The Last Morning in Knossos (2003) Painting by Vasile Marius Lupu

"... a winged form flying above the waves and slowly climbing the air... a hawk-like man flying sunward above the sea, a prophecy of the end he had been born to serve..."

Knossos, three generations before the Trojan War. Minos, the cruel tyrant, reigns over Crete and the islands of the Aegean Sea for nine years now. He got his laws straight from Zeus himself. Nevertheless, he prayed Poseidon, the sea god, for a sign. Poseidon sent a giant white bull out of the sea and Minos was committed to sacrificing the bull to Poseidon, but then decided to substitute a different bull. In rage, Poseidon made his wife Pasiphaë lust for the bull with the help of Aphrodite. Daedalus, the king's architect, built her a wooden cow, which she hid inside. The bull mated with the wooden cow and Pasiphaë was impregnated by the bull, giving birth to a horrible monster named Asterius, the Minotaur, half man half bull. Daedalus then built a complicated chamber - that with its tangled windings perplexed the outward way - called the Labyrinth, and Minos put the Minotaur in it.

But Daedalus constructed the Labyrinth so cunningly that he himself could barely escape it after he built it. To make sure no one would ever know the secret of who the Minotaur was and how to get out of the Labyrinth (Daedalus knew both of these things), Minos imprisoned Daedalus and his son, Icarus, in a tower. He could not leave Crete by sea, as the king kept strict watch on all vessels, permitting none to sail without being carefully searched. Since Minos controlled the land and sea routes, Daedalus set to work to fabricate wings for himself and his young son Icarus. He tied feathers together, from smallest to largest so as to form an increasing surface. He secured the feathers at their midpoints with string and at their bases with wax, and gave the whole a gentle curvature like the wings of a bird. When the work was done the artist, waving his wings, found himself buoyed upward and hung suspended, poising himself on the beaten air. He next equipped his son in the same manner, and taught him how to fly. When both were prepared for flight, Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too high, because the heat of the sun would melt the wax, nor too low, because the sea foam would soak the feathers.

They had passed three islands by the time the boy, forgetting himself, began to soar upward toward the sun. The blazing sun softened the wax which held the feathers together and they came off. Icarus quickly fell in the sea and drowned. His father cried, bitterly lamenting his own arts, and called the land near the place where Icarus fell into the ocean Icaria in memory of his child. Some time later, the goddess Athena visited Daedalus and gave him wings, telling him to fly like a god.

Related themes

DaedalusMazeKnossosGreece