Will I each year offer three sucking lambs--
Games will I institute--nor Pan himself
Shall have more honour than thy deity.
Haste to the stream,--I long to feel the cool
And liquid touch of its divinest waves.

(_Exeunt all except Zopyrion and Asphalion._)

_Asph._ Off with our golden sandals and our cloaks!
Oh, I shall ever hate the sight of gold!
Poor, wealthy Midas runs as if from death
To rid him quick of this meta[l]lic curse.

_Zopyr._ (_aside_) I wonder if his asses['] ears are gold;
What would I give to let the secret out?
Gold! that is trash, we have too much of it,--
But I would give ten new born lambs to tell
This most portentous truth--but I must choke.

_Asph._ Now we shall tend our flocks and reap our corn
As we were wont, and not be killed by gold.
Golden fleeces threatened our poor sheep, [61]
The very showers as they fell from heaven
Could not refresh the earth; the wind blew gold,
And as we walked [Footnote: MS. _as he walked._]
the thick sharp-pointed atoms
Wounded our faces--the navies would have sunk--

_Zopyr._ All strangers would have fled our gold-cursed shore,
Till we had bound our wealthy king, that he