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The forest-clad mountains burned, Athos and Taurus and Tmolus and OEte; Ida, once celebrated for fountains, but now all dry; the Muses' mountain Helicon, and Haemus; AEtna, with fires within and without, and Parnassus, with his two peaks, and Rhodope, forced at last to part with his snowy crown.
But Tmolus bowed before Apollo, and the sun-god rose with his golden lyre in his hands. As he moved, light shook out of his radiant hair as raindrops are showered from the leaves. His trailing robes were purple, like the clouds that temper the glory of a sunset, so that one may look upon it. He touched the strings of his lyre, and all things were silent with joy.
And the sound of his reed-pipe was so sweet that he grew proud, and believed himself greater than the chief musician of the gods, Apollo, the sun-god. So he challenged great Apollo to make better music than he. Apollo consented to the test, for he wished to punish Pan's vanity, and they chose the mountain Tmolus for judge, since no one is so old and wise as the hills.
The osráman-bo are used in medicine; they 'cool the heart; and water in which they are steeped, when given to children, mitigates juvenile complaints. One of my collections owes its black colour to having been boiled in palm-oil by way of preserving its virtues; it resembles the básanos of Lydian Tmolus; but the Gold Coast touchstone is mostly a dark jasper imported from Europe.
He made music, and the woods dreamed. The fauns and satyrs were quite still; and the wild creatures crouched, blinking, under a charm of light that they could not understand. To hear such a music cease was like bidding farewell to father and mother. With one accord they fell at the feet of Apollo, and Tmolus proclaimed the victory his. Only one voice disputed that award.
The well-kept royal road ran through fields of good black, arable land, planted with trees of many different kinds. It crossed the outlying spurs of the Tmolus range of mountains. At their foot stretched rows of olive, citron and plane-trees, plantations of mulberries and vines; at a higher level grew firs, cypresses and nut-tree copses.
Thenceforth Midas, hating wealth and splendor, dwelt in the country, and became a worshipper of Pan, the god of the fields. On a certain occasion Pan had the temerity to compare his music with that of Apollo, and to challenge the god of the lyre to a trial of skill. The challenge was accepted, and Tmolus, the mountain god, was chosen umpire.
They stood together, leaning over the sluice, looking in at one of the things human industry has failed to disfigure, nearly as beautiful to-day as long ago on Pactolus' banks when Lydian shepherds, with great stones, fastened fleeces in the river that they might catch and gather for King Croesus the golden sands of Tmolus.
When Pan and Apollo came before Tmolus, to play, their followers came with them, to hear, and one of those who came with Pan was a mortal named Midas. First Pan played; he blew on his reed-pipe, and out came a tune so wild and yet so coaxing that the birds hopped from the trees to get near; the squirrels came running from their holes; and the very trees swayed as if they wanted to dance.
The forest-clad mountains burned, Athos and Taurus and Tmolus and OEte; Ida, once celebrated for fountains, but now all dry; the Muses' mountain Helicon, and Haemus; Aetna, with fires within and without, and Parnassus, with his two peaks, and Rhodope, forced at last to part with his snowy crown.
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