Daedalus and Icarus Play

(Icarus and Daedalus building their wings. (In our play, my character was Daedalus, the father of Icarus))

One day Daedalus, a famous inventor who had also designed the great labyrinth of Crete, upset the King who then asked for Daedalus and his son Icarus to be locked up in the highest tower. Daedalus, inspired by birds, asked his son to help him construct wings using wax, feathers and thread. Daedalus warned Icarus to maintain a moderate hight for flying too low would allow the vapors and fogs to weigh his wings down, and flying too high would cause the sun to melt his wings. However, Icarus ignored his father's advice, and was so thrilled by flying, that he rose closer and closer to the sun, until the wax in his wings melted and caused his death. Daedalus made it home, but chose to never fly again.

It is hard to say which mystery of life this myth answers but, as our group agreed, it may be an explanation to the fact that we cannot fly on our own, the way birds can. Because Daedalus hung up his wings and chose to never use them again, and so flying was not practiced for another many hundreds of years, until Otto Lilienthal was the first person officially recognized for flying.

This story certainly teaches one to listen to and follow the advice given by wiser elders. It also coneys the idea of the 'noble middle path', in this case, not flying too high nor too low, but instead to find the ideal middle. And it is often the case that young, unexperienced people will make mistakes instead of listening to the wise words of their fathers and advisors.