![]() This cautionary legend has proven its resilience against the passing of time, being reimagined and retold several times. Initially recorded in 60 BCE by Diodorus Siculus in his The Library of History, the most popular variation of the tale is written by the Roman poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses in 8 CE. He is infamously known as the “boy who flew too high,” who crashed to earth after melting his waxen wings. 417).The story of Icarus has been told for centuries. For instance, Matisse’s painting Icarus is widely seen as an evocative image of twentieth-century warfare: the single red dot in the figure’s chest has been interpreted as ‘a modern pilot who has been shot down, and falls through a sky illuminated with flashes of gunfire’ (Kemp, 2002, p. Some of these new versions use the classical myth to communicate the universality of human emotions and suffering at the same time, they often update the details for a new contemporary audience. Another song from 2003 by the band Thrice focuses on Daedalus’ perspective on the tragedy with a track entitled ‘The Melting Point of Wax’. For example, popular contemporary music boasts a long list of Icarus references, from Joni Mitchell’s lyrics about airwoman Amelia Earhart (‘Amelia’, 1976), to Queen’s song, ‘No One But You (Only the Good Die Young)’ (1997). If you typed ‘Icarus’ into an internet search engine, this no doubt yielded a fascinating but random range of Icarus-related themes with plenty of examples from popular culture as well as more traditional ‘high’ arts. Icarus also regularly represents the alienation of the artist and the consequences of breaking out of boundaries, both cultural and social. Icarus has become a symbol for heroic daring (the crew of space shuttles that did not survive) but his flying and falling have been given a psychological timbre as well as a physical expression in all kinds of literature from poems to thrillers. Figure 2 Roman cast bronze figurine of Icarus flying, first to third century CE, height 11.5 cm, found in Crete.Īs both character and image, Icarus continues to turn up in unexpected places, from scientific papers to advertising. The right leg is broken at the mid-point of the calf, and the bronze of the whole figurine shows some slight weathering. His left leg is straight while his right is slightly bent, as if to indicate walking or flying. The muscles on his torso are clearly visible, and so are his genitalia. ![]() His hair is arranged in wavy clumps, and his face is unsmiling, with eyes fixed straight in front of him. His hands reach approximately three-quarters of the way along the wings. Two wings made of overlaying feathers sprout from his back, and these are positioned directly behind his arms. He stands with his arms outstretched, and his palms are both open. The figurine is shown naked apart from four bracelets, one at the top of each arm just below the shoulder, and one on each wrist. The photograph shows a bronze figurine of a man, displayed against a black background. Aphrodite punished Helios for his exposure of her affair with Ares by decreeing that the female descendants of the sun would select and pursue inappropriate and disastrous partners. These strange sexual couplings (or attempts at them – Phaedra is scorned and takes her revenge) stem from a curse on the descendants of the sun god, Helios. Another connected myth is that of the Cretan princess Phaedra, who later married Theseus (even though he had abandoned her sister, Ariadne, his guide through the Labyrinth), and developed a destructive and tragic passion for her stepson Hippolytus. The Cretan labyrinth also featured in the exploits of the Athenian hero, Theseus, who slew the Minotaur, the half-man, half-bull offspring of queen Pasiphaë, with the help of Ariadne, daughter of King Minos. Daedalus was himself effectively imprisoned on the island (the king barred his exit by sea) and so was unable to return with his son, Icarus, to Athens or find sanctuary away from the harsh regime at Crete. Icarus’ story connects up with a number of narrative passageways centred on the island of Crete (where Daedalus, the legendary artificer and craftsman, constructed a maze, the Labyrinth, to conceal and control the Minotaur). ![]() Icarus has become the more familiar of the two characters as the ancient high-flyer who fell from the sky when the wax that secured his wings was melted by the sun. ![]() The myth of Daedalus and Icarus, the father and son who escaped from the island of Crete on wings, is told in Book 8 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
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