And the boy Thought This is wonderful! and left his father, Soared higher, higher, drawn to the vast heaven, Nearer the sun, and the wax that held the wings Melted in that fierce heat, and the bare arms Beat up and down in air, and lacking oarage Took hold of nothing.
They must be gods! They were over Samos, Juno’s sacred island, Delos and Paros toward the left, Lebinthus Visible to the right, and another island, Calymne, rich in honey. Far off, far down, some fisherman is watching As the rod dips and trembles over the water, Some shepherd rests his weight upon his crook, Some ploughman on the handles of his ploughshare, And all look up, in absolute amazement, At those air-borne above. Keep on, Keep on, he signals, follow me! He guides him In flight- O fatal art! -and the wings move And the father looks back to see the son’s wings moving. He kissed his son (Good-bye, if he had known it), Rose on his wings, flew on ahead, as fearful As any bird launching the little nestlings Out of high nest into thin air. Between the work and warning the father found His cheeks were wet with tears, and his hands trembled. And one more thing, No fancy steering by star or constellation, Follow my lead!” That was the flying lesson, And now to fit the wings to the boy’s shoulders. Still, it was done at last, and the father hovered, Poised, in the moving air, and taught his son: “ I warn you, Icarus, fly a middle course: Don’t go too low, or water will weigh the wings down Don’t go too high, or the sun’s fire will burn them. And Icarus, his son, stood by and watched him, Not knowing he was dealing with his downfall, Stood by and watched, and raised his shiny face To let a feather, light as down, fall on it, Or stuck his thumb into the yellow wax, Fooling around, the way a boy will, always, Whenever a father tries to get some work done. He fastened them with twine and wax, at middle, At bottom, so, and bent them, gently curving, So that they looked like wings of birds, most surely. He laid out feathers in order, first the smallest, A little larger next it, and so continued, The way that pan-pipes rise in gradual sequence. Minos’ dominion Does not include the air.” He turned his thinking Toward unknown arts, changing the laws of nature. “Though Minos blocks escape by land or water,” Daedalus said, “surely the sky is open, And that’s the way we’ll go. Homesick for homeland, Daedalus hated Crete And his long exile there, but the sea held him.
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