Summary
The tenth stanza describes Midas’s new living situation. When Mrs Midas visits him, walking from her car parked a distance away, she can tell that she is getting close to him because she sees trout that have been turned into gold laying on the grass. She also once saw a hare caught in a trap, turned into gold. She sees her husband’s footsteps on a path next to the river, and these have also been turned into gold. Because he can no longer eat without turning his food into gold, her husband has become thin and delirious. He claims that he can hear music from the Greek God Pan coming from the woods. Mrs Midas decides this is the last straw and she can no longer visit her husband.
Analysis
The stanza juxtaposes the physical beauty of the gold with the dire consequences of Midas’s wish. His footprints were “glistening” on the golden path and the hare is described as a “beautiful lemon mistake” (Lines 55-56). Despite the glittering and monetarily valuable surroundings, Midas himself is “thin,/delirious” (Lines 57-58). The stanza continues the references to food throughout the poem—trout, hare, and lemon (with the reference to lemon being used to ironically describe the hare, which has turned into gold)—juxtaposing the availability of food with Midas’s inability to eat it. Finally, Mrs Midas describes her husband’s delirium as the “final straw” and decides not to visit him anymore, which is another ironic symbol, as straw is golden in color (Line 59).
The reference to the "music of Pan" is another allusion (Line 58). Pan is the god of the primal wilderness and is associated with animals and nature. When Mr. Midas notes that he hears the music of this god after he has wasted away from hunger into a delirious wild man of the woods, he himself becomes an ironic symbol of his de-evolutionary slide from living the dream to living like an animal. Mrs Midas recognizes that this is the final straw because her husband is forced to completely withdraw from society and join the god of the wilderness, contrasting with the purpose of his original wish.
