The history of Daedalus and Icarus

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Categoria:	Lingue
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Data:	16.03.2001
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1_ Homesick is someone who is abroad and would like to be at his home but he couldn’t be there. Homeland is the place where you are born or where you are grown up. In each expression is used the word “home”, as an expression as something you like and were you have affects. Dedalus is homesick and homeland because he is abroad but he would like to be at home, but he could go there because he is on exile.

2_ It suggests a personification. “The sea” is of stronger effect, because that expression means that a man can’t challenge one of the four natural elements, which prevents Icarus and his father from getting their freedom.

3_ Daedalus could change the laws of nature permitting the man to fly.

4_ He challenged the air, in fact he says:
“Minos dominion does not include the air”.
For this reason he decided to try to escape flying.

5_ To build the wings Daedalus used what nature offered him, like bird's feathers, twine and wax to fasten them to the flyer.

6_ "He laid out feathers in order first the smallest, a little larger next it and so continued the way that pan-pipes rise in gradual sequence."
"He fastened them with twine and wax."
"Bent them gently curving."

7_ Yes, he was: quoted by the test: “And Icarus, his son, stood by and watched him…”.

8_ Icaurus didn’t do anything except sticking his thumb into the yellow wax of Dedalus.

9_ The poet said that feather was “light as dawn”.

10_ Daedalus warned his son to fly a middle course, because if he had gone too low, the water would have weighted the wings down, whereas if he had gone too high, the sun's fire would have burnt them.

11_ Dedalus cried because he was afraid for his son and his hand trembled. He kissed his son to reassure his self.

12_ Daedalus recommended his son not to go too low but also not to go too high, because the wings could have been damaged by the water or burn by the sun fire

14_ The poet depict the life of some people as normal and says:
“Far off, far down, some fisherman is watching
as the rod dips and trembles over the water,
some shepherd rests his weight upon his crook,
some ploughman on the handles of the ploughshare
and all look up in absolute amazement,
at those air-borne above. They must be gods!”
15_ The men below were very impressed by the appening above and they all looked up in absolute amazement. They thought Daedalus and Icarus must be gods.

17 - 18) “I’m flying among clouds, a lot of white clouds…From here I can see, in the middle of the sky, the sun and, below me, there is my old prison: Crete. I hate it!
I want to go up little higher to breath my new freedom…my flight is fantastic: I can’t believe that it’s true. Minos wasn’t able to hold me in his land; my father was more clever than him and now, with these particular kind of wings, like a bird, I can touch the sky with a finger…Now I can go everywhere and I think I’ll return to my homeland, because my desire to embrace my family and my friends is too strong…But in this moment what I really want is to achieve the top of the sky and to touch the biggest star I can admire. I want to fly higher and higher but…a moment, the wax of my wings is melting and I’m falling down…the sea is every moment nearer me, I’m not able to control the situation: why didn’t I follow my father’s instruction. Now I can’t touch the water. I’m drowning, I can’t introduce more air into my lungs…dad, help me! ”

19)The word “dark” is used by Ovid to explain that the water is the place in which Icarus dies. The death is generally connected to the colour black.

20) Ovid’s tragedy is written like a poem: is divided into some verses; the author uses a special language and he arranges punctuation - marks in a particular way.