Editing Daedalus (section)

== Mythology ==

=== Nephew ===
[[File:Minerva verandert Perdix in een vogel Metamorfosen van Ovidius (serietitel), RP-P-OB-15.948.jpg|thumb|367x367px|Perdix (Talus) changed into a partridge when thrown from the Acropolis by an envious Daedalus (1602–1607)<ref>{{Cite web|title=Minerva verandert Perdix in een vogel, Crispijn van de Passe (I), 1602 - 1607|url=https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/RP-P-OB-15.948|access-date=2021-06-07|website=Rijksmuseum|language=nl}}</ref>]]
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 (mythology)|Perdix]], Talos, or Calos, although some sources say that Perdix was the name of Daedalus' sister.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Apollodorus, Library, book 3, chapter 15, section 8|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Apollod.%203.15.8&lang=original|access-date=2021-06-07|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref> 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.<ref>Both inventions are in Ovid, ''[[Metamorphoses]]'' 8.236</ref> Daedalus was so envious of his nephew's accomplishments that he attempted to murder him by throwing him down from the [[Acropolis of Athens|Acropolis in Athens]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898), Circĭnus|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0062:entry=circinus-harpers&highlight=daedalus|access-date=2021-06-07|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref> [[Athena]] saved his nephew and turned him into a [[Perdix|partridge]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=P. Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses, Book 8, line 183|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Ov.%20Met.%208.251&lang=original|access-date=2021-06-07|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref> Tried and convicted for this murder attempt, Daedalus left Athens and fled to [[Crete]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Apollodorus, Library, book 3, chapter 15, section 8|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Apollod.%203.15.8&lang=original|access-date=2021-06-07|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Pausanias, Description of Greece, Attica, chapter 21|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0160:book=1:chapter=21&highlight=daedalus|access-date=2021-06-07|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref>

===The Labyrinth===
Daedalus created the [[Labyrinth]] on [[Crete]], in which the [[Minotaur]] was kept. 
[[File:Pompeii - Casa dei Vettii - Pasiphae.jpg|left|thumb|Daedalus and [[Pasiphaë]]. Roman fresco in the [[House of the Vettii]], [[Pompeii]], first century AD]]
[[Poseidon]] had given a white bull to [[Minos|King 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.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Apollodorus, Library, book 3, chapter 1|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0022:text=Library:book=3:chapter=1&highlight=minotaur|access-date=2021-06-07|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref>
[[File:Daedalus escapes (iuvat evasisse).jpg|thumb|231x231px|''Daedalus escapes (iuvat evasisse)'' by Johann Christoph Sysang (1703–1757)]]
In the story of the Labyrinth as told by the [[Greeks#Hellenes|Hellenes]], the Athenian hero [[Theseus]] is challenged to kill the Minotaur, finding his way back out with the help of [[Ariadne|Ariadne's thread]]. It is Daedalus himself who gives Ariadne the clue as to how to escape the labyrinth.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Apollodorus, Epitome, book E, chapter 1|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0022:text=Epitome:book=E:chapter=1&highlight=daedalus|access-date=2021-06-07|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref>

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 (poem)|Metamorphoses]]'', suggests that Daedalus constructed the Labyrinth so cunningly that he himself could barely escape it after he built it.<ref>Penelope Reed Doob, ''The Idea of the Labyrinth: From Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages'', 1992:36, {{ISBN|0-8014-8000-0}}.</ref>

