the story of daedalus and icarus summary

Leather, parchment and even candles so he could work late into the night. Whatever Daedalus needed King Minos provided without question - food, drink, tools of all shapes, rare metals, The only entrances to the cave were through the labyrinth guarded by the King’s soldiers (not to mention the Minotaur!) and an entrance overlooking the sea high up on the sideĭaedalus didn’t mind his imprisonment at first. He wanted Daedalus to work only for him and so he had his Royal Guards take Daedalus and his young son Icarus and lock them away in a cave highĪbove the sea. Unfortunately, King Minos was also very greedy. A few months later he presented the plans for a giant labyrinth to hold the half-man and half-bull monster, known as the Minotaur, prisoner. King Minos approached Daedalus to ask if he might be able to invent something less pretty but more useful and Daedalus did notĭisappoint. Instead of clocks people kept track of the time using sundials.Īnd so, the tiny mechanical bird that chirped when the sun rose – given by Daedalus to the newborn princess toĬelebrate her birth - became the talk of everyone in the land. Instead of cars, people got from place to place by walking or if they were wealthy by riding on a horse or People learned what was new in the land by listening to the gossip at the local inn. Now this was a very long time ago – and in this ancient time there were no televisions or cars or clocks. Inventor of strange and wonderful mechanical creations. Daedalus was just an ordinary man, except for one special talent – he was an On the island of Crete during the age of King Minos, there lived a man named Daedalus and his young son Icarus. © written and illustrated by Leanne Guenther By researching the myth and even just looking at the number of secondary sources on the characters of Daedalus and Icarus, it is clear the myth has had a profound effect on all of society and not just me, and I very much enjoyed furthering my knowledge on it in this project.DLTK's Countries and Cultures - Greek Mythology Overall, both the source analysis and webpage have further increased my interest in the fall of Icarus and in Greek mythology. Characters such as Heracles, Artemis, and Pasiphae are all seen in other depictions of the myth, showing both how different authors saw Greek myth in different ways, and how well-connected Greek mythology is.

Not only did these primary sources help with my discussion of the myth, but they also furthered my interest in Daedalus and Icarus because of the many different heroes and gods who are connected to the myth but do not appear in Ovid’s version. There were also many different primary sources to use, as there are 3-4 different versions of the myths that all have different details, as well as some art pieces depicting Daedalus and Icarus from before Ovid’s version. The overall number of secondary sources helped me refine my outline and allowed me to easily form a well-supported argument that flowed well. Finally, I knew the lack of sourced material in in the article would allow for me to improve the discussion just by citing my own work to strengthen to my argument.īecause the myth is so popular, I found plenty of secondary sources that fit what I wanted to write about, as well as many more that did not quite fit but were well written. I also felt that Icarus’s death was overlooked, not even being mentioned other than how he fell from the sky in the myth’s summary. I found the site’s flow confusing, as it seemed to spend a lot of time examining the myth’s backstory and then quickly rush through the summary and theme without giving those parts the same amount of discussion. I eventually settled on “The Tragic Story of the Fall of Icarus” by Gabi Ancarola on the Greek Reporter website because I felt it had a decent discussion of the myth and lots of good information but that it could also be improved on. When looking for sources on this myth, I had a hard time finding one that I thought would work, as I was not quite sure what to look for. The myth of Daedalus and Icarus is my favourite Greek myth, and I knew immediately when I saw we were doing this project that it was the myth I wanted to use.

The story of daedalus and icarus summary