Icarus

Icarus was the son of the craftsman Daedalus, who escaped from Crete with his father on wings made of feathers and wax and fell into the sea after flying too close to the sun. The sea where he fell was called the Icarian Sea after him (Apollodorus, Epitome 1.13; Ovid, Metamorphoses 8.183–235).

Who was Icarus' father

Icarus was the son of the master craftsman Daedalus. Daedalus was an Athenian, famed as a craftsman and builder, who fled to Crete after being condemned at Athens for the murder of his nephew (Apollodorus 3.15.8). He is best known for his work for King Minos of Crete. Icarus' mother was Naucrate, a slave woman of Minos (Apollodorus, Epitome 1.12). 

Pasiphae the Minotaur & the Labyrinth

Minos' wife, Pasiphae, had fallen in love with the Cretan bull and given birth to the Minotaur, a creature with the head of a bull and the body of a man. To house this creature, Daedalus built the labyrinth, a maze-like structure (Apollodorus 3.15.8).

When Theseus came to Crete from Athens and killed the Minotaur with the help of Ariadne, he found his way out of the labyrinth with a clue of thread that Daedalus had told her to give him: Theseus tied it to the door and drew it after him as he went in (Epitome 1.9). Theseus and Ariadne left Crete together.

Daedalus and Icarus in prison

King Minos, learning that Theseus and his companions had escaped, blamed Daedalus and shut him up in the labyrinth together with his son Icarus (Epitome 1.12). Ovid adds that Daedalus had long been weary of Crete and exile, and that Minos barred land and sea against him (Metamorphoses 8.183–187). In Hyginus Minos throws Daedalus into prison and Pasiphae frees him from his chains (Fabulae 40); Diodorus says Pasiphae kept him hidden while Minos had every boat on the island searched (4.77.7). 

Daedalus' Escape Plan

Daedalus devised a plan to escape. He fashioned wings for himself and his son, so that they could fly away from the island and escape the wrath of King Minos. In Ovid's telling he laid feathers in a row from the shortest to the longest, bound them in the middle with thread and at the base with wax, and bent them into the curve of a bird's wing, while the boy Icarus played beside him, chasing the drifting feathers and softening the yellow wax with his thumb (Metamorphoses 8.189–200).

Icarus Flies

He taught his son Icarus how to fly. Daedalus warned his son to keep a middle course: not to fly too close to the sun, which would melt the wax, nor too low, where the damp of the sea would weigh down the feathers (Epitome 1.12; Metamorphoses 8.203–208).

The Fall of Icarus

Together they flew away from Crete. Icarus soon forgot his father's warnings and started flying higher and higher, until the wax started melting under the scorching sun. His wings came apart and he fell into the sea and drowned. Ovid names the islands they had passed, Samos, Delos, Paros, Lebinthos and Calymne, and describes Daedalus searching the water and finding only the feathers; he found the body on an island shore and buried it, and the island was called Icaria after the boy (Metamorphoses 8.220–235).

Pausanias (9.11.4–5) records a different, rationalised version: Daedalus and Icarus fled in small boats for which Daedalus invented sails, so as to outrun the oared fleet of Minos; Icarus, a clumsy helmsman, capsized, and his body drifted to the then nameless island off Samos, where Heracles found and buried it, and the island took his name. Diodorus (4.77.6) also has them flee by boat and says Icarus fell into the sea while disembarking recklessly on the island, though he goes on to give the story of the waxen wings as well, with Daedalus flying low and wetting his wings for safety (4.77.8–9).

Icarus in Greek and Roman Literature

Icarus' story was told briefly by Apollodorus (Epitome 1.12–13), Diodorus (4.77) and Hyginus (Fabulae 40), and at length by the Roman poet Ovid in the Metamorphoses (8.183–235), the version on which most later retellings depend. Ovid dwells on the father's grief: Daedalus, "a father no longer", called his son's name over the waves and cursed his own art.

The area of the sea where he fell took the name Icarian Sea after him, while the nearby island was named Icaria.

See Also: Daedalus, Minos, Pasiphae, Minotaur, Theseus, Ariadne, Heracles