CHARACTERIZATION:

Daedalus – Father of Icarus; A craftsman and an architect; He designed the Labyrinth for the Minotaur

in Crete; He aided Theseus to escape from the Labyrinth.

Icarus – Son of Daedalus; He soared up exultingly forgetting his father’s words of caution; He drowned

in the sea which was later named after himself.

King Minos – The powerful ruler of Crete; Husband of Pasiphae; Fell terribly mad at Daedalus as he

learned it was through him that Theseus had managed to escape from the Labyrinth.

Queen Pasiphae– Wife of King Minos.

Minotaur – The half-man, half-bull creature.

Theseus –The great Athenian hero; Son of King Aegeus; Fled to Athens with Ariadne after he had

battered the monster to death.

Princess Ariadne – The daughter of King Minos and Queen Pasiphae; Fell in love with Theseus; She

asked Daedalus to help Theseus find his way around the Labyrinth.

King Caucalus– The king of Sicily; Received Daedalus with kindness and generosity.

SETTING:

Athens

Crete

Sicily

Icarian Sea

Icaria

Labyrinth

The Short Story

Daedalus is a brilliant inventor—the Thomas Edison of his day. Unfortunately, he angers King Minos,
the ruler of the island Crete, and he has to hightail it out of there. Desperate to flee the island, Daedalus
uses wax to build some wings for himself and his son Icarus. Daddy Daedalus warns his son to fly at a
middle height: the seawater will dampen the wings and the sun will melt them. (Not good either way.)
Icarus heeds his father's advice for a bit, but then he gets cocky. He's having so much fun flying that he
forgets the warning and flies too close to the sun. Sure enough, his wings melt, and Icarus plummets
into the sea and drowns. Daedalus is (of course) devastated by his son's death, but the show must go on.
He flies on to Sicily, where he mourns Icarus and builds a temple in honor of the god Apollo.
 THEME OF PRIDE AND PUNISHMENT IN DAEDALUS AND
ICARUS
Back in the day, the gods did not like it when humans tried to act like them by overcoming their mortal
limits. In ancient Greek culture, acting like a god was called "hubris", and it was often severely
punished. Flying through the air definitely constituted hubris, since flight was supposed to be a strictly
gods-only activity. Watching from the ground, shepherds and plowmen even mistake Daedalus and
Icarus for gods, since mortals had never before achieved flight.
Of course, Daedalus and Icarus pay a price for overstepping their humanly bounds. Icarus dies and
Daedalus loses a child—lose-lose. It's an important lesson in humility, and the wisdom of living within
your limits. The myth seems to be saying that instead of wanting something extraordinary (such as
flying, or in Icarus' case, flying really high), we should learn to be happy with what we already have.
Daedalus takes this lesson in humility to heart. It's not an accident that when he lands in Sicily, he
builds a temple to Apollo, the god of the sun. After watching his son be destroyed by the sun, Daedalus
has accepted that he's just not as powerful as the gods or nature. By building the temple, he's essentially
saying, "Sorry, Apollo. I totally respect you now. And just to prove it, I built you this totally swanky
house of worship, complete with a bunch of beautiful statues."
In a bit of poetic justice, the writer Ovid says that Daedalus' nephew—whom Daedalus had tried to kill
by pushing him off the Acropolis—watches as the inventor performs the funeral rites for his son.
(Daedalus doesn't notice the nephew, since Athena had transformed him into a partridge.) Apparently,
Daedalus didn't think twice about pushing his nephew off a cliff, but when his own son fell from a
great height? Well, that's a different story.