to have fledged aslant (on the slopes his father
had instructed him how to construct a syrinx,
how to gather the reeds while the goats were drowsy
and string them together like stairs for glowworms).
He bound his contraptions with beeswax and thread,
and he cambered them to imitate
genuine wings. While he was working,
his sister’s brat sometimes interrupted
his painstaking process, plucking the down,
which the wind scattered, or softening beeswax
with his thumb, unaware the things he touched
in laughing play would prove deadly.
When he was certain the wings were finished,
Daedalus balanced his body between them
and hung in the wind. Then he warned his nephew:
Talos, remain on the middle track:
the waves will weigh down your wings if you fly
too low—too high, and the heat will spoil them.
Don’t gawk at Bootes or the Great Bear
or the Hunter’s sword. I’ll set the path:
just follow my lead. Lecturing him
on flight’s precepts, he fitted the strange
wings to his shoulders. The wind at their backs,
they both launched off the long terrace,
but Daedalus continued teaching in mid-air,
cautioning Talos to keep to his path,
inspecting his wings as he worked his own.
Some oread musing on a mountainside,
or naiad drifting down a river,
or sea god breaking the bright surface
was amazed to see them sailing the sky
and believed they were gods. They left Delos
and Paros behind, and Hera’s Samos
bulked at their left, while Lebinthos and Calymne—
rich in honey—rose at their right.
When his terror eased, Talos suspected
that his uncle’s prudence was a ploy designed
to keep him close so he couldn’t practice
what he’d picked up in Crete independently.
Daedalus knew his nephew was
the better craftsman, and he couldn’t bear it.
Talos decided to escape their escape,
but in freeing himself, he flew too high.
The vehement sun’s proximity
melted the bees’ work binding the feathers.
The sweet wax wept. He wagged his naked
arms, but lacking oars, he couldn’t
seize the breezes. The sky-blue sea
that bore no name imbibed his mouth
howling Daedalus! In the hush that followed,
the survivor watched the wings he fashioned
float as fragments for a few minutes.
His sister’s misfortune confirmed his wisdom:
he was right to resist the desire to kill
Talos in Athens. At the time, his restraint
cost him dearly: the demos distrusted
innovators, and the inventions the boy
made in his workshop won so much praise
it got them exiled to that awful island.
They’d hoped to return to their homeland disguised,
but he couldn’t explain to Perdix what happened
to her brilliant son when he sailed the sky.
So he altered his course for another island:
Daedalus settled in distant Sicily,
where he finally earned fame by inventing
the saw and the compass. He became a different
person although his appearance only
altered as drastically as aging permitted.
His name was the same, but it signified
something more and something less
than the winding prison you will have imagined.