Midas, the Judge

Midas attended the famous musical contest between Apollo and Marsyas, umpired by the River-god Tmolus. Tmolus awarded the prize to Apollo who, when Midas dissented from the verdict, punished him with a pair of ass's ears.
—Robert Graves
Even you, a royal fool
with no sense of consequences,
could visualise the flaying.
Unwisely truthful,
you helped bring on that fate.
Your dream of gold's cold
comfort began there — panicky
plunge towards an opposite.
Marsyas gave new meaning
to nakedness;
you, to invulnerability.
Now it is time to let go,
to suffer a little:
flesh the hearth,
and the rack; the burden;
this weightless purity.