Icarus & Daedalus

I love history, primarily ancient history. I can sit and talk about the Assyrians, Scythians, or Egyptians for hours with my kids. I share myths and anecdotes from long-dead worlds for their enjoyment. My son is named after a Great King, so we've collected a box of ancient treasures for him; arrowheads, a bronze Luristan dagger, a cylinder seal from the dawn of history, and little coins and bits from a hundred old cultures. I can tell my kids a story about each one.

One thing I like about history is how it evolves over the centuries. In the time of Plato and Socrates, most stories were passed along by storytellers, not scribes. One tool they used to pass along information was to tell epic stories as poems. Even hundreds of years after they were first uttered, these poems passed down their messages across great distances. Some of these stories existed only as poems until the modern era.

My favorite story from ancient times has always been the tragedy of Icarus and Daedalus, a Greek father and son held hostage in Greece. It was common for merchants, healers, nobles and the like to be hostaged between communities on other islands - the accomplished architect Icarus was already famous for designing a maze known as the "Labyrinth of the Minotaur" on Crete when he was taken by King Minos as a court hostage. The resulting story is well known and commonly found even today, twenty five centuries after his escape. One thing that always bothered me is that the story of the escape is always presented as prose - in ancient times, it would undoubtedly be passed along in the form of a poem.

When my son was a year old, my ex-wife and I had a terrible fight that left me disheartened and certain that my marriage would end. I had no delusions about what kind of fight it would be to remain in my son's life. It deeply affected me. I looked at my toddler boy playing in the sprinklers in our back yard and wondered what it would be like without Lex in my life. A while later, with all that going around in my head, I realized I knew how the story of Icarus and Daedalus should be told.

Icarus and Daedalus

I am the architect of schemes,
labyrinths and dreams.
Captured, hostaged, toyed with
by the maddest of all queens.

My island prison shared
as well, it holds my son.
Always the promise of freedom,
of course, it never comes.

My skills he learns in secret
one day they'll set him free.
Some things I cannot teach him
like why the Queen must own me.

We stand atop her palace
wearing wings of enchanted wax
the guards are sleeping deeply,
nightshade'd wine does that.

"Icarus, look above you-
and follow the albatross' rise.
We meet again on Freedom's shore,
but beware, don't fly too high."

"The island breeze that lifts us
and takes us from this place
may trick and tempt you upward
into the sun's embrace."

We hold each other moments
the Queen's men run to seize.
Their echo'd voices find us,
aloft upon the breeze.

I sit upon the stones
of Freedom's lonely beach.
The sun's embrace...no watery trace
my son -

beyond my reach.

Fathers, sons, please hear me;
let my grief not be yours.
Imprisoned together is still preferred
to alone on Freedom's shores.

----------------Gordon, (c) 1997------------