In Greek mythology, Daedalus (, ;
Epigraphic evidence
The name
Daidalos seems to be attested in
Linear B, a writing system used to record
Mycenaean Greek. The name appears in the form
da-da-re-jo-de, possibly referring to a sanctuary.
[Wachter, Rudolf. " Homeric – Mycenaean Word Index (MYC)". In: Prolegomena. Edited by Joachim Latacz, Anton Bierl and Stuart Douglas Olson [English Edition. Berlin, München, Boston: De Gruyter, 2015. p. 241. ][Morris, Sarah P. Daidalos and the Origins of Greek Art. Princeton University Press, 1995. p. 76. .][Kerényi, Carl. Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life. Volume 130 de Mythos: The Princeton/Bollingen Series in World Mythology. Princeton University Press, 2020 1976. pp. 100-101. .]
Family
Daedalus's parentage was supplied as a later addition, with various authors attributing different parents to him. His father is claimed to be either
Eupalamus,
[Hyginus, Fabulae 39, 244 & 274; Servius on Virgil, Aeneid 6.14; Suda, s.v. Πέρδικος ἱερόν; Scholiast on Plato, Republic 7.529d] Metion,
[Diodorus Siculus, 4.76.1; Plato, Ion 533a; Scholia on Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus 472] or
Palamaon.
[Pausanias, 9.3.2] Similarly, his mother was either Alcippe,
[Apollodorus, 3.15.9; John Tzetzes, Chiliades 1.490; Scholiast on Plato, Ion 121a] Iphinoe,
[Scholia on Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus 468 & 472] Phrasmede[Scholia on Plato, The Republic p. 529] or Merope, daughter of King
Erechtheus.
[Plutarch, Theseus 19.5] Daedalus had two sons:
Icarus and
Iapyx,
along with a nephew named either Talos, Calos, or Perdix.
The Athens rewrote the Crete-born Daedalus as an Athenian himself, the grandson of the ancient king Erechtheus[The son of Eupalamus, according to Fabulae, Fabulae 39 "ATHENA MYTHS 5 FAVOUR - Greek Mythology". www.theoi.com. Retrieved 2021-06-07.] who only fled to Crete after killing his nephew.
Inventor, architect, artist
A mythical craftsman named Daedalus is first mentioned in roughly 1400 BC on the Knossian Linear B tablets. He is later mentioned by Homer as the creator of a dancing floor for
Ariadne, similar to that which
Hephaestus placed on the Shield of Achilles.
It is clear that this Daedalus was not an original character of Homer's. Rather, Homer was referencing mythology that his audience was already familiar with.
[Robin Lane Fox, Travelling Heroes in the Epic Age of Homer, 2009:187, 178.]
Daedalus is not mentioned again in literature until the fifth century BC, but he is widely praised as an inventor, artist, and architect, though classical sources disagree on which inventions exactly are attributable to him. In Pliny's Natural History (7.198) he is credited with inventing carpentry, including tools like the axe, saw, glue, and more.[William Godwin (1876). "Lives of the Necromancers". p. 40.] Pausanias, in traveling around Greece, attributed to Daedalus numerous archaic wooden (see Xoanon) that impressed him. In fact, so many other statues and artworks are attributed to Daedalus by Pausanias and various other sources that likely many of them were never made by him.
In his Socratic dialogue with Meno, Plato cites Daedalus's handiwork as a metaphor for genuine understanding of truth, as opposed to belief that coincidentally happens to be true. Socrates argues that while truth, like one of Daedalus's "moving" statues, is inherently valuable, their animacy would mean they are worthless if the owner cannot shackle them in place to stop them from wandering off.[Plato, Meno 97a–98b, translated by Adam Beresford (in Beresford, 2005)]
Daedalus gave his name, , to many Greek craftsmen and many Greek contraptions and inventions that represented dextrous skill. A specific sort of early Greek sculptures are named Daedalic sculpture in his honor.
Some of the functions of Daedalus overlapped with those of Aristaeus (Aristaeos), another famous Greek inventor god. But Aristaeos mostly concerned himself with the rural and agricultural arts.
Mythology
Nephew
Daedalus was so proud of his achievements that he could not bear the idea of a rival. His sister had placed her son under his charge to be taught the mechanical arts as an apprentice. His nephew is named variously as Perdix, Talos, or Calos, although some sources say that Perdix was the name of Daedalus' sister.
