In Greek mythology, Icarus was the son of the master craftsman Daedalus and (in some accounts) Naucrate. Imprisoned on Crete after Theseus escaped the Labyrinth, father and son fled on wings of feathers and beeswax. Ignoring Daedalus's warning not to fly too high, Icarus soared near the sun; the wax melted, and he fell into the sea that later bore his name. The myth gave rise to the idiom "fly too close to the sun." He is distinct from Icarius of Attica or Laconia (atlas id icarius) and from other minor figures sharing the name.
Adapted from Wikipedia, "Icarus" · CC BY-SA 4.0
I.The legend
Daedalus built the Labyrinth at Knossos for King Minos to hold the Minotaur. When Theseus escaped with Ariadne's help, Minos suspected Daedalus of betrayal and imprisoned him with his son Icarus—either in the Labyrinth itself or in a tower overlooking the sea.
Daedalus fashioned two pairs of wings from feathers fixed to frames with beeswax. He warned Icarus to keep a middle course: too low, and spray would soak the feathers; too high, and the sun would melt the wax. Overcome by the thrill of flight, Icarus climbed toward the sun; the wax softened, the wings came apart, and he plunged into the sea and drowned. Daedalus recovered the body and named the waters (and, in some tellings, the nearby island) for his son. Some rationalizing versions have them escape by ship instead of air.
II.Classical literature
Principal ancient accounts include Pseudo-Apollodorus (Epitome 1.12–13), Diodorus Siculus (4.77), Hyginus (Fabulae 40), Virgil (Aeneid 6.14–33), and Ovid (Metamorphoses 8.183–235). Ovid's telling is among the fullest and shaped later Latin and vernacular tradition; Lucian and others allude to the fall in passing.
III.Interpretation and legacy
Literary tradition often reads Icarus as a warning against excessive ambition. Renaissance and later art made the fall a stock emblem—sometimes of reckless pride (as on Amsterdam's Bankruptcy Court), sometimes of unnoticed tragedy, as in Landscape with the Fall of Icarus associated with Bruegel, which inspired poems by W. H. Auden and William Carlos Williams.
Modern psychology and culture borrowed the name for the "Icarus complex" and for metaphors of overreach; the figure remains distinct from the similarly named Icarius of Attic and Spartan myth.