The King’s Barber

King Midas of the renowned golden touch also had donkey’s ears for a time. In a pique of annoyance Apollo had retaliated for Midas’s vote against him in a musical contest with the god Pan. Since Midas had the hearing of an ass, Apollo said, he would also have the ears of an ass.

In the entire kingdom, only the barber of King Midas knew of the king’s donkey ears (which were hidden by the royal turban), and of course he had to swear he would never reveal the truth to anyone. Thus the barber was burdened with two secrets, the truth of the king’s humiliation and the truth of his own difference from everyone else in the kingdom, his separateness, his isolation and secret loneliness. He could never say what he most wanted to say, he could never be himself with others as he truly was.

Under a night sky the barber dug a hole in an empty field, lowered his face to the earth and whispered the secret about the king directly into the hole. Some time later, the wind blew through the reeds that had grown there and carried the barber’s words across the field and into the towns and villages for all to hear.

What I like most about this story is the image of the barber alone in the empty field at night. I imagine him stretched out on the ground, his face almost touching the earth, his lips right at the hole he has now completed digging (maybe even penetrating it). He whispers the forbidden words into the hole as though into an ear in the earth: “The king has the ears of a donkey!” Maybe then he feels slightly embarrassed for having relieved himself in such a bizarre way, but I imagine he does in fact feel a strange and wonderful relief. He has kept his promise, he has given his message only to an opening in the earth, not to another subject of the king. But what was inside has now leaked a copy outside, and the barber feels strongly that, at a minimum, that is exactly how the world ought to be.