Icarus and the sun
Soon after take-off, Icarus loses all fear. Icarus hesitates, unsure of his fitted wings. With a “never to be repeated kiss,” the master engineer takes off and waits for his son to do the same. As he hovers in a fast-moving breeze, he instructs Icarus to fly in between two extremes-fly too low and the ocean will swallow you, fly too high and the Sun will scorch you. Seeking to escape, the engineer in Daedalus gets the idea to build he and his son wings of feather and wax.ĭaedalus was the first to try his creation. Of course, the King betrays Daedalus (as these stories usually go), and Daedalus soon finds himself trapped in his own maze. As the story goes, Daedalus, Icarus’ father, was a master craftsman hired to build the Labyrinth for King Minos of Crete. But in reality, Icarus should have flown as close to the Sun as he could.ĭon't have time to read? Listen to the whole post below!ĭespite how much the myth of Icarus is cited in pop culture and classical literature, his entire tale spans barely four paragraphs in Metamorphoses -the magnum opus from Roman poet Ovid in the first century. The fate of Icarus-flying too close to the Sun-proliferated into Western culture as a warning against excessive ambition and a tale of its consequences. Though his fatal flight was mentioned only in passing over 2,000 years ago, Icarus remains an enduring symbol of human folly. In a mythology beset by monsters created by malice (and sometimes bestiality) shines one crafted out of hope and ultimately hubris-the ill-fated Icarus.