“Midas is an image of someone stranded in his own desire, longing to touch and not to touch at the same time, like the children in Sophokles' poem with their hands full of ice. Perfect desire is perfect impasse. What does the desirer want from desire? Candidly, he wants to keep on desiring. Midas' golden touch would be a powerful symbol of perfect, self-extinguishing, self-perpetuating desire. As such, Midas might call to mind the type of bad lover whom Sokrates and Lysias denounce in their speeches, for Midas' touch has a devastating effect on the things he loves. They turn to gold. They stop in time. So, too, the bad lover contrives to fix the living organism of his paidika at a moment of gold, that is at the akmē of his youthful bloom, so that he may be perfectly enjoyable for as long as possible. The Midas touch stops time for the lover too, permitting him to freeze his own emotional life at the high point of desire.”