Icarus (mythology)

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Icarus (mythology)

Icarus (Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
: , Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
: Íkaros, Etruscan

Etruscan language

The Etruscan language was spoken and written by the Etruscan civilization in the ancient region of Etruria and in parts of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna , in Italy....
: Vicare) is a character in Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
. He is the son of Daedalus

Daedalus

In Greek mythology, Daedalus was a most skillful artificer, or craftsman, so skillful that he was said to have invented images that seemed to move about....
and is commonly known for his attempt to escape Crete

Crete

Crete is the largest of the Greek islands and the List of islands in the Mediterranean largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km? ....
by flight, which ended in a fall to his death.

us' father, Daedalus

Daedalus

In Greek mythology, Daedalus was a most skillful artificer, or craftsman, so skillful that he was said to have invented images that seemed to move about....
, a talented craftsman, attempted to escape from his exile in Crete, where he and his son were imprisoned at the hands of King Minos

Minos

In Greek mythology, Minos was a mythical king of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa . After his death, Minos became a judge of the dead in Greek Underworld....
, the king for whom he had built the Labyrinth to imprison the Minotaur

Minotaur

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Icarus (Greek

Ancient Greek

Latin

Etruscan language

Greek mythology

Daedalus

Crete

Crete is the largest of the Greek islands and the List of islands in the Mediterranean largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km? ....
by flight, which ended in a fall to his death.

Escape from Crete

Pieter Brueghel De Oude De Val Van Icarus

Icarus' father, Daedalus

Daedalus

Minos

Minotaur

Daedalus

In Greek mythology, Daedalus was a most skillful artificer, or craftsman, so skillful that he was said to have invented images that seemed to move about....
, the master craftsman, was exiled because he gave Minos

Minos

In Greek mythology, Minos was a mythical king of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa . After his death, Minos became a judge of the dead in Greek Underworld....
' daughter, Ariadne

Ariadne

Ariadne, in Greek mythology , was daughter of Monarch Minos of Crete and his queen, Pasipha?, daughter of Helios, the Sun-titan. She aided Theseus in overcoming the Minotaur and later became the bride of the god Dionysus....
, a clew of string in order to help Theseus

Theseus

For other uses, see Theseus Theseus was a legendary king of Athens, son of Aethra , and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, with whom Aethra lay in one night....
, enemy of Minos, survive the Labyrinth and defeat the Minotaur

Minotaur

In Greek mythology, the Minotaur was a creature that was part man and part Bull . It dwelt at the center of the Labyrinth, which was an elaborate maze-like construction built for King Minos of Crete and designed by the architect Daedalus and his son Icarus who were ordered to build it to hold the Minotaur....
.

Daedalus fashioned two pairs of wings out of wax and feathers for himself and his son. Before they took off from the island, Daedalus warned his son not to fly too close to the sun, nor too close to the sea. Overcome by the giddiness that flying lent him, Icarus soared through the sky curiously, but in the process he came too close to the sun, which melted the wax. Icarus kept flapping his wings but soon realized that he had no feathers left and that 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]

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 to Sicily and drowned. Heracles erected a tomb for him.[2][3]

Parallel in Hindu mythology

A near parralel to the Icarus story exists in the Hindu epic Ramayana, the demi-god Jatayu and his brother Sampaati, who had the forms of vulture

Vulture

Vultures are scavenger birds, feeding mostly on the carcasses of dead animals. Vultures are found on every continent except Antarctica and Oceania....
s, used to compete as to who could fly higher. On one such instance Jatayu flew so high that he was about to get seared by sun's flames. Sampaati saved his brother by spreading his own wings and thus shielding Jatayu from the hot flames.

In the process, Sampaati himself got injured and lost his wings. Luckier than Icarus, he did not die a painful death, but had to live wingless for the rest of his life.

The Ramayana is attributed in Hindu tradition to the poet Valmiki

Valmiki

Valmiki is celebrated as the poet harbinger in Sanskrit literature. He is the author of the epic, Ramayana, based on the attribution in the text of the epic itself....
who lived about 444 B.C, and presumably the story of Jatayu and Sampaati existed in earlier versions. Thus, it is roughly contemporary with the story of Icarus. Prior to the time of Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greeks King of Macedon . He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle....
there was hardly any direct contact between Greeks and Indians, but both were in contact with the Persian Empire

Persian Empire

The 'Persian Empire' was a series of successive Iranian or Persianization empires that ruled over the Iranian plateau, the original Persian homeland, and beyond in Southwest Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and the Caucasus....
and enough trade existed for elements of myth to pass over great distances.

Footnotes

External links

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