The nephew showed striking evidence of ingenuity. Finding the spine of a fish on the seashore, he took a piece of iron and notched it on the edge, and thus invented the saw. He put two pieces of iron together, connecting them at one end with a rivet, and sharpening the other ends, and made a pair of compasses.
[Both inventions are in Ovid, Metamorphoses 8.236] Daedalus was so envious of his nephew's accomplishments that he attempted to murder him by throwing him down from the Acropolis in Athens.
saved his nephew and turned him into a
Perdix.
Tried and convicted for this murder attempt, Daedalus left Athens and fled to
Crete.
The Labyrinth
Daedalus created the
Labyrinth on
Crete, in which the
Minotaur was kept.
Poseidon had given a white bull to
Minos to use it as a sacrifice. Instead, the king kept the bull for himself and sacrificed another. As revenge, Poseidon, with the help of
Aphrodite, made King Minos's wife, Pasiphaë, lust for the bull. Pasiphaë asked Daedalus to help her. Daedalus built a hollow, wooden cow, covered in real cow hide for Pasiphaë, so she could mate with the bull. As a result, Pasiphaë gave birth to the
Minotaur, a creature with the body of a man, but the head and tail of a bull. King Minos ordered the Minotaur to be imprisoned and guarded in the Labyrinth built by Daedalus for that purpose.
In the story of the Labyrinth as told by the Hellenes, the Athenian hero
Theseus is challenged to kill the Minotaur, finding his way back out with the help of
Ariadne. It is Daedalus himself who gives Ariadne the clue as to how to escape the labyrinth.
Ignoring Homer, later writers envisaged the Labyrinth as an edifice rather than a single dancing path to the center and out again, and gave it numerous winding passages and turns that opened into one another, seeming to have neither beginning nor end. Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, suggests that Daedalus constructed the Labyrinth so cunningly that he himself could barely escape it after he built it.[Penelope Reed Doob, The Idea of the Labyrinth: From Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages, 1992:36, .]
Icarus
The most familiar literary telling explaining Daedalus' wings is a late one by Ovid in his
Metamorphoses.
After Theseus and Ariadne eloped together,
Daedalus and his son
Icarus were imprisoned by King Minos in the labyrinth that he had built.
He could not leave Crete by sea, as King Minos kept a strict watch on all vessels, permitting none to sail without being carefully searched. Since Minos controlled the land routes as well, Daedalus set to work to make wings for himself and his son Icarus. Using bird feathers of various sizes, thread, and beeswax, he shaped them to resemble a bird's wings. When both were prepared for flight, Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too high, because the heat of the sun would melt the beeswax that held his feathers together, nor too low, because the sea foam would soak the feathers and make them heavy and he would fall.
After Daedalus and Icarus had passed
Samos,
Delos, and
Lebynthos, Icarus disobeyed his father and began to soar upward toward the sun. Without any warning, the sun melted the beeswax (which held the feathers together). Icarus was flapping his "wings". But he realized he had no feathers left and was flapping his featherless arms. And he plunged into the sea and drowned. Seeing Icarus' wings floating, Daedalus wept, cursed his art, and after finding Icarus's body on an island shore buried him there. Then he named the island
Icaria in the memory of his child.
The southeast end of the Aegean Sea where Icarus fell into the water was also called "Mare Icarium" or the Icarian Sea.
In a twist of fate, a partridge, presumably the nephew Daedalus murdered, mocked Daedalus as he buried his son. The fall and death of Icarus is seemingly portrayed as punishment for Daedalus's murder of his nephew.
File:De val van Icarus.jpg|Print of Icarus falling after his wings were broken.
The shell riddle
After burying Icarus and calling the island
Icaria (in the memory of his child), Daedalus traveled to Camicus in
Sicily, where he stayed as a guest under the protection of King Cocalus.
There Daedalus built a temple to Apollo, hung up his wings as an offering to the god, and he promised to never fly again. In an invention of
Virgil (
Aeneid VI), Daedalus flies to
Cumae and founds his temple there, rather than in Sicily.
[author, Virgil. The Aeneid. . .]
