Icarus has become a symbol for heroic daring (the crew of space shuttles that did not survive) but his flying and falling have been given a psychological timbre as well as a physical expression in all kinds of literature from poems to thrillers. Figure 2 Roman cast bronze figurine of Icarus flying, first to third century CE, height 11.5 cm, found in Crete.Īs both character and image, Icarus continues to turn up in unexpected places, from scientific papers to advertising. The right leg is broken at the mid-point of the calf, and the bronze of the whole figurine shows some slight weathering. His left leg is straight while his right is slightly bent, as if to indicate walking or flying. The muscles on his torso are clearly visible, and so are his genitalia. His hair is arranged in wavy clumps, and his face is unsmiling, with eyes fixed straight in front of him. His hands reach approximately three-quarters of the way along the wings. Two wings made of overlaying feathers sprout from his back, and these are positioned directly behind his arms. He stands with his arms outstretched, and his palms are both open. The figurine is shown naked apart from four bracelets, one at the top of each arm just below the shoulder, and one on each wrist. The photograph shows a bronze figurine of a man, displayed against a black background. Aphrodite punished Helios for his exposure of her affair with Ares by decreeing that the female descendants of the sun would select and pursue inappropriate and disastrous partners. These strange sexual couplings (or attempts at them – Phaedra is scorned and takes her revenge) stem from a curse on the descendants of the sun god, Helios. Another connected myth is that of the Cretan princess Phaedra, who later married Theseus (even though he had abandoned her sister, Ariadne, his guide through the Labyrinth), and developed a destructive and tragic passion for her stepson Hippolytus. The Cretan labyrinth also featured in the exploits of the Athenian hero, Theseus, who slew the Minotaur, the half-man, half-bull offspring of queen Pasiphaë, with the help of Ariadne, daughter of King Minos. Daedalus was himself effectively imprisoned on the island (the king barred his exit by sea) and so was unable to return with his son, Icarus, to Athens or find sanctuary away from the harsh regime at Crete. Icarus’ story connects up with a number of narrative passageways centred on the island of Crete (where Daedalus, the legendary artificer and craftsman, constructed a maze, the Labyrinth, to conceal and control the Minotaur). Icarus has become the more familiar of the two characters as the ancient high-flyer who fell from the sky when the wax that secured his wings was melted by the sun. When the time came for him and his son to escape, he warned Icarus not to fly too close to the sun because if he flew too high, the wax holding together the wings would melt from the heat of the sun and not to fly too low for the spray of water from the sea would weigh down the wings.The myth of Daedalus and Icarus, the father and son who escaped from the island of Crete on wings, is told in Book 8 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. So from feathers of birds, he glued them together with wax to form wings for him and his son. The innovative Daedalus came up with an idea to the island, not by land or sea, but by flight. Anybody who had entered the maze, were never able to leave.Īfter the completion of the labyrinth, King Minos locked Daedalus and Icarus in a tower to keep the existence of the Minator a secret. King Minos ordered Daedalus to design a prison to contain the feared Minator but instead of creating a prison cell, he designed a labyrinth so the Minator could never escape, but so won’t anybody whom sets foot inside the maze. Daedalus worked for King Minos in his palace in Crete, Island of the Minator, a half human and half-bull monster. The story revolves around Daedalus, a skilled craftsman in Athens, and his son Icarus. You might have heard of the tragic story of the fall of Icarus, a Greek myth about the death of a boy who flew too close to the sun despite his father’s warnings. We can learn from these stories and apply them to our lives in this new age. The Ancient Greeks were wise and philosophical thinkers so they had a lot to teach from stories and myths about life that was passed down for millenniums. Jacob Peter Gowy’s The Flight of Icarus (Source Jacob Peter Gowy – Museo del Prado, Public Domain)
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