Jokers talking about horses

The storyteller Illuminations Walter benjamin [XV-XIX]

The essay stumbles to an end. Each new section marked by a progressing number seems to be eyeing what follows it in alienation. The tides are also turn somewhat in that Benjamin first distanced himself from the novel but now seems to hold myth in suspicion, too.

It is evident that this story reflects the traditional sympathy which storytellers have for rascals and crooks. All the literature of farce bears witness to it. 

 
The essay does mirror the methods of farce with it's twists and turns--marching numerical headers with tracts about uniting the soul and the hand. Not only does he ruminate on this, but also announces that it no longer exists.

With these words, soul, eye, and hand are brought into connection. Interacting with one another, they determine a practice. We are no longer familiar with this practice. The role of the hand in production has become modest, and the place it filled in storytelling lies waste.

Further we hear the story teller is this shadowy noble-asshole. Unrestrained from morality but his stories are an honest mash of personal and heard stories that have no boundary between the two. To descend into the unconscious room of myth one must take away rational boundaries to avoid being a teller of mere facts.  

The old co-ordination of the soul, the eye, and the hand which emerges in Valery's words is that of the artisan which we encounter wherever the art of storytelling is at home.

Midas Imagines Philostratus

Midas has for some reason captured a satyr. In the past few passages we've seen a few cameos from this creature. At first satyrs were admiring beauty of nature and nature personified. What the king would do with such a drunken beast is not explained but Midas does relate to the creature in that he has some animal features.

Since they relate they might two versions of the same mind. One is asleep and the other in a drunken stupor. One wears cultivated clothes while the other was just snatched from the forest. And the story of Midas has nature to blame for spreading the rumor of his animal ears which come to think of it is interesting being listening the organ which was altered.