jueves, 2 de mayo de 2013

A bit of mythology: Daedalus and Icarus.




Daedalus was an Athenian artist and inventor who had learned his art with the goddess Athena. However, Daedalus had a nephew, who being still very young he invented the saw, the potter's wheel and  the compass. Daedalus was very jalous and he decided to kill Talos. He threw him from the top of the temple of Athenea.
Daedalus, scared, ran away from Athens and took refuge on the island of Crete in the court of king Minos. There, he had a son (Icarus) with a slave. Poseidon took offense of  this and he offered a bull to Minos. Poseidon wanted Pasiphae (Mino’s wife) to fall in love with the bull, and so it was. Daedalus designed a suit to the queen, at its request, with which he could join with the bull in a romantic evening. And from that meeting was born the Minotaur (bull's head and  human’s body). King Minos asked Daedalus to create a maze to imprison the creature of which he was embarrassed. It took five years to finish it.
Minos didn’t want anyone to know anything about the existence of the labyrinth so he locked them in the maze.
 They tried to escape but it was too complicated, so Daedalus had the idea of ​​making two pairs of wings of feathers and wax to escape flying.
They took flight and when they took off, the son jumped a lot because he felt free. Every time he flew higher so Daedalus told him that if he went much more higher his wings would melt. However, his son was excited and believing he was a bird he flew higher. The wax began to melt and, at last, he fell into the sea and he drowned.
Daedalus arrived safely in Sicily and took refuge in the court of King Cocalus.
 Minos pursued him, but Daedalus died while he was taking a bath in the palace of hot water pipes. Minos killed him with boiling water.


Here I leave some artistic expressions of this myth:










                                                                          Natalia Valera Iniesta 

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