THE MYTH OF ICARUS AND DAEDALUS

Ancient sources for the legends of Daedalus give varying accounts of his

parentage. It is reported that in a fit of envy he murdered his talented nephew
and apprentice—named Perdix by some and Talos by Apollodorus—who is said
to have created both the first compass (the type used in drafting) and the
first saw. Daedalus is said to have thrown the boy from the Acropolis, for which
act he was banished from Athens.
Arriving in Crete, where his creative reputation preceded him, Daedalus was
welcomed at the court of Minos and his wife, Pasiphae, and he quickly became
embroiled in another messy situation. Because Minos had kept a white bull given
him by Poseidon (god of the sea) for the purpose of sacrifice, Poseidon had
caused Pasiphae to physically desire the bull. She asked Daedalus to fashion a
wooden cow in which she could hide and mate with the bull. She thereby became
pregnant and bore the Minotaur, a creature with a human body and a bull’s head.
Minos too turned to Daedalus, requesting him to build a Labyrinth, from which the
Minotaur could not escape.
When Theseus, a prince of Athens, went to Crete as a human sacrifice to the
Minotaur, Ariadne (the daughter of Minos and Pasiphae) fell in love with him.
Wanting him to live, she asked Daedalus how to master the secret of his
Labyrinth. Because Daedalus suggested how Theseus might accomplish an
escape—by securing a flaxen thread to the entrance of the Labyrinth and
following that thread out again—Theseus was able to kill the Minotaur and
escape the Labyrinth. He took Ariadne with him when he left Crete.
Needless to say, Minos was angry at that turn of events, and he shut Daedalus
and his son Icarus in the Labyrinth. Pasiphae, however, released him. Unable to
sail away, because Minos controlled the ships, Daedalus fashioned wings of wax
and feathers for himself and for Icarus and escaped to Sicilyusing the wings.
Icarus, however, flew too near the Sun, his wings melted, and he fell into the sea
and drowned. The island on which his body was washed ashore was later named
THE MYTH OF ICARUS AND DAEDALUS

Icaria. Minos pursued Daedalus to Sicily and was killed there by the daughters of
Cocalus, the king of the Sicani, with whom Daedalus was staying.
The Greeks of the historic age attributed to Daedalus buildings and statues the
origins of which were lost in the past. Later critics ascribed to him
such innovations as representing humans in statues with their feet apart and their
eyes open. A phase of early Greek art, Daedalic sculpture, is named for him.
Later artists as varied as Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Anthony van Dyck, Charles Le
Brun, and Antonio Canova and writers such as James Joyce (Portrait of the Artist
As a Young Man) and W.H. Auden(“Musée de Beaux Arts”) alike were inspired
by the legends of Daedalus and helped keep his name and legend alive into the
21st century.