Daedalus

‘Icarus, my son,’ said Daedalus, ‘I charge you to keep at a moderate height, for if you fly too low the damp will clog your wings, and if too high the heat will melt them. Keep near me and you will be safe.’

Dayton uses Daedalus’s warning to Icarus as a paradigm for the impossible transmission of paternal wisdom to a son whose excitement and drive toward transcendence overwhelms the counsel of moderation.

Dayton, Tian, Emotional Sobriety: From Relationship Trauma to Resilience and Lasting Fulfillment, 2007thesis

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this labyrinth was tradition-ally supposed to have been at Knossos, the royal seat of Minos, and had been built by Dedalus to serve as a dwelling-place for this monster, born of a union between Queen Pasiphaé and the Poseidon-bull.

Rank situates Daedalus as the master-craftsman who builds the labyrinth to contain the Minotaur, reading the structure as a Greek re-working of Egyptian architectural and religious imagination that links creative genius to the containment of monstrous, transgressive force.

Rank, Otto, Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development, 1932thesis

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the dancing ground that Hephaistos ‘with rich and varied art’ (poikille) incised on Achilles’ shield is compared with the one Daidalos built at Knossos for Ariadne.

Kerényi recovers the Homeric testimony linking Daedalus to the sacred dancing ground at Knossos built for Ariadne, embedding his craft within the ritual and choral traditions that surround Dionysian worship.

Kerényi, Carl, Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life, 1976supporting

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it is said that Daedalus made her a χορός (dancing place) in Cnossus. It is not conceivable that this is meant to refer to an artistic representation of a choral dance.

Otto insists that the Homeric reference to Daedalus making a dancing place for Ariadne refers to an actual sacred precinct rather than a mere artistic representation, affirming the cultic, not merely aesthetic, significance of Daedalean craft.

Otto, Walter F, Dionysus Myth and Cult (1965), 1965supporting

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Knossos, the capital city, became the luxurious, elegant center of the leading commercial power of the civilized world.

Campbell’s treatment of the Cretan mythic complex, centering on Minos and the Poseidon bull, provides the narrative context within which Daedalus’s role as royal artificer and architect of the labyrinth is embedded.

Campbell, Joseph, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, 2015supporting

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The wife of the king of Crete, Pasiphae, would not propitiate Aphrodite. The goddess took her revenge by infusing Pasiphae with a monstrous lust for a bull.

Hillman’s recounting of the Pasiphaë myth forms the necessary precondition for Daedalus’s commission to build the wooden cow, situating his craft as a response to divine compulsion and transgressive desire.

Hillman, James, Animal Presences, 2008aside

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