The boy Icarus was standing together (with his father) and, ignorant that danger was drawing him, presently with a shining mouth, was capturing the feathers which the wandering air had moved, presently was touching the yellow wax with his thumb and he was impeding the miraculous work of his father with his play. After the last touch had been placed on the undertaking, the craftsman balanced his body on twin wings and suspended in the air with motion; and he instructed the son “I warn you, Icarus, to travel the middle path, lest if you should go lower, the waves will weigh down the feathers, if higher, fire will scorch (the feathers): you want (to be) between both, and I order you not to watch Bootes or the Big Dipper or the drawn sword of Orion; I’ll lead you and you seize the path”. He delivered the commands of flying and attaches foreign wings to backs. Between the work and warnings old cheeks became wet and paternal hands trembled. He gave kisses not to be repeated to the son and having lifted with feathers he flies before (him) and fears for the companion, even as the winged which has led young offspring into the air from a high nest, and urging to follow and educating in the destructive arts, and he himself moves himself and looks behind to the wings of the child. Anyone while they strive to catch these fish with trembling fishing rod or a shepherd with a stick or a farmer supported by a plow saw (them), and was stupefied, each of them who were able to seize the air, (he) believed that they are gods. And now Juno’s Samos was on the left (Delos and Paros had been having been left behind) Lebinthos was on the right and fertile Kalymnos with honey, when the boy began to take pleasure in bold flying and deserted the leader and having trailed did a higher course with desire of the sky. Rapid nearness to the sun softens fragrant, bonds of the feathers, wax. The wax having melted away; he shakes nude arms/shoulders and lacking with regards to oars he seizes not any air, and the mouth shouting the name of the father is received by water of the ocean, which extracts the name from this. And the unlucky father, and no longer a father, “Icarus,” (Daedalus) says, “where are you? In what region should I seek you?” “Icarus” he was saying: he noticed the feathers in the waves and devoted his arts and buried the body with a tomb; and the earth was called with the name of the buried.
