The name Daedalus means “ingenious” or “clever.” Daedalus lived in Athens, where he was known for his skills as an inventor, artist, and sculptor. Indeed, it was said that the statues Daedalus made were so realistic that they had to be chained to keep them from running away.
Daedalus’s nephew Talus (also called Perdix) came to serve as an apprentice to his uncle. The boy soon showed remarkable talent, inventing the saw by copying either the jawbone of a snake or the spine of a fish. Before long, Daedalus grew jealous of Talus, believing that the boy might become as great a craftsman as he was. This idea was more than Daedalus could bear. He killed Talus by pushing him off a cliff into the sea. In some versions, Athena (pronounced uh-THEE-nuh)—or her Roman equivalent Minerva (pronounced mi-NUR-vuh)—saved Talus by transforming him into a partridge. Because of his crime, Daedalus was forced to leave Athens. He went to Crete, an island in the Mediterranean Sea, and began working for King Minos, the Cretan ruler.
Minos had asked the sea god Poseidon (pronounced poh-SYE-dun) for a sacrificial bull, and a beautiful white bull had emerged from the sea. The bull was so magnificent that Minos decided to keep it rather than sacrifice it to Poseidon. The angry sea god punished the king by causing his wife, Pasiphae (pronounced pa-SIF-ah-ee), to fall helplessly in love with the bull. At the request of the queen, Daedalus built a lifelike model of a cow in which she could conceal herself and spend time with her beloved bull. As a result of these visits, Pasiphae gave birth to the Minotaur, a monstrous creature with the body of a man and the head of a bull.
The Labyrinth King Minos wanted to hide the Minotaur. He ordered Daedalus to construct a prison from which the monster could never escape. Daedalus designed the Labyrinth, a mazelike network of winding passages that had only one entrance. Its layout was so complex that no one who entered it could ever find a way out. King Minos kept the Minotaur imprisoned in the Labyrinth.
The Minotaur was given humans to eat. Some were provided by the city of Athens. After suffering defeat in battle with Crete, Athens had to send King Minos a yearly tribute of seven boys and seven girls. These unfortunate Athenians were sent into the Labyrinth one by one as food for the Minotaur.
One year the Greek hero Theseus (pronounced THEE-see-uhs) came to Crete as one of the youths. He was determined to put an end to the human sacrifice. Ariadne (pronounced ar-ee-AD-nee), the king’s daughter, fell in love with Theseus and asked Daedalus to help her find a way of saving him. When Theseus went into the Labyrinth to slay the Minotaur, Ariadne gave him a ball of string that she had obtained from Daedalus. Theseus tied the string to the entrance of the Labyrinth and unwound it as he made his way toward the Minotaur. He killed the beast and then used the string to find his way out of the Labyrinth.
When King Minos discovered what had happened, he was furious. To punish Daedalus for his role in the escape, the king imprisoned him and his young son Icarus in the Labyrinth.
The Winged Escape Daedalus put his talents to work. Day after day, he collected the feathers of birds. He also gathered wax from a beehive. When he had enough feathers and wax, Daedalus set to work making two pairs of enormous wings, one pair for himself and the other for Icarus.
Daedalus carefully instructed his son on how to use the wings to fly. He warned Icarus not to fly too high or too low. If he flew too high, the sun’s heat could melt the wax that held the wings together. Ifhe flew too low, he risked being swept up by the sea.
Daedalus watches helplessly as his son Icarus falls from the sky. Icarus had flown too close to the sun, which caused his wings to melt. SCALA/ART RESOURCE, NY.
With that, father and son took off from Crete. The wings worked well, and Daedalus and Icarus began to fly across the sea. However, Icarus did not pay attention to his father’s warning. He flew higher and higher until the sun’s heat melted the wax in his wings. Icarus fell into the ocean and drowned. Daedalus managed to fly safely to Sicily.
World History
