Gods and Heroes by Michael Foss

Author:Michael Foss [Michael Foss]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-07-07T16:00:00+00:00

‘Consider,’ said Mantes after a pause, ‘the turning moments in great affairs. Failure and success chase each other, rolling end over end like tumblers at a village fair. Consider Daedalus, Minos, Theseus himself – three mighty men. The Fates bore them up to a dizzy height, then pulled them down with a sudden hand.’

Mantes looked around the dinner guests. The meal had ended and there was an air of content. Idly, some were cracking almonds and walnuts, while others peered with more hope than expectation into the lees of the wine-cup. Mantes saw no reason not to go on.

‘When Theseus escaped the Labyrinth, King Minos knew who to blame. Only Daedalus understood the workings of that maze. He had given the secret to Ariadne. So Minos arrested Daedalus and clapped the inventor into his own Labyrinth, and for good measure threw his son Icarus in with him. Daedalus had plenty of time to contemplate his fall: from chief artificer of Crete to prisoner in one step. But Daedalus was not the man to pine. Every physical event had an answer, he felt, somewhere in the ferment of his ingenuity. And lying on his back between the narrow walls of the maze, watching the sky and the shifting clouds and the freedom of the birds, he suddenly saw the answer.

‘At once, he set to work, using the left-over pieces and the forgotten material of the Labyrinth. He gathered feathers, cord and wax, and he made two pairs of powerful wings. He strapped one pair to his own arms and the other to the arms of Icarus. Then he gave his son instructions: “Fly not too high, for the fierce flames of Helius will melt the wax; nor too low, for the sea-spray will drench your feathers and bring you down.” But who can restrain youth? The freedom of the air was an intoxication that Icarus could not resist. He flew higher and higher, towards the eye of the sun, until the wax melted and he fell like a broken doll into the arms of the sea. Cautiously, Daedalus flew on, leaving Crete far behind, until he came to rest in the Sicilian land of King Cocalus. And there he stayed, in mourning and in retirement.

‘But vengeful Minos was not finished with Daedalus. He was determined to pursue him to the edge of the world. He took a ship and roamed the seas, for he did not know where Daedalus’ wings had taken him. Wherever he landed he gave the ruler or governor a test which he knew could only be solved with the help of Daedalus. The test was to pass a thread upward through the interior of a spiral seashell. No one could do this until Minos came to Camicus, in Sicily, where King Cocalus dribbled a thin trail of honey through the shell and then tempted an ant to draw a thread along that path to a hole bored in the tip. Minos guessed at once that Daedalus had devised this method and demanded the surrender of the great inventor.

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