Summary
Mrs Midas squints at the dark garden and sees her husband holding the twig, which has turned into gold. She watches as he plucks a Fondante d’Automne pear from a branch and it also turns gold, glowing in his palm “like a lightbulb.” She thinks that he has decorated the tree with fairy lights, which are small, glowing lights hung on strings.
Analysis
The first line—“Now the garden was long and the visibility poor”—signals a shift in the poem and foreshadows the conflict to come. The line begins with the word “now,” calling attention to a temporal shift in the poem—while the first stanza provided background, this one introduces action by depicting Midas standing in the garden and turning everything to gold due to his wish. The use of the word “now” also indicates the form of the poem as a dramatic monologue: people often use the word “now” to call attention to specific components of a story they are telling another person (e.g., “Now listen to this”), which is also what Mrs Midas is doing in this stanza. Mrs Midas cannot fully see what is happening since the visibility in the garden is “poor.” This use of the word “poor” is subtly comical because it contrasts with Midas’s ability to make himself rich (at the cost of being able to function).
Just as the first stanza personified the kitchen, the second stanza personifies the garden, describing it as “drink[ing] the light of the sky.” This personification contrasts with the first stanza—while the kitchen “relaxed,” the garden is depicted as dark and dangerous. These opposing personifications relate to the content of each stanza. The second stanza begins describing the consequences of Midas’s wish and creates a dark, troubling tone, which is reflected in the description of the garden as dark, while the first stanza created a relaxed and calm tone. However, marking a transition between the stanzas, Mrs Midas intersperses her description of her husband’s actions with references to their domestic life. She describes the type of pears they grow, called Fondante d’Automne, and thinks that her husband is decorating the trees with fairy lights. These descriptions of their life before Midas’s wish establish a contrast with their new reality.
Along with its foreboding tone, the structure of the stanza also builds suspense and forces the reader to piece together the subtle meaning of the poem. The husband holds a pear in his hand, which “sat in his palm, like a lightbulb. On.” Duffy deliberately breaks this description into two sentences, using the word “On.” as a standalone sentence. This draws attention to the oblique description of the pear as golden. While a pear looks like a lightbulb in shape, the use of the sentence “On.” reveals that the pear also looks like a lightbulb because it is glowing yellow, implying that it has been turned into gold. The pear also serves as yet another subtle reference to the Greek myth—the Fondante d’Automne pear is also called the “Bella Lucrative” pear. Lucrative means profitable, comically referencing Midas’s new ability to turn everything he touches into valuable gold.
