‘Icare,’ dixit ‘ubi es? qua te regione requiram?’Ĭondidit, et tellus a nomine dicta sepulti. 230Īt pater infelix, nec iam pater, ‘Icare,’ dixit, Remigioque carens non ullas percipit auras,Įxcipiuntur aqua, quae nomen traxit ab illo. Tabuerant cerae: nudos quatit ille lacertos, Mollit odoratas, pennarum vincula, ceras Parte Samos (fuerant Delosque Parosque relictae)ĭextra Lebinthos erat fecundaque melle Calymne,ĭeseruitque ducem caelique cupidine tractusĪltius egit iter. Vidit et obstipuit, quique aethera carpere possent,Ĭredidit esse deos. Hos aliquis tremula dum captat harundine pisces, Hortaturque sequi damnosasque erudit artes 215Įt movet ipse suas et nati respicit alas. Quae teneram prolem produxit in aera nido, Non iterum repetenda suo pennisque levatusĪnte volat comitique timet, velut ales, ab alto Inter opus monitusque genae maduere seniles, 210Įt patriae tremuere manus dedit oscula nato Tradit et ignotas umeris accommodat alas. Me duce carpe viam!’ pariter praecepta volandi nec te spectare BootenĪut Helicen iubeo strictumque Orionis ensem: Unda gravet pennas, si celsior, ignis adurat: 205 Icare,’ ait ‘moneo, ne, si demissior ibis, Instruit et natum ‘medio’ que ‘ut limite curras, Ipse suum corpus motaque pependit in aura Inposita est, geminas opifex libravit in alas Ore renidenti modo, quas vaga moverat aura,Ĭaptabat plumas, flavam modo pollice ceram Stabat et, ignarus sua se tractare pericla, Ut clivo crevisse putes: sic rustica quondamįistula disparibus paulatim surgit avenis Ītque ita conpositas parvo curvamine flectit, nam ponit in ordine pennasĪ minima coeptas, longam breviore sequenti, 190 Omnia possideat, non possidet aera Minos.’ĭixit et ignotas animum dimittit in artes Obstruat: et caelum certe patet ibimus illac: And although I have lost one metamorphosis by rendering the poem into English, I hope to have otherwise done justice to Ovid’s poetry and this myth, whence comes the warning “don’t fly too close to the sun.”ĭaedalus interea Creten longumque perosusĬlausus erat pelago. When I attempted to preserve these tense shifts in English, however, the result read like a stream of grammatically incorrect verses, so I have used the perfect tense for most of my translation. Although the central metamorphosis of the story is the melting of the wax wings, which leaves Icarus without a means of steering in the air, the myth contains numerous other changes in just over fifty lines of poetry: from imprisoned to liberated, from life to death, and, as Ovid cleverly notes, from father to “no longer a father.” Even Ovid the poet appears to metamorphose in his writing, constantly switching tenses between present and perfect. As I translated Ovid’s version of the famous Daedalus and Icarus tale, I pondered the plethora of metamorphoses present in this single myth. Yet what unites this seemingly disparate set of myths is the poem’s title, Metamorphoses, for each myth describes a change or evolution. These range from the disturbing and violent (Procne and Philomela) to the sweet and innocent (Baucis and Philemon) and all shades in between. In his fifteen-book magnum opus, Ovid recounts over 250 myths. The Fall of Icarus, Jacob Peter Gowy Daedalus and Icarus: A Tale of Many Metamorphoses
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