ICARUS, A FLIGHT TOO FAR! #BLOGCHATTERA2Z2026
Icarus - Instagram
The myth of Icarus has been told and retold many times in both Greek Mythology and in modern times. Icarus was the son of master craftsman, Daedalus, and Naucrate. Daedalus garnered immense fame through his inventions, his most famous being the creation of the labyrinth of Crete.
However, there is also another story about Daedalus which takes away from his persona. Daedalus had a different side to him as well. Apparently, he was so jealous of his nephew who was as talented, or more, than him, that he murdered him to regain his popularity.
King Minos and Queen Pasiphae ruled over the island of
Crete. It is said that Pasiphae fell in love with the Cretan Bull, and of the
union was born the Minotaur, half man, half bull. Minos ordered Daedalus to
create a maze-like structure called the labyrinth to house his monstrous stepson.
The labyrinth was so intricately designed that anyone who went in could not
find their way out again.
The Minotaur - Instagram
Minos imprisoned his enemy, Theseus, the king of Athens, in the labyrinth. However, Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, fell in love with
Theseus. She gave him a ball of string which helped him to find his way out of
the labyrinth after slaying the Minotaur.
The irate Minos suspected Daedalus of having helped Theseus
to escape by revealing the secrets of the labyrinth. He made both Daedalus and
his son, Icarus, prisoners and housed them either in a huge tower that
overlooked the sea, or in the labyrinth itself.
Daedalus, master craftsman that he was, created a pair of
wings out of birds’ feathers, threads from the blankets they used and leather
to create a frame for the wings, which he stuck together with beeswax. He taught
his son to fly and when they were finally ready, he warned the young man not to
fly too close to the sun, as the heat would melt the beeswax, or too close to
the water as the feathers would get soaked and retard the momentum.
As Icarus began to fly, he was consumed by a sense of
power and recklessness, which made him ignore the laws of man and nature. Despite
his father’s warnings, he soared higher and higher, his hubris making him feel
that he was more powerful than Helios, the Sun himself. Once again, the line
between the gods and the humans was being transgressed and the Sun god punished
him by directing his rays at him. The heat melted the beeswax, and Icarus began
losing his feathers, one by one, till finally, he plummeted into the sea.
A heartbroken Daedalus wept and named the nearest land
Icaria, and the sea into which Icarus fell the Icarian Sea. Even today, the
name survives.
In the modern world, the myth of Icarus serves as a warning
for the perils of overreaching and disregarding good advice. Icarus himself is
a symbol of excessive ambition, recklessness and the misuse of power.
Trivia:
One early mention of the Icarus myth is in the Roman poet,
Ovid’s Metamorphosis, which later influenced the mythical tradition in English Literature
through the great writers like Chaucer, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Milton and much
later, James Joyce.
Goodreads
Minotaur sounds so much like Mahishasura
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