Daidalos

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Daidalos
(bronze statue, 3rd century, Plaošnik , Macedonia )

Daidalos ( ancient Greek Δαίδαλος from δαιδάλλειν daidallein “to work artistically”, Latin Daedalus , German Dädalus ) is a figure in Greek mythology and there in particular the Cretan mythology about King Minos (Minoan saga). He was a brilliant inventor, engineer, builder, and artist. His arts were well known, the figures he designed are said to have been lifelike.

myth

origin

Daidalos, the father of Icarus , is first mentioned in Homer as the creator of a large dance stage for Ariadne . The Athenians captured Daidalos for themselves, according to which he is said to have been the grandson of the Attic king Erechtheus and the son of Metion . Later, between Metion and Daidalos, another hero Eupalamos was pushed .

Daidalos and Perdix

Daidalos' sister sent her son Perdix (depending on the source also Talos or Calos) to his apprenticeship. The nephew soon turned out to be a gifted student who stood out for his ingenuity. He brought the backbone of a fish home from a walk on the beach, recreated it with iron, and thus invented the saw. Another time he brought two iron rods together, connected one end with a rivet, and sharpened the other ends, which led to the invention of the compass. Daidalos, proud of his own abilities and unable to bear the thought of a rival, became so jealous of Perdix that he took advantage of a trip to the Athens Acropolis to get rid of his nephew by pushing him down the mountain. But the goddess Athena , who always favored genius, saw this fall and saved his life by transforming him into a bird that has borne his name ever since. The partridge (lat. Perdix perdix , French perdrix ) does not build its nest in trees, but in hedges, and in view of its fall from the cliff, it avoids high places. Daidalos, on the other hand, had to answer for this crime in court and was banished from Athens.

Daidalos and the Labyrinth

Daidalos makes the dummy cow for Pasiphaë
( Istoriato ornament , 1533, National Ceramic Museum, Sèvres )

On the island of Crete he found asylum at the court of the sea-ruling King Minos . Ancient Crete is also known for its bull cult . Minos had received a magnificent silver-white bull from Poseidon as a sign that his prayers had been answered. The king liked this so much that he ignored the commandment to sacrifice the animal to the sea god. Poseidon's revenge for this omission was insidious: when Minos married Pasiphaë , a daughter of the sun god Helios , he made sure that the young bride instantly fell in love with the bull. Pasiphaë knew how to convince Daidalos to construct a wooden dummy cow into which she could slip in order to make love with the bull . The fruit of this encounter was the Minotaur , a hybrid being with a human body and a bull's head. Daidalos received the order from the king to build a labyrinth to lock away this dangerous and rabid beast. This labyrinth was so cleverly built that even Daidalos could hardly find the way out after he had finished it.

Daidalos and Icarus

Icarus ′ Fall
( Peter Paul Rubens , 1636, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts , Brussels)

In Ovid's Metamorphoses it is reported that Daidalos was held by Minos in Crete. Another source says that Minos was angry with Daidalos because he had given Ariadne the tip that would later benefit Theseus after his fight against the Minotaur: Theseus used an unwound ball of thread to leave the labyrinth again (→ Ariadnefaden ) . In any case, Daidalos was imprisoned in Crete with his son Icarus, and since the king had all sea routes under strict observation, the idea of ​​escaping the island was rather hopeless. But Daidalos resorted to his ingenuity: he made wings for himself and his son from the feathers of birds and the wax of candles and flew away with him. They had already passed the islands of Samos , Delos , Paros , Lebinthos and Calymne when the exuberant Icarus climbed too high and came too close to the sun, despite his father's warnings. The wax that held the wings together melted and he fell into the sea, which is why it is called the Icarian Sea . When the grieving Daidalos buried him on what is now the island of Ikaria , a partridge watched him, which finally called out. This partridge is said to have been Perdix, who had been avenged by the death of Icarus - also by a fall - since Daidalos had overthrown him from the Acropolis in Athens.

Daidalos in Sicily

Daidalos finally found asylum with the Sican king Kokalos in Sicily . He had a temple built in Sicily and consecrated his wings to Apollo . After Virgil , however, this shrine was built in Cumae .

But Minos tried with his fleet to find Daidalos in Sicily. To this end, he devised and distributed a task which he correctly assumed could only be solved by the skilled Daidalos: How do you pull a thread through a spiraling snail shell? Daidalos drilled the casing in the middle, attached an ant to one end of the thread, which he let crawl through the hole, and lured it with a drop of honey at the end of the spiral passage. King Kokalus learned of the solution and gave himself away. When Minos demanded Daidalos 'extradition, Kokalos feigned hospitality and invited him to the bath, where Minos was murdered by Kokalos' daughters. Other traditions report that Daidalos himself doused Minos with scalding hot water until Minos died.

The preserved mythological traditions break off with the death of Minos. It can therefore only be assumed that Daidalos died in Sicily. The Roman scholar Pliny the Elder attributed numerous inventions to him, for example the plumb line , the saw, the drill and the fish paste , and Pausanias saw in him the author of numerous archaic cult figures made of wood. (→ Xoanon )

Daedalus as namesake

The asteroid (1864) Daedalus and the lunar crater Daedalus are named after him.

literature

Web links

Commons : Daidalos  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Homer , Iliad 18: 590-592
  2. ↑ Plato , Ion 533; Diodorus 4.76.
  3. ↑ Libraries of Apollodorus 3,15,8; Hyginus , Fabulae 29, 244, 274.
  4. ^ A b Ovid , Metamorphosen 8, 244–249
  5. ^ Ovid, Metamorphosen 8, 236-259: Minerva's holy citadel www.gottwein.de/Lat/ov/met08.php
  6. ↑ Ovid, Metamorphosen 8, 155-168
  7. ^ Ovid, Metamorphosen 8, 183-187
  8. ↑ Libraries of Apollodorus 4, 12
  9. ↑ Ovid, Metamorphosen 8, 188-259
  10. ↑ See Virgil , Aeneis 6, 14–33
  11. ^ Libraries of Apollodorus 4, 9-15; Hyginus, Fabulae 44
  12. ↑ Gaius Plinius Secundus Maior , Naturalis historia 7, 198
  13. ↑ Pausanias 2: 4, 5; 9, 11, 4
  14. ↑ Daedalus (moon crater) in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature of the IAU (WGPSN) / USGS