A Book of Myths
up into his. Passionately he pled with the beautiful creature--spoke
of his love--besought her to have pity on him, but although the face
in the pool reflected his every look of adoration and of longing, time
and again he vainly tried to clasp in his arms what was but the
mirrored likeness of himself.
In full measure had the avenging goddess meted out to Narcissus the
restless longing of unsatisfied love. By day and by night he haunted
the forest pool, and ere long the face that looked back at his was
pale as a lily in the dawn. When the moonbeams came straying down
through the branches and all the night was still, they found him
kneeling by the pool, and the white face that the water mirrored had
the eyes of one of the things of the woods to which a huntsman has
given a mortal wound. Mortally wounded he truly was, slain, like many
another since his day, by a hopeless love for what was in truth but an
image, and that an image of his own creation. Even when his shade
passed across the dark Stygian river, it stooped over the side of the
boat that it might try to catch a glimpse of the beloved one in the
inky waters.
Echo and the other nymphs were avenged, yet when they looked on the
beautiful dead Narcissus, they were filled with sorrow, and when they
filled the air with their lamentations, most piteously did the voice
of Echo repeat each mournful cry. Even the gods were pitiful, and when
the nymphs would have burned the body on a funeral pyre which their
own fair hands had built for him, they sought it in vain. For the
Olympians had turned Narcissus into a white flower, the flower that
still bears his name and keeps his memory sweet.
"A lonely flower he spied,
A meek and forlorn flower, with naught of pride,
Drooping its beauty o'er the watery clearness,
To woo its own sad image into nearness;
Deaf to light Zephyrus it would not move,
But still would seem to droop, to pine, to love."
Keats.
ICARUS
Fourteen years only have passed since our twentieth century began. In
those fourteen years how many a father's and mother's heart has bled
for the death of gallant sons, greatly-promising, greatly-daring, who
have sought to rule the skies? With wings not well enough tried, they
have soared dauntlessly aloft, only to add more names to the tragic
list of those whose lives have been sacrificed in order that the
groping hands of science may become sure, so that in time the sons of
men may sail through the heavens as fearlessly as their fathers sailed
through the seas.
High overhead we watch the monoplane, the great, swooping thing, like
a monster black-winged bird, and our minds travel back to the story of
Icarus, who died so many years ago that there are those who say that
his story is but a foolish fable, an idle myth.
Daedalus, grandson of a king of Athens, was the greatest artificer of
his day. Not only as an architect was he great, but as a sculptor he
had the creative power, not only to make men and women and animals
that looked alive, but to cause them to move and to be, to all
appearances, endowed with life. To him the artificers who followed him
owed the invention of the axe, the wedge, the wimble, and the
carpenter's level, and his restless mind was ever busy with new
inventions. To his nephew, Talus, or Perdrix, he taught all that he
himself knew of all the mechanical arts. Soon it seemed that the
nephew, though he might not excel his uncle, equalled Daedalus in his
inventive power. As he walked by the seashore, the lad picked up the
spine of a fish, and, having pondered its possibilities, he took it
home, imitated it in iron, and so invented the saw. A still greater
invention followed this. While those who had always thought that there
could be none greater than Daedalus were still acclaiming the lad,
there came to him the idea of putting two pieces of iron together,
connecting them at one end with a rivet, and sharpening both ends, and
a pair of compasses was made. Louder still were the acclamations of
the people. Surely greater than Daedalus was here. Too much was this
for the artist's jealous spirit.
One day they stood together on the top of the Acropolis, and Daedalus,
murder that comes from jealousy in his heart, threw his nephew down.
Down, down he fell, knowing well that he was going to meet a cruel
death, but Pallas Athene, protectress of all clever craftsmen, came to
his rescue. By her Perdrix was turned into the bird that still bears
his name, and Daedalus beheld Perdrix, the partridge, rapidly winging
his way to the far-off fields. Since then, no partridge has ever built
or roosted in a high place, but has nestled in the hedge-roots and
amongst the standing corn, and as we mark it we can see that its
flight is always low.
For his crime Daedalus was banished from Athens, and in the court of
Minos, king of Crete, he found a refuge. He put all his mighty powers
at the service of Minos, and for him designed an intricate labyrinth
which, like the river Meander, had neither beginning nor ending, but
ever returned on itself in hopeless intricacy. Soon he stood high in
the favour of the king, but, ever greedy for power, he incurred, by
one of his daring inventions, the wrath of Minos. The angry monarch
threw him into prison, and imprisoned along with him his son, Icarus.
But prison bars and locks did not exist that were strong enough to
baffle this master craftsman, and from the tower in which they were
shut, Daedalus and his son were not long in making their escape. To
escape from Crete was a less easy matter. There were many places in
that wild island where it was easy for the father and son to hide, but
the subjects of Minos were mostly mariners, and Daedalus knew well that
all along the shore they kept watch lest he should make him a boat,
hoist on it one of the sails of which he was part inventor, and speed
away to safety like a sea-bird driven before the gale. Then did there
come to Daedalus, the pioneer of inventions, the great idea that by his
skill he might make a way for himself and his son through another
element than water. And he laughed aloud in his hiding place amongst
the cypresses on the hillside at the thought of how he would baffle
the simple sailormen who watched each creek and beach down on the
shore. Mockingly, too, did he think of King Minos, who had dared to
pit his power against the wits and skill of Daedalus, the mighty
craftsman.
