Ancient sources for the legends of Daedalus give varying accounts of his parentage. It is reported that in a fit of envy he murdered his talented nephew and apprentice — named Perdix by some and Talos by Apollodorus — who is said to have created both the first compass (the type used in drafting) and the first saw. Daedalus is said to have thrown the boy from the Acropolis, for which act he was banished from Athens.

Having arrived in Crete, where his creative reputation had preceded him, Daedalus was welcomed at the court of Minos and his wife, Pasiphae, and he quickly became embroiled in another messy situation. Because Minos had kept a white bull given him by Poseidon (god of the sea) for the purpose of sacrifice, Poseidon had caused Pasiphae to physically desire the bull. She asked Daedalus to fashion a wooden cow in which she could hide and mate with the bull. She thereby became pregnant and bore the Minotaur, a creature with a human body and a bull’s head. Minos too turned to Daedalus, requesting him to build a Labyrinth, from which the Minotaur could not escape.

When Theseus, a prince of Athens, went to Crete as a human sacrifice to the Minotaur, Ariadne (the daughter of Minos and Pasiphae) fell in love with him. Wanting him to live, she asked Daedalus how to master the secret of his Labyrinth. Because Daedalus suggested how Theseus might accomplish an escape — by securing a flaxen thread to the entrance of the Labyrinth and following that thread out again — Theseus was able to kill the Minotaur and escape the Labyrinth. He took Ariadne with him when he left Crete.

Needless to say, Minos was angry at that turn of events, and he shut Daedalus and his son Icarus in the Labyrinth. Pasiphae, however, released him. Unable to sail away, because Minos controlled the ships, Daedalus fashioned wings of wax and feathers for himself and for Icarus and escaped to Sicily using the wings. Icarus, however, flew too near the Sun, his wings melted, and he fell into the sea and drowned. The island on which his body was washed ashore was later named Icaria. Minos pursued Daedalus to Sicily and was killed there by the daughters of Cocalus, the king of the Sicani, with whom Daedalus was staying.

The Greeks of the historic age attributed to Daedalus buildings and statues the origins of which were lost in the past. Later critics ascribed to him such innovations as representing humans in statues with their feet apart and their eyes open. A phase of early Greek art, Daedalic sculpture, is named for him.

Later artists as varied as Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Anthony van Dyck, Charles Le Brun, and Antonio Canova and writers such as James Joyce (Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man) and W.H. Auden (“Musée de Beaux Arts”) alike were inspired by the legends of Daedalus and helped keep his name and legend alive into the 21st century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daedalus 

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Gus: THE STORY OF DAEDALIUS IS THAT OF BETRAYAL, BESTIALITY AND INVENTION… 

Basically it is an ordinary tale: HUMANS TRYING TO ESCAPE BEING WHOM WE ARE… WHILE KEEPING BUSY like flies caught in a jar and doing things we should not do...

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FROM THE CLASSICAL MYTHS;

…  and for his son, and determined to make use of them to effect his escape.

Now Daedalus, the carpenter, had made a pair of wings,

Contrived of wood and feathers and a cunning set of springs,

By means of which the wearer could ascend to any height,

And sail about among the clouds as easy as a kite.”

                                       Saxe.

After repeated cautions to his son not to venture too high, lest the sun’s heat should melt the wax which, fixed feathers to the frame, Daedalus bade Icarus don his plumage and fly to a country where they would be free, promising to follow him thither very shortly.

«’My Icarus! ' he says; "I warn thee fly

Along the middle track: nor low, nor high;

If low, thy plumes may flag with ocean's spray:

If high, the sun may dart his fiery ray.»

                                     Ovid

IN MANY WAYS, THIS LEGEND IS THE STORY OF HUMANITY, INDECENT BEHAVIOUR, SADISM AND A bunch of MISUNDERSTANDINGS ABOUT REALITY…

A POEM BY MR URBANOSKI

OH SUN...

Oh Sun

Burn as you may bright

Your hydrogens into helium 

For our Earthly delight

Warmer to our surface lair

Colder as we rise up in the air

Till the frozen thin atmosphere  

Kills us for lack of breathing fair

It makes us plummet with ice

On our wings full of bird’s lice

Flap no more, Icarus baby lord

Go back to the drawing board

Invent your own grown sun

Using uranium and plutonium sum

With rockets and missiles run

Which end up in the same plum

Sorrowing Nereids decking our grave

With mournful songs of rage and rave

A humanity approaching disaster

The final trumpets of revelations

As the Armageddon grand delusions

Fuques up evolution of life’s final chapter

Before we manage to destroy the planet

With a fossil fuel hunger we can’t forget

As we play the sorcerer’s apprentices

Parading to the dance macabre in the malls

Shopping till we hurt for better best prices

forever running like a low flying has-been

As angels muse the carnival of the animals

And we die with our excrements within

                  ROBERT URBANOSKI — 17 MAY 2026

GUSNOTE: TITLE OF THIS ARTICLE IS BORROWED FROM THE [MOSTLY SATIRICAL] POET JOHN GODFREY SAXE...

PAINTING AT TOP THE LAMENT OF ICARUS BY HERBERT J DRAPER

AND THE LAW? LAWS ARE BASICALLY DESIGNED TO PREVENT US DOING SOMETHING OR ANOTHER:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ-lDLgISnc