the wings of Icarus

The great inventor Daedalus and his young son Icarus were prisoners of King Minos, shut away on the island of Crete with no ship and no way home. But Daedalus was the cleverest craftsman alive, and he watched the gulls wheeling over the cliffs and had an idea.

He gathered feathers, large and small, and bound them together with thread and wax until he had built two pairs of wings — one for himself, one for his boy. Before they leapt from the cliff he gave Icarus a single, careful warning: fly the middle way. Too low, and the sea spray would soak the feathers heavy. Too high, and the sun would melt the wax that held them.

For a while they flew as fishermen gaped up at them, two figures crossing the open sky like gods. But Icarus was young, and the joy of it went to his head. Higher and higher he climbed, laughing, drunk on the thrill of flight, forgetting every word his father had said.

The sun was merciless. One by one the feathers loosened as the wax ran soft and dripped away, until the boy was beating bare arms against empty air. He fell, calling out, down and down into the sea that still bears his name, while his father flew helplessly on.

So the wings of Icarus stand for ambition that soars gloriously and then reaches one climb too far — the bold flight that ends, all at once, in a fall.