Minos, meanwhile, searched for Daedalus by traveling from city to city asking a riddle. He presented a spiral seashell and asked for a string to be run through it. When he reached Camicus, King Cocalus, knowing Daedalus would be able to solve the riddle, accepted the shell and gave it to Daedalus. Daedalus tied the string to an ant which, lured by a drop of honey at one end, walked through the seashell stringing it all the way through. With the riddle solved, Minos realized that Daedalus was in the court of King Cocalus and insisted he be handed over. Cocalus agreed to do so, but convinced Minos to take a bath first. In the bath, Cocalus' daughters killed Minos, possibly by pouring boiling water over his body.
Death
At least two locations are associated with the death of Daedalus. One version of the story says he retired to the Cretan colony of
Telmessos, ruled by Minos's estranged brother Sarpedon, and while wandering outside the city, he was bitten by a snake and died. A town on this site, Daidala, is said to be named after him, and is mentioned in Roman sources.
Another version of the story places his death on a small island in the
Nile, where he was later worshipped.
Yet another version has him dying after being bitten by a water snake in
Lycia (western
Asia Minor).
[Stephanus of Byzantium s.v. Daidala][Smith 1873, s.v. "Daedalus"]
The anecdotes are literary and late. However, in the founding tales of the Greek colony of Gela, founded in the 680s BC on the southwest coast of Sicily, a tradition was preserved that the Greeks had seized wrought by Daedalus from their local predecessors, the Sicani.[Pausanias, 8.46.2 & 9.40.3-4; T.J. Dunbabin, The Western Greeks, 1948; S.P. Morris, Daidalos and the Origins of Greek Art (1992:199), all noted by Fox 2009:189 note 9.]
Later depictions in art and literature
Daedalus and the myths associated with him are often depicted in paintings, sculptures, and more by later artists. The myth about his flight and the fall of Icarus is especially popular in depictions. A few noteworthy pieces are included below.
File:DEDAL ZA JASNA (Small).JPG|Small bronze sculpture of Daedalus, 3rd century BC; found on Plaoshnik, North Macedonia
File:Pompeya Villa Imperiale 08.jpg|Daedalus and Icarus, fresco in Pompeii, 1st century AD
File:Dedalo e Pasifae.JPG|Daedalus and Pasiphaë, fresco in Pompeii, 1st century AD
File:PBrueghelElderIcarus.jpg| Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (detail) by Peter Brueghel the Elder, ca. 1558.
File:Fall of Icarus Blondel decoration Louvre INV2624.jpg|The Fall of Icarus by Merry-Josoph Blondel (1819) (Louvre)
File:Lord Frederick Leighton FLL006.jpg| Daedalus and Icarus, by Frederick Leighton, c. 1869
File:Daedalus und Ikarus MK1888.png|Daedalus constructs wings for his son, Icarus, after a Roman relief in the Villa Albani, Rome ( Meyers Konversationslexikon, 1888)
File:Dædalus and Icarus.gif| Dædalus and Icarus by H.A.Guerber (1896)
There are also a number of adaptations of the myth of Daedalus and Icarus in modern literature and film, including a poem by Edward Field.
Notes
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Apollodorus, The Library with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. . Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.
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Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History translated by Charles Henry Oldfather. Twelve volumes. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989. Vol. 3. Books 4.59–8. Online version at Bill Thayer's Web Site
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Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica. Vol 1-2. Immanel Bekker. Ludwig Dindorf. Friedrich Vogel. in aedibus B. G. Teubneri. Leipzig. 1888–1890. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
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Hyginus, Fabulae from The Myths of Hyginus translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
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Maurus Servius Honoratus, In Vergilii carmina comentarii. Servii Grammatici qui feruntur in Vergilii carmina commentarii; recensuerunt Georgius Thilo et Hermannus Hagen. Georgius Thilo. Leipzig. B. G. Teubner. 1881. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
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Pausanias, Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. . Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
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Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio. 3 vols. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
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Ovid, Metamorphoses, Brookes More, Boston, Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
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Suda, Suda Encyclopedia translated by Ross Scaife, David Whitehead, William Hutton, Catharine Roth, Jennifer Benedict, Gregory Hays, Malcolm Heath Sean M. Redmond, Nicholas Fincher, Patrick Rourke, Elizabeth Vandiver, Raphael Finkel, Frederick Williams, Carl Widstrand, Robert Dyer, Joseph L. Rife, Oliver Phillips and many others. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
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John Tzetzes, Book of Histories, Book I translated by Ana Untila from the original Greek of T. Kiessling's edition of 1826. Online version at theio.com
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