The fall of Icarus

The story of Icarus is one of those legends of Greek mythology that fascinates
audiences especially because of the character’s desire to go beyond human boundaries
as well as for the tragic consequences this brought about.

A father and son story

The myth of Daedalus and Icarus tells the story of a father and a son who used wings
to escape from the island of Crete. Icarus has become better-known as “the flyer who
fell from the sky” when the wax that joined his wings was melted by the heat of the
sun.
The legend of the mythological Icarus is closely related to a number of other narrations
centered on Crete, the place where Daedalus worked as a craftsman and built a maze
to keep the feared Minotaur under control.
The tragic fall of Icarus begins with his father; in fact, he suffered and paid for
Daedalus deeds.

The Lament for Daedalus

Daedalus used to work as an artisan in Athens, together with a skillful apprentice
named Talus. In a moment of rage and jealousy, Daedalus pushed Talus off the rock of
the Acropolis but was unable to kill him. Goddess Athena turned the apprentice into a
bird and Daedalus, charged with murder, was forced to seek refuge on Crete.

Once on the island of the Minotaur, Daedalus started a new life working in the palace
of King Minos. He married Naucrate, a slave, who gave birth to Icarus.
Under King Minos’ orders, Daedalus was asked to build a space able to contain the
Minotaur. But instead of coming up with a prison cell, Daedalus decided that a
complex labyrinth would be the best place to hide the monster. It was such a perfect
construction that those entering the maze were never able to leave.

However, the existence of a Minotaur was secret to most of the inhabitants of the
island and wanting the monster to remain so, the king locked up Daedalus and his
family so that the secret would never be revealed.
A plan for escape
Cunningly, Daedalus elaborated an idea to escape that did not require going through
land or sea. The only possible way that they could leave the island would have been to
be able to fly. Thus, Daedalus started gathering feathers from birds which later
transformed into wings stuck together with wax. One pair of wings was going to be for
him and the other for Icarus, his son.
When the moment to escape arrived, Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too close to
the sun. But he did not listen to his father and fell into the sea when, after getting to
close to the sun, the wax in his wings melted and fell apart.
Icarus smashed his head with a rock and died instantly. This was a tragedy for
Daedalus, his father, who flying down took his son’s body and escape far away in truly
sadness.

Mortal perception of the myth

Expressions of human fears and nature, symbols represent deep intuitive wisdom and
truth. They put into words everything that is hard to comprehend by reason.
The flight of Icarus might be seen under the light of balance, equilibrium, and
moderation. A compromise between the risks for flying too high, thus melts the wax
with the sun, or too low, weighing down the wings by the spray of the water.
The moral of the myth warns against the needless search of instant satisfaction, in a
way underlying the idea of sophrosyne (Greek: σωφροσύνη), a term that stands for
healthy-mindedness, implying self-control guided by knowledge and balance.