The Sun, or the Fall of Icarus (1819) by Merry-Joseph Blondel, in the Rotunda of Apollo at the Louvre Classical literature File:Fall of Icarus Blondel decoration Louvre INV2624.jpg Hellenistic writers give euhemerising 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. Today, the location of his burial on the island bears his name, and the sea near Icaria in which he drowned is called the Icarian Sea. Daedalus wept for his son and called the nearest land Icaria, an island southwest of Samos, in memory of him. Icarus kept flapping his wings but soon realized that he had no feathers left and that he was only flapping his featherless arms, and so Icarus fell into the sea and drowned. Overcome by the giddiness that flying lent him, Icarus soared into the sky, but in the process, he came too close to the sun, which due to the heat melted the wax. Daedalus tried his wings first, but before trying to escape the island, he warned his son not to fly too close to the sun, nor too close to the sea, but to follow his path of flight. Modern street art of Icaria island and falling Icarus just outside the village of Evdilos on Icaria, Greeceĭaedalus fashioned two pairs of wings out of wax and feathers for himself and his son. Minos imprisoned Daedalus himself in the labyrinth because he gave Minos's daughter, Ariadne, a clew (or ball of string) in order to help Theseus, the enemy of Minos, to survive the Labyrinth and defeat the Minotaur.įile:Ikaria and Ikarus graffiti at Evdilos, Ikaria island - Greece.jpg Icarus's father Daedalus, a very talented and remarkable Athenian craftsman, built the Labyrinth for King Minos of Crete near his palace at Knossos to imprison the Minotaur, a half-man, half-bull monster born of his wife and the Cretan bull. The legend File:Herbert Draper - The Lament for Icarus - Google Art Project.jpg The Greek name is thought to have come from an earlier * Ϝίκαρος ( Wī́karos) this would be reflected in Icarus' Etruscan name, Vikare. In Latin, the name becomes Icarus ( ) by convention it is the Latin name that is most often used in English. 4 Medieval, Renaissance, and Modern literature.
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