Daedalus and Icarus
In brief
- Trapped on Crete by King Minos, the inventor Daedalus built two pairs of wings from feathers and wax so he and his son Icarus could escape by air.
- Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too high, where the sun would melt the wax, or too low, where the sea would dampen the feathers.
- Overcome with the thrill of flight, Icarus soared too close to the sun; his wings melted and he fell into the sea that now bears his name.
After helping Theseus escape the labyrinth by revealing its secret to Ariadne, the master craftsman Daedalus fell out of King Minos's favor, and he and his son Icarus were imprisoned on Crete: some say in the labyrinth itself, others in a high tower overlooking the sea. Minos controlled every ship and every road out of the island, so escape by land or sea was impossible.
Daedalus turned to the one route Minos could not guard: the sky. He collected feathers of every size, from the smallest down to the largest, and bound them together with thread and wax, shaping two great pairs of wings: one for himself, one for his son. Before they leapt from the tower, he fastened the wings to Icarus's shoulders with his own hands and gave him a single warning: fly the middle course. Too low, and the sea's dampness would weigh the feathers down; too high, and the sun's heat would melt the wax.
At first Icarus obeyed, flying steady beside his father as they crossed the sea from Crete. But the exhilaration of flight overtook him (the freedom of it, the height, the speed), and he began to climb, higher and higher, chasing the sky itself, forgetting everything his father had told him.
The sun's heat softened the wax that held his wings together, and one by one the feathers came loose, scattering behind him like snow. Icarus fell from the sky and drowned in the waters below, which sailors ever after called the Icarian Sea, named for the boy who flew too close to the sun.
