Blog Post #4 - Icarus!

I know we briefly talked about Daedalus and Icarus not too long ago in class, but I've always liked mythology, so I wanted to write a post about them.
Their story starts when Daedalus angered a king and was exiled to the island of Crete. While there, he had a son named Icarus. Daedalus was a brilliant inventor and architect, and so King Minos had him design and build the labyrinth of Knossos to house the Minotaur. All was well and good until years later, when Daedalus told the secret of the labyrinth to Princess Ariadne. She then told Theseus, who she was in love with, and he used the knowledge to escape the labyrinth once he had killed the minotaur. When Minos found out, he was angry and threw Daedalus and Icarus into the labyrinth and wouldn't let them out.
So here's where the actual flying part comes in! Daedalus knew that they would not be able to escape on foot, nor could they leave by sea since Minos would have the shores guarded. So he figured the only way they could escape the labyrinth was to go build a pair of wings and fly away! They would then fly away from Crete and make it back to Greece. He fashioned together a pair of wings for himself and Icarus, and held them together with wax. Before they took off, he warned Icarus not to fly too close to the sun, or the wax would melt and he would fall. Since Daedalus was a genius inventor (and the story is a myth), the wings worked perfectly and they flew! They were well on their way to Greece, but Icarus was too enthralled with his new-found freedom and wasn't paying attention. He kept flying higher and higher, and eventually got too close to the sun. As was predicted, the wax melted, and his wings fell apart, leaving him to fall to his death in the sea.

I think this story is neat because it shows how people have always been entranced by the idea of flight, and have invented myths to solidify that idea.