Icarus

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For other uses, see Icarus (disambiguation). Íkaros redirects here; for other uses, see Ikaros.

Image:Lord Frederick Leighton FLL006.jpg

Icarus and Daedalus by Frederic Leighton

Icarus (Greek: Ἴκαρος, Latin: Íkaros, Etruscan: Vicare) is a character in Greek Mythology. Icarus's father, Daedalus attempted to escape his prison at the hands of King Minos. Daedalus fashioned a pair of wings for himself and his son, made of feathers and wax. Before they took off from the prison, Daedalus warned his son not to fly too close to the sun, as the wax would melt, nor too close to the sea, as the wax would dampen. Overcome by the sublime feeling that flying gave him, Icarus soared through the sky joyfully, but in the process came too close to the sun, which melted his wings. Icarus kept flapping his wings but soon realized that he had no feathers left and the 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] His 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.^[2]^[3] In the fifteenth century Ovid became the source for the myth as it was rediscovered and transformed as a vehicle for heroic audacity and the poet's own aspirations, by Renaissance poets like Jacopo Sannazaro and Ariosto, as well as in Spain.^[4]

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 for Sicily and drowned. Heracles erected a tomb for him.^[5]^[6]

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The Fall of Icarus (detail), by Pieter Brueghel, 1558: Icarus is seen flailing in the water, but is ignored

1 See also
2 References
- 2.1 General references
- 2.2 Footnotes
3 External links

References

General references

Graves, Robert, (1955) 1960. The Greek Myths, section 92 passim
Smith, William, ed. A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology

Footnotes

^ Isidore of Seville noted Icarus in this context, Etymologiae xiv.6.
^ Hyginus Fabulae 40
^ Ovid, Metamorphoses (viii.183-235), Art of Love.
^ John H. Turner, The Myth of Icarus in Spanish Renaissance Poetry (London) 1977 instances Garcilaso, Cervantes, Lope de Vega and a host of lesser-known poets.
^ Diodorus Siculus, iv.77.
^ Pausanias (ix.11.2-3)