Seven Deadly Sin: Pride Story Edition I

As I state in the last post pride come in many forms. The story of hubris is Daedalus and Icarus.
King Minos and Daedalus had great understanding at first, but their relationships started deteriorating at some point; there are several versions explaining this sudden change, although the most common one is that Daedalus was the one who advised Princess Ariadne to give Theseus the thread that helped him come out from the infamous Labyrinth, after killing the Minotaur.

The Labyrinth was a maze built by Daedalus; King Minos wanted a building suitable to imprison the mythical monster Minotaur, and according to the myth, he used to imprison his enemies in the labyrinth, making sure that they would be killed by the monster. For years Minos demanded a tribute of youths from Athens to feed the creature. Eventually, the hero Theseus came to Crete to attempt to slay the Minotaur. Ariadne, daughter of Minos and Pasiphae, fell in love with Theseus and asked Daedalus to help him. Daedalus gave her a flaxen thread for Theseus to tie to the door of the Labyrinth as he entered, and by which he could find his way out after killing the monster. Theseus succeeded, and escaped Crete with Ariadne. Minos, enraged at the loss of his daughter, not to mention the killing of the Minotaur, shut Daedalus and his son Icarus into the Labyrinth.

Daedalus managed to get out of the Labyrinth - after all, he had built it and knew his way around. Daedalus decided that he and his son Icarus had to leave Crete and get away from Minos, before he brought them harm. However, Minos controlled the sea around Crete and there was no route of escape there. Daedalus realized that the only way out was by air.

To escape, Daedalus built wings for himself and Icarus. Daedalus managed to create gigantic wings, using branches of osier and connected them with wax. Daedalus warned his son not to fly too close to the sun, as it would melt his wings, and not too close to the sea, as it would dampen them and make it hard to fly. The flight of Daedalus and Icarus was the first time that man managed to fight the laws of nature and beat gravity.

They successfully flew from Crete, but Icarus grew exhilarated by the thrill of flying or believed he was a god and began getting careless. He got excited by the thrill of flying and carried away by the amazing feeling of freedom and started flying high to salute the sun, diving low to the sea, and then up high again. Flying too close to the sun god Helios, the wax holding together his wings melted from the heat and he fell to his death, drowning in the sea. The Icarian Sea, where he fell, was named after him and it is said that Heracles (Hercules), who passed by, gave him burial at a nearby small island called Icaria.

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