Icarus

"Icarus" by Hendrik Goltzius

Icarus (Greek: Ἴκαρος, Latin: Íkaros, Etruscan: Vicare) is a character in Greek mythology. He is the son of Daedalus and is commonly known for his attempt to escape Crete by flight, which ended in a fall to his death.

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Escape from Crete

Icarus' father, Daedalus, a talented craftsman, attempted to escape from his exile in Crete, where he and his son were imprisoned at the hands of King Minos, the king for whom he had built the Labyrinth to imprison the Minotaur. Daedalus, the master craftsman, was exiled because he gave Minos' daughter, Ariadne, a clew of string in order to help Theseus survive the Labyrinth.

Daedalus fashioned a pair of wings of wax and feathers for himself and his son. Before they took off from the island, Daedalus warned his son not to fly too close to the sun, nor too close to the sea. Overcome by the giddiness that flying lent him, Icarus soared through the sky curiously, but in the process he came too close to the sun, which melted the wax. Icarus kept flapping his wings but soon realized that he had no feathers left and that he was only flapping his bare arms. And so, Icarus fell into the sea in the area which bears his name, the Icarian Sea near Icaria, an island southwest of Samos.[1]

Hellenistic writers who provided philosophical underpinnings to the myth also preferred more realistic variants, in which the escape from Crete was actually by boat, provided by Pasiphaë, for which Daedalus invented the first sails, to outstrip Minos' pursuing galleys, and that Icarus fell overboard en route to Sicily and drowned. Heracles erected a tomb for him.[2][3]

References in classical work

Icarus' flight was routinely alluded to by Greek poets in passing, but was told in a nutshell in Pseudo-Apollodorus, (Epitome of the Biblioteca) (i.11 and ii.6.3). Latin poets read the myth more philosophically, often linking Icarus analogically to artists.[4][5] In the fifteenth century Ovid became a popular source for the myth when it was rediscovered and transformed, now with Icarus acting as a vehicle for heroic audacity and the poet's own aspirations, Renaissance like Jacopo Sannazaro and Ariosto, as well as in Spain.[6]

Parallel in Hindu mythology

In the Hindu epic Ramayana, the demi-god Jatayu and his brother Sampaati, who had the forms of vultures, used to compete as to who could fly higher. On one such instance Jatayu flew so high that he was about to get seared by sun's flames. Sampaati saved his brother by spreading his own wings and thus shielding Jatayu from the hot flames.

In the process, Sampaati himself got injured and lost his wings. Luckier than Icarus, he did not die a painful death, but had to live wingless for the rest of his life.

The Ramayana is attributed in Hindu tradition to the poet Valmiki who lived about 444 B.C, and presumably the story of Jatayu and Sampaati existed in earlier versions. Thus, it is roughly contemporary with the story of Icarus. Prior to the time of Alexander the Great there was hardly any direct contact between Greeks and Indians, but both were in contact with the Persian Empire and enough trade existed for elements of myth to pass over great distances.

In Popular Culture

References

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Isidore of Seville noted Icarus in this context, Etymologiae xiv.6.
  2. ↑ Diodorus Siculus, iv.77.
  3. ↑ Pausanias (ix.11.2-3)
  4. ↑ Hyginus Fabulae 40
  5. ↑ Ovid, Metamorphoses (viii.183-235), Art of Love.
  6. ↑ John H. Turarus in Spanish Renaissance Poetry (London) 1889 instances Garcilaso, Cervantes, Lope de Feo and a list of lesser-known poets.
  7. ↑ http://pages.prodigy.com/kubrick/dgaspe.htm

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