4. The story
When the work was done, the artist,
waving his wings, found himself
buoyed upward and hung
suspended, poising himself on the
beaten air. He next equipped his son
in the same manner, and taught him
how to fly. When both were
prepared for flight, Daedalus warned
Icarus not to fly too high, because
the heat of the sun would melt the
wax, nor too low, because the sea
foam would soak the feathers.
5. The story
They had passed Samos, Delos and Lebynthos by the
time the boy, forgetting himself, began to soar
upward toward the sun. The blazing sun softened
the wax which held the feathers together and they
came off. Icarus fell into the sea and drowned. His
father cried, bitterly lamenting his own arts, and
called the land near the place where Icarus fell into
the ocean Icaria in memory of his child.
6. Ancient literature
Icarus' flight was often alluded to by
Greek poets in passing, but the story
was told briefly in Pseudo-Apollodorus.
In the literature of ancient Rome, the
myth was of interest to
Augustan writers. Hyginus narrates it
in Fabula 40, beginning with the bovine
love affair of Pasiphaë, daughter of the
Sun, resulting in the birth of the
Minotaur. Ovid narrates the story of
Icarus at some length in
the Metamorphoses and refers to it
elsewhere.
7. Classical tradition
Ovid's treatment of the Icarus myth and its
connection with that of Phaëton influenced
the mythological tradition in English
literatureas received and interpreted by
major writers such as Chaucer, Marlowe,S
hakespeare, Milton, and Joyce. In
Renaissance iconography, the significance
of Icarus depends on context: in the Orion
Fountain at Messina, he is one of many
figures associated with water; but he is also
shown on the Bankruptcy Court of the
Amsterdam Town Hall - where
he symbolizes high-flying ambition.
8. Interpretation
Literary interpretation has found in the myth the
structure and consequence of personal over-
ambition. An Icarus-related study of the Daedalus
myth was published by the French hellenist
Françoise Frontisi-Ducroux. In psychology there
have been synthetic studies of the Icarus
complex with respect to the alleged relationship
between fascination for fire, enuresis, high
ambition, and ascensionism.
9. Interpretation
In the psychiatric mind features of
disease were perceived in the shape of
the pendulous emotional ecstatic-
high and depressive-low of bi-polar
disorder. Henry Murray having
proposed the term Icarus complex,
apparently found symptoms
particularly in mania where a person is
fond of heights, fascinated by both fire
and water, narcissistic and observed
with fantastical or far-fetched-
imaginary cognition
