The Fall of Icarus
Ok I just re-read Ovid's depiction of the legend of Icarus, and I just wrote four pages of interpretations in my journal so here it is for archival purposes
(Note: interpretation is not based solely on Ovid, it was the basis but lots of it is based on prior knowledge and other retellings as well)
Why did Icarus soar? What drove him to rise?
After years in the darkness of the labyrinth, he finally knew what it felt like to be free, to feel the heat of the sun on his skin that served as the proof of his freedom. It was glee, childlike excitement and hunger for the wind and that feeling that urged him to soar high. The risks never crossed his mind because he wanted to keep feeling that warmth after the cold of the maze and he wanted to keep feeling that light after the darkness of his prison.
And in the fall, who's to say Icarus did not embrace the ocean, for the water brought about a comfort that his cages never did? Who's to say Icarus did not laugh as he fell because though the wind carried him to his end, would the fall not have been a good one?
In Icarus' life of imprisonment, darkness of prisons, would the sun not allow him to feel his rays, to touch his fingertips on such a divine chariot?
In Icarus' life of cold mazes, would the wind not cradle him as he fell? His journey to the ocean was but a moment, but the wind made sure it was not a terrifying one.
And so, Icarus laughed despite himself, for the feeling of flying was freeing but there was something so thrilling about falling and feeling the full force of the wind as it grasped onto him.
And who's to say the ocean did not accept him willingly? The benevolent ocean who knew nothimg but freedom across all his seas, to see this trapped boy falling freely and feeling no fear, to welcome his inevitable demise with a bright smile on his face.
His life would not be his for long, but he held it brightly, as if the last moments of his life were his most alive.
The ocean took him in and allowed him to feel his sands, to touch the bottom of his seas. Icarus, who'd known nothing but the cold floor of the labyrinth and the smooth, unforgiving tiles of his prisons, laughed evem as water filled his lungs for the rough, unfamiliar surface served as proof that he had truly experienced freedom. The ocean accepted the boy whose father had once cheated him, for though his father had performed misdeeds, the boy was but a pure soul who longed for a life uncaged. The life he sought was close to its end, but the ocean wished it a blissful one.
(And, if in the boy's end would rise the father's suffering, well. The ocean would keep that joy to himself.)
As Daedalus mourned his son on land, Icarus accepted death's hand as easily as he sought the sun's warmth, as easily as he opened his arms to the wind's force in the fall, and as easily as he embraced the ocean's cradle.
For he felt the most alive stepping away from the life where he knew nothing but imprisonment. He felt the most alive in the rise, in the fall, and in the embrace.
