Pověst o Daidalovi – vypracovala RNDr. Dagmar Benešová

Daidalos

Daidalos was the best Greek inventor, sculptor, artist, architect and bulding contractor. He was the first who constructed wings and flew with them. Daidalos was a genius but he was also very proud of himself and jealous. When he got known that his nephew Talos is more talented than he is, he threw him off the cliff next to Athens Acropolis. Because of that he was sentenced to death. However gods helped him to escape from prison and get to Crete. His son Icarus accompanied him. The king Minos gave him a job to build a labyrinth in the capital Knossos. The labyrinth served for hiding a monster Minotaur, half man and half bull. The labyrinth became one of the wonders of the world. The king Minos did not want Daidalos would reveal the secret of the labyrinth or build something similar elsewhere. So he banned him and his son Icarus to leave Crete. However Daidalos wanted to be free. He constructed two pairs of wings made of bird feathers and wax. Daidalos and Icarus flew off Crete like two birds. Before the flight Daidalos had warned his son not to fly too low or too
high. Flying too low above the water could wet his wings. Flying too high to the sun could overheat the wax and the wings could break up. However Icarus did not obey his father, he flew too high to the sun, he fell into the sea and drowned. In memory of that the sea is called Icarus sea. Desperate Daidalos landed in Sicily. There he built a wonderful castle decorated with statues and paintings for the king Kokal. The king Minos found it out. He arrived in Sicily with a huge fleet. He asked the king to give him Daidalos. However Daidalos killed Minos craftily with one of his inventions. He introduced the pipeline into the king bathroom and when Minos had a bath, Daidalos released hot water into the bath. Minos was the archenemy of Athens and so Daidalos was pardoned by the Athen king. It was a paradox that Daidalos was sentenced to death because of a murder and was pardoned because of another one. Then he could come back to his native town.