golden Touch by chapter.

Questions to talk about

1. Was King Midas a real person?
   The story's answer: Partly. A king named Midas ruled Phrygia in the late 700s BC, and most historians think he is the “Mita” who appears in Assyrian records. Archaeologists have dug at Gordion, including a royal tomb there. But the golden touch is a myth, told by the Roman poet Ovid.
2. Who wrote the story of King Midas and the golden touch?
   The story's answer: The oldest telling of the golden touch that we found is by the Roman poet Ovid, in book 11 of his Metamorphoses. In Ovid's story Midas asks that whatever he touches turn to gold, and he is told to wash in a river to undo it. There is no daughter in Ovid's account; she appears in Nathaniel Hawthorne's retelling in A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys (1852).
3. Is the river Pactolus really golden?
   The story's answer: The Pactolus was a real river, known for the gold and electrum in its sands. The Midas story is an origin myth for that gold: Midas washes in the river, and the golden touch passes into the water. In Hawthorne's retelling the river sands turned to gold.
4. What does this myth explain, or try to explain?
   Listen for: Many myths explain how something came to be: a season, an animal, a name.
5. Was the main character right or wrong? Was the ending fair?
   Listen for: Myths are often hard on people; let the group disagree.
6. If you could ask one character a question, who and what would it be?
   Listen for: A good last question: it shows what puzzled each reader.

Did you know?

• A king named Midas really ruled Phrygia in the late 700s BC. Most historians think he is the “Mita” named in Assyrian records.
• The golden touch is a myth. The Roman poet Ovid tells it in book 11 of his Metamorphoses.
• Ovid's account of the golden touch has no daughter. She is in Nathaniel Hawthorne's A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys (1852).

Activity: Make a new myth

Each reader explains something they see every day (why cats purr, why puddles dry up) with a short made-up myth of their own, told round the circle in three sentences.