For other uses, see
Icarus (disambiguation).
Íkaros redirects here; for other uses, see
Ikaros. Icarus (
Greek: ,
Latin: Íkaros,
Etruscan: Vicare) is a character in
Greek Mythology. Icarus's father,
Daedalus attempted to escape his prison at the hands of
King Minos. Daedalus fashioned a pair of wings for himself and his son, made of feathers and wax. Before they took off from the prison, Daedalus warned his son not to fly too close to the sun, as the wax would melt, nor too close to the sea, as the wax would dampen. Overcome by the
sublime feeling that flying gave him, Icarus soared through the sky joyfully, but in the process came too close to the sun, which melted his wings. Icarus kept flapping his wings but soon realized that he had no feathers left and the he was only flapping his bare arms. And so, Icarus fell into the sea in the area which bears his name, the Icarian Sea near
Icaria, an island southwest of
Samos. His flight was routinely alluded to by Greek poets in passing, but was told in a nutshell in Pseudo-Apollodorus, (
Epitome of the Biblioteca) (i.11 and ii.6.3). Latin poets read the myth more philosophically, often linking Icarus analogically to artists. In the fifteenth century Ovid became the source for the myth as it was rediscovered and transformed as a vehicle for heroic audacity and the poet's own aspirations, by Renaissance poets like
Jacopo Sannazaro and
Ariosto, as well as in Spain.
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