Icarus

"Icarus", by Hendrik Goltzius

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (c. 1558) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

The Lament For Icarus, by Herbert James Draper

Daedalus and Icarus, by Frederick, Lord Leighton, ca 1869

Icarus, by Piet Esser, 1974

In Greek mythology, Icarus (Greek: Ἴκαρος, Latin: Íkaros, Etruscan: Vicare) is the son of the master craftsman Daedalus. The main story told about Icarus is his attempt to escape from Crete by means of wings constructed by his father. He ignored instructions not to fly too close to the sun, and fell to his death. The myth shares thematic similarities with that of Phaethon, and is often depicted in art.

Escape from Crete

Icarus' father, Daedalus, a talented and remarkable Athenian craftsman, attempted to escape from his exile in the place of 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 (half man, half bull). Daedalus, the superior craftsman, was exiled because he gave Minos' daughter, Ariadne, a clew^[1] in order to help Theseus, the enemy of Minos, survive the Labyrinth and defeat the Minotaur.

Daedalus fashioned two pairs of wings out 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.^[2]

Hellenistic writers who gave philosophical knowledge 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.^[3][4]

References in classical work

Icarus' flight was routinely alluded to by Greek poets in passing, but was briefly related in Pseudo-Apollodorus, (Epitome of the Biblioteca) (i.11 and ii.6.3). Latin poets read the myth more philosophically, most of the time linking Icarus analogically to artists.^[5][6]

References in modern work

Literature

• Stephen Dedalus is the protagonist and antihero in James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
• Icarus Allsorts is a satirical poem written by Roger McGough during the height of the Cold War.^[7]
• In the book Airman by Eoin Colfer, Conor (Finn) tries to escape Little Saltee (a prison) by flight, and makes some reference to Icarus as he is flying with an illusion of "riding the moon".
• Used as a reference in William Carlos Williams' "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" and W.H. Auden's "Musée des Beaux-Arts", which poems refer respectively to the name and location of the painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder.
• Used as a reference in the poem "Mrs Icarus" by Carol Ann Duffy.
• Used as a reference in the poem "Icarus Burning" by Hiromi Yoshida.
• Used as the name of the space ships that are commissioned to carry stellar bombs to our dying sun in Danny Boyle's Sunshine (2007 film).

Modern music

See also

• Icaria

Notes

References

• Graves, Robert, (1955) 1960. The Greek Myths, section 92 passim
• Smith, William, ed. A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology
• Pinsent, J. (1982). Greek Mythology. New York: Peter Bedrick Books.

External links

• Daedalus and Icarus - English prose translation of Ovid'
• Spoof CAA Style Accident Report About Icarus Incident