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Daedalus and Icarus
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In the great city of Athens there lived an inventor.
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His name was Daedalus.
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He had made many wonderful things.
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He had changed the course of rivers,
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harnessed the power of the wind.
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It was said he could bend nature to his will.
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Rumours reached Athens of a tremendous fleet of ships crossing the sea.
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The old men, the old women gossiped about an invasion.
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Daedalus forgot the stories the moment he heard them.
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He was preoccupied with something far more important,
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his son’s birthday present.
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What to give him?
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Icarus was a thoughtful child.
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He would sit on the flat roof of their little house and watch the birds scything through the air above.
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Of all of the birds,
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he loved the hovering hawks the most.
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The great day came.
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Daedalus led his son onto the roof and there, before the boy,
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was a strange feathered thing with a long snake of a tail.
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‘What is it?’
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Daedalus was dimly aware of a commotion in the streets below.
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‘Let me show you.’
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Within moments the thing was swooping and soaring;
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it was a kite, the very first kite.
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Daedalus heard a shout.
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He looked down.
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The streets were swarming with soldiers.
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They wore an armour the like of which he had never seen before.
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Emblazoned across their breastplates was a strange symbol, a two-headed axe.
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One of them was pointing at the kite;
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now he was pointing at Daedalus.
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‘That’s him!’
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They were battering the door of his house.
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Now they were charging upstairs.
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Icarus, frantic: ‘We must escape!’
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‘How?’ said Daedalus.
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‘Fly?’
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Now, they were surrounded.
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The soldiers parted to reveal none other than the king of the island of Crete, Minos.
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Daedalus, trembling, bowed.
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‘Your fame has travelled far across the sea, Daedalus.
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Stories of the wonders you have made have reached my distant home.’
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He put his hand on Daedalus’ shoulder.
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‘How would you like to help me make a palace,
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a tremendous palace, that will scrape the sky,
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that will be so astonishing men and women will tell tales of it for as long as there are people on this earth?’
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The very next day,
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Daedalus and Icarus sailed off in one of Minos’ ships.
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On Crete, they were given a mansion;
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they were feasted every night.
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When Minos explained his plan for the palace,
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Daedalus understood the king had been speaking truth when he’d said tales of this palace would echo down the ages.
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It was to bristle with spearlike towers,
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but it was what would be under the palace that was most remarkable –
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a vast labyrinth of such complexity that no one could escape from it.
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Daedalus asked the king,
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what was the purpose of this maze?
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But Minos would only smile and shrug.
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Eventually the palace was complete.
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It was a frowning fortress that struck terror into the hearts of everyone who beheld it.
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Daedalus asked for an audience with the king.
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‘Now my work is over,
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I would like to return to Athens.’
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Minos: ‘Oh! You can’t leave.
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I’ll pay you more.
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There are so many wonderful things I would have you make.’
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‘Thank you for your offer.
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But I prefer to return to the city of my birth.’
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‘Offer?’ said Minos.
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‘I made no offer.
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You cannot leave.
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You know too much.
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I can’t have you selling secrets to my enemies.
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So you will stay here until your death.’
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When he returned to his mansion,
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Daedalus looked at the beautiful murals painted on the walls,
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the fountains in the courtyard,
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and what he saw was a golden cage.
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He longed for the little house they had left in Athens.
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He found his son, on the roof as usual, flying his kite.
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In the months that followed,
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Daedalus became aware that, wherever he went,
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he was followed by soldiers.
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The soldiers, for their part,
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began to wonder if this great inventor had lost his mind:
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either he was staring at the sky or gathering fallen feathers.
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Early one morning,
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Daedalus shook Icarus awake.
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‘Come with me!’
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Upstairs they went, under the bright stars.
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Daedalus lit a candle.
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Icarus saw four supple saplings covered in feathers.
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As Daedalus tied one on each of Icarus’ arms, he said,
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‘Minos controls both land and sea but he cannot control the air.
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You and I will fly to freedom.
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Follow me!
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If you fly too high, the heat of the sun will melt the wax that binds feather to bark;
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if you fly too low, the waves will splash against your wings and their sodden weight will drag you down.
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Ride the gusts I ride!’
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Father and son embraced.
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They ran to the roof edge and leapt into the darkness.
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They beat their feathered arms against the air,
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and they rose, they rose into the cool sky.
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Every surging gust of wind made Icarus cry out with joy.
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Very soon they had left Crete far behind.
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The sweep of the broad sky was above him;
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the black sea was beneath.
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He saw a band of red ahead –
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day was coming.
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Island after island passed by beneath,
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some no more than rocks jutting out of the sea,
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some peopled with farms and fields.
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One man looked up, saw Icarus, gasped and fell.
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A ploughman in a field stopped, mid- furrow, and stood stock-still.
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A fisherman gaped like a carp.
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Was that a god?
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Icarus laughed at the little figures shouting, pointing, far below.
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A surge of wind lifted him higher.
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He lurched and a feather fell.
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He looked up to see the bird that had shed it;
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but above he saw only the fierce eye of the sun.
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A shower of feathers was fluttering now.
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Ahead, Daedalus looked back to check on the progress of Icarus
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and saw the boy tumbling, flailing, screaming, breaking against the ocean.
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Daedalus, cursing his cleverness,
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buried the boy’s body on a rocky island that was named after him.
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It is called Icaria.