Many a Cretan bird was sacrificed before the task which the inventor
had set himself was accomplished. In a shady forest on the mountains
he fashioned light wooden frames and decked them with feathers, until
at length they looked like the pinions of a great eagle, or of a swan
that flaps its majestic way from lake to river. Each feather was bound
on with wax, and the mechanism of the wings was so perfect a
reproduction of that of the wings from which the feathers had been
plucked, that on the first day that he fastened them to his back and
spread them out, Daedalus found that he could fly even as the bird
flew. Two pairs he made; having tested one pair, a second pair was
made for Icarus, and, circling round him like a mother bird that
teaches her nestlings how to fly, Daedalus, his heart big with the
pride of invention, showed Icarus how he might best soar upwards to
the sun or dive down to the blue sea far below, and how he might
conquer the winds and the air currents of the sky and make them his
servants.
That was a joyous day for father and son, for the father had never
before drunk deeper of the intoxicating wine of the gods--Success--and
for the lad it was all pure joy. Never before had he known freedom and
power so utterly glorious. As a little child he had watched the birds
fly far away over the blue hills to where the sun was setting, and had
longed for wings that he might follow them in their flight. At times,
in his dreams, he had known the power, and in his dreaming fancy had
risen from the cumbering earth and soared high above the trees and
fields on strong pinions that bore him away to the fair land of
heart's desire--to the Islands of the Blessed. But when Sleep left
him and the dreams silently slipped out before the coming of the light
of day, and the boy sprang from his couch and eagerly spread his arms
as, in his dreams, he had done, he could no longer fly. Disappointment
and unsatisfied longing ever came with his waking hours. Now all that
had come to an end, and Daedalus was glad and proud as well to watch
his son's joy and his fearless daring. One word of counsel only did he
give him.
"Beware, dear son of my heart," he said, "lest in thy new-found power
thou seekest to soar even to the gates of Olympus. For as surely as
the scorching rays from the burnished wheels of the chariot of Apollo
smite thy wings, the wax that binds on thy feathers will melt, and
then will come upon thee and on me woe unutterable."
In his dreams that night Icarus flew, and when he awoke, fearing to
find only the haunting remembrance of a dream, he found his father
standing by the side of his bed of soft leaves under the shadowy
cypresses, ready to bind on his willing shoulders the great pinions
that he had made.
Gentle Dawn, the rosy-fingered, was slowly making her way up from the
East when Daedalus and Icarus began their flight. Slowly they went at
first, and the goat-herds who tended their flocks on the slopes of
Mount Ida looked up in fear when they saw the dark shadows of their
wings and marked the monster birds making their way out to sea. From
the river beds the waterfowl arose from the reeds, and with great
outcry flew with all their swiftness to escape them. And down by the
seashore the mariners' hearts sank within them as they watched,
believing that a sight so strange must be a portent of disaster.
Homewards they went in haste to offer sacrifices on the altars of
Poseidon, ruler of the deep.
Samos and Delos were passed on the left and Lebynthos on the right,
long ere the sun-god had started on his daily course, and as the
mighty wings of Icarus cleft the cold air, the boy's slim body grew
chilled, and he longed for the sun's rays to turn the waters of the
AEgean Sea over which he flew from green-grey into limpid sapphire and
emerald and burning gold. Towards Sicily he and his father bent their
course, and when they saw the beautiful island afar off lying like a
gem in the sea, Apollo made the waves in which it lay, for it a
fitting setting. With a cry of joy Icarus marked the sun's rays paint
the chill water, and Apollo looked down at the great white-winged
bird, a snowy swan with the face and form of a beautiful boy, who sped
exulting onwards, while a clumsier thing, with wings of darker hue,
followed less quickly, in the same line of flight. As the god looked,
the warmth that radiated from his chariot touched the icy limbs of
Icarus as with the caressing touch of gentle, life-giving hands. Not
long before, his flight had lagged a little, but now it seemed as if
new life was his. Like a bird that wheels and soars and dives as if
for lightness of heart, so did Icarus, until each feather of his
plumage had a sheen of silver and of gold. Down, down, he darted, so
near the water that almost the white-tipped waves caught at his wings
as he skimmed over them. Then up, up, up he soared, ever higher,
higher still, and when he saw the radiant sun-god smiling down on
him, the warning of Daedalus was forgotten. As he had excelled other
lads in foot races, now did Icarus wish to excel the birds themselves.
Daedalus he left far behind, and still upwards he mounted. So strong he
felt, so fearless was he, that to him it seemed that he could storm
Olympus, that he could call to Apollo as he swept past him in his