faded into nothingness, and their creatures, and the fair nymphs and dryads, and the wild fauns and centaurs longed and fought no more, and man had ceased to desire the impossible. Throbbing nature and passionately desiring life faded into dust before the melody that Apollo called forth, and when his strings had ceased to quiver and only the faintly remembered echo of his music remained, it was as though the earth had passed away and all things had become new.
For the space of many seconds all was silence.
Then, in low voice, Apollo asked:
"Ye who listen—who is the victor?"
And earth and sea and sky, and all the creatures of earth and sky, and of the deep, replied as one:
"The victory is thine. Divine Apollo."
Yet was there one dissentient voice.
Midas, sorely puzzled, utterly un-understanding, was relieved when the music of Apollo ceased. "If only Pan would play again," he murmured to himself. "I wish to live, and Pan's music gives me life. I love the woolly vine-buds and the fragrant pine-leaves, and the scent of the violets in the spring. The smell of the fresh-ploughed earth is dear to me, the breath of the kine that have grazed in the meadows of wild parsley and of asphodel. I want to drink red wine and to eat and love and fight and work and be joyous and sad, fierce and strong, and very weary, and to sleep the dead sleep of men who live only as weak mortals do."
Therefore he raised his voice, and called very loud: "Pan's music is sweeter and truer and greater than the
