Warning to Icarus

King Midas was keeping Daedalus and his son Icarus prisoners in a tower above his palace on the island of Crete. Daedalus had designed a maze that kept the king’s pet monster from getting out of the palace. Everything was fine until some young people from Greece entered the maze, killed the monster and escaped. Midas believed Daedalus had helped them so he was punishing him by keeping him prisoner.

Without much to do, Daedalus and Icarus were watching the birds flying above the sea when Daedalus got an idea of how to escape. They began to gather supplies—feathers, wood, string and wax—to build the means to escape—wings.  Daedalus built two sets of wings using the wax to glue the feathers together. He taught Icarus how to use the wings to fly so they could make their way home to Greece over the sea. Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too high, which would cause the wax to melt, nor too low, which would cause the feathers to get wet with sea water. They picked a clear sunny day to leap off the tower.

Icarus flapped his wings and felt his body rise in the air. He glided over the water. What freedom! Forgetting his father’s warning, he flew higher and higher toward the sun. He noticed a feather drifting down beside him and then more and more feathers were falling. He flapped his arms harder but he was falling.  He plunged into the sea and drowned.