Croesus Counts His Gold

Lyrics

Before the standard, the river.
The Pactolus, running with electrum.
Gold and silver, married in the mud.
King Alyattes, his father, took this metal.
And gave it a face. A lion's head. A promise.
An approximate promise.

Croesus takes the throne, 560 B.C.
He holds his father's electrum stater.
The lion fighting the bull.
He feels the weight. The question is the color.
That pale, uncertain yellow.
More silver today? More gold tomorrow?
A king's wealth cannot be a guess.
He brings the touchstone to the metal.
The black stone says: value is impure.

So in the workshops of Sardis, by the river...
He built a furnace for the color of money.
He taught lead to drink the silver from the gold.
Cupellation. A word for making things what they are.
He separated the question from the answer.
He made the first pure gold. The first pure silver.
He made the standard.

From the mint, a new flood. Two streams.
Heavy gold coins, lion and bull.
Bright silver coins, for a smaller debt.
Now a merchant knew. A soldier knew.
The weight was the worth. The color was the law.
Herodotus, a century later, wrote it down.
"The Lydians," he said, "were the first we know..."
"...to coin and use gold and silver."

There in the workshops of Sardis, by the river...
He built a furnace for the color of money.
He taught lead to drink the silver from the gold.
Cupellation. A word for making things what they are.
He separated the question from the answer.
He made the first pure gold. The first pure silver.
He made the standard.

And the world learned a new phrase for wealth.
"As rich as Croesus."
Solon the Athenian came to Sardis.
He saw the treasury, the gleam of it all.
And was not impressed.
He told the king, call no man happy until his end is known.
Cyrus was already marching.

The kingdom fell in 547.
The man was captured.
But the idea from the furnace...
The idea of pure gold...
The idea of silver, alone and true...
That escaped.
It outlived the king.
It became the world.