===Icarus===
[[File:De val van Icarus.jpg|thumb|Print of Icarus falling after his wings were broken.<ref>{{Cite web|title=De val van Icarus|url=https://lib.ugent.be/viewer/archive.ugent.be:D1CDDE7A-78F2-11EA-9B8B-089BA936FAF6#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-2235,296,8825,4736|access-date=2020-10-02|website=lib.ugent.be}}</ref>]]
The most familiar literary telling explaining Daedalus' wings is a late one by Ovid in his ''[[Metamorphoses]]''.<ref>{{Cite web|title=P. Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses, Book 8, line 183|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Ov.+Met.+8.183-235&fromdoc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0028|access-date=2021-06-07|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref>[[File:Charles Le Brun - Daedalus and Icarus - WGA12535.jpg|thumb| ''Daedalus and Icarus'', c. 1645, by [[Charles Le Brun]] (1619–1690) |left]]After Theseus and Ariadne eloped together,<ref>{{Cite web|title=P. Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses, Book 8, line 152|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Ov.+Met.+8.182&fromdoc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0028|access-date=2021-06-07|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref> Daedalus and his son [[Icarus]] were imprisoned by King Minos in the labyrinth that he had built.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Apollodorus, Epitome, book E, chapter 1|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0022:text=Epitome:book=E:chapter=1&highlight=daedalus|access-date=2021-06-07|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite web|title=P. Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses, Book 8, line 183|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Ov.+Met.+8.183-235&fromdoc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0028|access-date=2021-06-07|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite web|title=P. Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses, Book 8, line 183|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Ov.+Met.+8.183-235&fromdoc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0028|access-date=2021-06-07|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref> The southeast end of the Aegean Sea where Icarus fell into the water was also called "Mare Icarium" or the Icarian Sea.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), AEGAEUM MARE|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0064:entry=aegaeum-mare-geo&highlight=daedalus|access-date=2021-06-07|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref>[[File:Herbert Draper - The Lament for Icarus - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|''[[The Lament for Icarus]]'' by [[Herbert James Draper|H. J. Draper]] (1898)]] 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.<ref>{{Cite web|title=P. Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses, Book 8, line 183|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Ov.+Met.+8.183-235&fromdoc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0028|access-date=2021-06-07|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref>

=== The shell riddle ===
After burying Icarus, Daedalus traveled to Camicus in [[Sicily]], where he stayed as a guest under the protection of King Cocalus.<ref>{{Cite web|title=P. Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses, Book 8, line 260|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0028:book=8:card=260|access-date=2021-06-07|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref> There Daedalus built a temple to [[Apollo (god)|Apollo]], and hung up his wings as an offering to the god. In an invention of [[Virgil]] ([[Aeneid]] VI), Daedalus flies to [[Cumae]] and founds his temple there, rather than in Sicily.<ref>author, Virgil. ''The Aeneid''. {{ISBN|978-0-300-25875-2}}. {{OCLC|1231607822}}.</ref>

[[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.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Apollodorus, Epitome, book E, chapter 1|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0022:text=Epitome:book=E:chapter=1&highlight=daedalus|access-date=2021-06-07|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref> In some versions, it is Cocalus that kills Minos in the bath.<ref>{{Cite web|title=W. W. How, J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, BOOK VII, chapter 170|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0028:book=7:chapter=170&highlight=daedalus|access-date=2021-06-07|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref> Other variants say that Daedalus himself poured the boiling water, or that he had built the pipes that could supply hot water to the bath and this was used to instead pour boiling water on him.<ref>{{Cite web |title=King Minos - Experience Creta |url=http://www.experiencecreta.com/en/king-minos.php |access-date=2022-05-13 |website=www.experiencecreta.com |archive-date=2022-08-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220816032409/http://experiencecreta.com/en/king-minos.php |url-status=dead }}</ref>{{Dubious|date=May 2022}}

=== 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.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The mythical genius of Daidalos, the first polymath |url=https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-greece/daidalos-daedalus-who-first-polymath-minotaur-labyrinth-icarus/ |access-date=2022-05-13 |website=History Extra |language=en}}</ref> Another version of the story places his death on a small island in the [[Nile|Nile river]], where he was later worshipped.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Daedalus in Sicily, King Minos' death |url=https://www.explorecrete.com/mythology/daedalus-sicily.html |access-date=2022-05-13 |website=www.explorecrete.com|date=13 November 2014 }}</ref> Yet another version has him dying after being bitten by a water snake in [[Lycia]] (western [[Asia Minor]]).<ref>[[Stephanus of Byzantium]] s.v. [https://topostext.org/work/241#D216.8 Daidala]</ref><ref>[[William Smith (lexicographer)|Smith]] 1873, s.v. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0104%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DD%3Aentry+group%3D1%3Aentry%3Ddaedalus-bio-1 "Daedalus"]</ref>

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 [[cult image]]s wrought by Daedalus from their local predecessors, the [[Sicani]].<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|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.</ref>