Thinking about the Myth of Icarus and a Poem by Saeed Jones [by Nin Andrews]

I flew from the coast of Maine back to Virginia yesterday—a long day thanks to the delay in LaGuardia “due to inclement weather.” Outside the sky was neon blue. “It’s so hot, the planes can’t fly,” a Delta representative explained. I pictured the plane melting. I thought of Icarus, his wings dripping beeswax. Then I thought of all the great Daedalus and Icarus poems, poems by Edward Field, W.H. Auden, William Carlos Williams, Jack Gilbert, Anne Sexton, Stephen Spender, Robert Hayden, Joseph Brodsky, Stephen Dobyns, Muriel Rukeyser . . .   

Reading the myth, I’ve often wondered about the character of Daedalus, a shady guy who murdered his first apprentice, Talos, when he realized Talos was more talented than he was.  What did he really think of Icarus, his son by a slave woman?  I know—Ovid suggests Daedalus loved Icarus, that he kissed him and wept and warned him to travel the middle path, that he grieved his loss. But how many adolescent boys travel the middle path? Daedalus was like a father giving a son, who has never driven, a Ferrari race car, telling him, “Don’t speed.”

Later, when my plane finally took off (though the day had only gotten hotter), I wondered, what happens to over-heated planes? Do they catch fire? Seated by the emergency exit, I imagined opening the metal door, tossing it to the wind, passengers leaping into the air, filling the sky like wingless Icaruses.

I love all the poems I've mentioned about this myth. This morning I discovered this brilliant poem by Saeed Jones.

Daedalus, After Icarus  

Boys begin to gather around the man like seagulls.
He ignores them entirely, but they follow him
from one end of the beach to the other.
Their footprints burn holes in the sand.
It’s quite a sight, a strange parade:
a man with a pair of wings strapped to his arms
followed by a flock of rowdy boys.
Some squawk and flap their bony limbs.
Others try to leap now and then, stumbling
as the sand tugs at their feet. One boy pretends to fly
in a circle around the man, cawing in his face.

We don’t know his name or why he walks
along our beach, talking to the wind.
To say nothing of those wings. A woman yells
to her son, Ask him if he’ll make me a pair.
Maybe I’ll finally leave your father.
He answers our cackles with a sudden stop,
turns, and runs toward the water.
The children jump into the waves after him.
Over the sound of their thrashes and giggles,
we hear a boy say, We don’t want wings.
We want to be fish now.

Comments

[Ken Lauter]

Nin,
I love your post and the Jones poem. I've always had a special place in my heart for the Greek myth. Here's an excerpt from a piece I wrote about it a few years ago. (If you'd like to see the whole thing, gimme an e-mail and I'll send it.)

- from “Icarus Speaks, or My Pity Party and Yours”(an appendix to the poetry collection Mortality & Other Hassles - in-progress)
-

The Greek myth of Icarus has overtones of hubris, parental wisdom, the virtue of moderation, and the dangers of technology (flying). In W.H. Auden’s famous poem, those elements are discarded in favor of a wry stoicism that on first reading may sound rather pitiless.

Musée des Beaux Arts

About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters . . .

In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Auden’s rendering of Brueghel is certainly compelling. But I’ve always felt that Icarus was unfairly silenced in the poem, and in history. It’s time let him tell the story.

Icarus Speaks (poem by KL)

Never wrong? No, the Old Masters were almost always wrong.
I was DROWNING— my lungs filling up with cold seawater,
my eyes stinging from salt, my heart pounding out HELP ME!
though only I heard it as I sank into the Mediterranean dark—

and yet nobody bothered to notice. You, Mr. farmer, were
too busy ripping up the earth to gaze out at the sea and me.
You, shepherd, what did you find so fascinating in the sky—
my father at an altitude where his wings wouldn’t melt?

As for the ship, its sails swell with sweet air I’ve lost forever.
Was its cargo too valuable to delay for even a moment, to try
to pull me from the depths? What did Brueghel or Auden say
we didn’t already know— that suffering is ignored ‘til too late?
Not good enough. Suffering can exist out of sight, out of mind—
but it’s often witnessed by plenty of witnesses, those who usually
don’t lift a finger to stop it. All suffering must be accounted for.
Put on wings.Fly. The sun will bless your thrust to freedom.

Do “Icarus Speaks” and “Musée des Beaux Arts” present conflicting views of the myth? Auden employs a cool irony close to callousness, but his subtext is far from it. Rightly understood, his poem (like mine) is a plea for pity and a condemnation of its scarcity in the world— but Auden keeps his distance from the tragedy and places it a broad social context. My poem reverses that point of view, zooming in on Icarus to remind us that suffering is never relative. It occurs in individual minds and bodies.

[Nin Andrews]

Thanks for your insights and poem, Ken! I agree--the myth has so much to offer, to contemplate. As do the topics of suffering and witnessing.

[Christopher Brendel Foss]

Nin and Ken.. Thanks for your posts! I love the idea of Icarus answering Auden. But that boy would answer arrogantly, not plaintively, I think....

Musée des Beaux Arts happens to be my favorite poem in English. That's a big statement about ONE POEM, I know...but there: I have it.

Both poems have their keen qualities... I love the idea of poets (pace poets) riffing on Auden's poem.

By the way, Ken, I wouldn't say that Icarus is being "unfairly silenced" by Auden. Icarus taking flight with Deadalus' wax wings actually gives him voice, I'd say. And may I suggest that Auden seems to be unhappy about the fact that Icarus' suffering (by drowning) takes place in a tiny corner of Breughel's painting.

And true: suffering is never relative - Physical suffering is difficult to recall (in terms of the pain)..the horror of it, yes, of course...

Yes, agree about the cool irony, Ken..but not callousness on Auden's part, nor the pitilessness..It's the most wonderful, powerful "human" poem I know, because, as we know, terrible things can take place amidst the quotidian... The dispassionate description adds to the pitiFULLness!

The Breughel painting (

There's ambition and then there's hubris. The ancient Greeks would say the Gods "answered" Icarus alright? Keep the posts coming, please!

Christopher (Foss)

P.S.

Auden's poem in full:

Musée des Beaux Arts

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just
walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy
life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

W.H. Auden, 1940