So Apollo left the sky and came down to the earth, bringing with him nothing but his lyre. You know that Mount Olympus, where the gods live, is in Thessaly, so that Thessaly was the country in which Apollo found himself when he came down from the sky. He did not know what to do with himself for the nine years, so he went to a king of Thessaly named Admetus, who received him very kindly, and made him his shepherd. I don't think Admetus could have known who Apollo was, or he would hardly have set the great god of the Sun to look after his sheep for him. So Apollo spent his time pleasantly enough in watching the king's sheep and in playing on his lyre. Now there was a very clever but very conceited musician named Marsyas, who had invented the flute, and who played on it better than anybody in the world. One day Marsyas happened to be passing through Thessaly, when he saw a shepherd sitting by a brook watching his sheep, and playing to them very beautifully on a lyre. He went up to the shepherd, and said:-- "You play very nicely, my man. But nobody can do much with those harps and fiddles and trumpery stringed things. You should learn the flute; then you'd know what music means!" "Indeed?" said Apollo. "I'm sorry, for your sake, that your ears are so hard to please. As for me, I don't care for whistles and squeaking machines." "Ah!" said Marsyas, "that's because you never heard Me!" "And you dare to tell me," said Apollo, "that you put a wretched squeaking flute before the lyre, which makes music for the gods in the sky?" "And you dare to say," said Marsyas, "that a miserable twanging, tinkling lyre is better than a flute? What an ignorant blockhead you must be!" At last their wrangling about their instruments grew to quarreling; and then Apollo said:-- "We shall never settle the question in this way. We will go to the next village and give a concert. You shall play your flute and I will play my lyre, and the people shall say which is the best--yours or mine." "With all my heart," said Marsyas. "I know what they will say. But we must have a wager on it. What shall it be?" "We will bet our skins," said Apollo. "If I lose, you shall skin me; and if you lose, I will skin you." "Agreed," said Marsyas. So they went to the next village, and called the people together to judge between the flute and the lyre. Marsyas played first. He played a little simple tune on his flute so beautifully that everybody was charmed. But Apollo then played the same tune on his lyre, even more beautifully still. Then Marsyas took his flute again and played all sorts of difficult things--flourishes, runs, shakes, everything you can think of--in the most amazing manner, till the people thought they had never heard anything so wonderful. And indeed never had such flute-playing been heard. But Apollo, instead of following him in the same fashion, only played another simple tune--but this time he sang while he played.