A Book of Myths, by Jean Lang - Umnet

But when Midas, with the healthy appetite of the peasant-born, would
have eaten largely of the savoury food that his cooks prepared, he
found that his teeth only touched roast kid to turn it into a slab of gold,
that garlic lost its flavour and became gritty as he chewed, that rice
turned into golden grains, and curdled milk became a dower fit for a
princess, entirely unnegotiable for the digestion of man. Baffled and
miserable, Midas seized his cup of wine, but the red wine had become
one with the golden vessel that held it; nor could he quench his thirst,
for even the limpid water from the fountain was melted gold when it
touched his dry lips. Only for a very few days was Midas able to bear
the affliction of his wealth. There was nothing now for him to live for.
He could buy the whole earth if he pleased, but even children shrank in
terror from his touch, and hungry and thirsty and sick at heart he
wearily dragged along his weighty robes of gold. Gold was power, he
knew well, yet of what worth was gold while he starved? Gold could
not buy him life and health and happiness.
In despair, at length he cried to the god who had given him the gift that
he hated.
"Save me, O Bacchus!" he said. "A witless one am I, and the folly of
my desire has been my undoing. Take away from me the accursed
Golden Touch, and faithfully and well shall I serve thee forever."
Then Bacchus, very pitiful for him, told Midas to go to Sardis, the chief
city of his worshippers, and to trace to its source the river upon which it
was built. And in that pool, when he found it, he was to plunge his head,
and so he would, for evermore, be freed from the Golden Touch.
It was a long journey that Midas then took, and a weary and a starving
man was he when at length he reached the spring where the river
Pactolus had its source. He crawled forward, and timidly plunged in his
head and shoulders. Almost he expected to feel the harsh grit of golden
water, but instead there was the joy he had known as a peasant boy
when he laved his face and drank at a cool spring when his day's toil
was ended. And when he raised his face from the pool, he knew that his
hateful power had passed from him, but under the water he saw grains
of gold glittering in the sand, and from that time forth the river Pactolus