Even in his most cruel fury, Minos was a careful planner. He decided to hide his shame, knowing that the world forgets what it does not see. He had
Daedalus construct a tangled maze on the palace grounds, a place of thorny
hedges and sudden rooms, called the Labyrinth. There were paths running
this way and that, becoming corridors, plunging underground, crossing each
other, crossing themselves, each one leading back to the middle, so there was
no way out.
Here, King Minos imprisoned Pasiphae and the Minotaur - and Daedalus,
too. Minos wanted to make very sure that the old craftsman would never
divulge the secret of the Labyrinth, so here Daedalus dwelt. His workshop
was in the Labyrinth, but he did not work well. At his bench, he could hear
Pasiphae howling, and the hideous, broken bellowing of the bull-man, who
grew more loathsome and ferocious each day.
His only comfort was his son, Icarus, who, of his own free will,
chose to live with him because he so loved and admired his father.
It was Icarus who said to him one day, "Father, I grow weary
of this maze. Let us leave this place and go to places I have
not seen."
"Alas, dear boy," said Daedalus, "we cannot. It is
forbidden to leave the Labyrinth.
"You know the way out, do you not? You built the thing,
after all."
"Yes, certainly, I know the way out. But I dare not take it.
Minos would have us put to death immediately. All I can do
is petition the king to allow you to go, but I must remain."
"No. We go together."
"But I have explained to you that we cannot."
"Minos is a great king," said Icarus. "But he does not rule the whole earth.
Let us leave the island. Let us leave Crete and cross the sea."
"You are mad, dear boy. How can we do this? The sea is locked against us.
Every boatman on every craft, large and small, is under strict orders against
allowing me voyage. We cannot leave the island."
"Oh, yes, we can," said Icarus. "I'll tell you how. Just make us wings."
"Wings?"
"To fly with. Like the birds, you know - wings."
"Is it possible? Can I do this?"
"Birds have them; therefore, they have been made. And anything, dear
father, that has been made you can duplicate. You have made things never
seen before, never known before, never dreamed before."
"I will start immediately," cried Daedalus. He had Icarus set out baits
of fish and capture a gull. Then, very carefully, he copied its wings - not
only the shape of them, but the hollow bone struts, and the feathers with
their wind-catching overlaps and hollow stems, and he improved a bit on the
model. Finally, one day, he completed two magnificent sets of wings with real
feathers plucked from the feather cloaks the Cretan dancers used. They were
huge, larger than eagles' wings.
He fitted a pair to Icarus, sealing the pinions to the boy's powerful shoulders
with wax. Then he donned his own.
"Goodbye to Crete"' cried Icarus joyfully.
"Hear me, boy," said Daedalus. "Follow me closely and do not go off the
way. Do not fly too low or the spray will wet your wings, not too high or the
sun will melt them. Not too high and not too low, but close by me, through
the middle air."
"Oh, come, come," cried Icarus, and he leaped into the air,
spreading his wings and soaring off above the hedges of the
Labyrinth as if he had been born with wings. Daedalus flew
after him.
They flew together over the palace grounds, over the
beaches, and headed out to sea. A shepherd looked up and
saw them, a fisherman looked up and saw them, and they
both thought they saw gods flying. The shepherd prayed to
Hermes, and the fisherman prayed to Poseidon, with glad
hearts. Now, they knew, their prayers would be answered.
Icarus had never been so happy. In one leap, his life had
changed. Instead of groveling in the dank tunnels of the Labyrinth,
he was flying, free under the wide, bright sky in a great drench of sunlight,
the first boy in the history of the world to fly. He looked up and saw a gull,
and tried to hold his wings steady and float on the air as the gull was doing,
as easily as a duck floats on water. He felt himself slipping, and he slipped all
the way in a slanting dive to the dancing surface of the water before he could
regain his balance. The water splashing his chest felt deliciously cool.
"No...no...," he heard his father call from far above. "Not too low and not
too high. Keep to the middle air..."
Icarus yelled back a wordless shout of joy, beat his wings, and soared up,
up, toward the floating gull.
"Ha...," he thought to himself. "Those things have been flying all their
lives. Wait until I get a little practice. I'll out-fly them all."
