The Murder of Icarus is a mythological mystery which reworks a classic Greek myth, approaching it from an altogether different angle.

The concept of reworking a classic by means of a new or dissenting perspective has produced many worthwhile works of literature through history, ranging from Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound, in which the heroic aspect of the thief of fire is emphasized, to Wicked (the novel and Broadway musical), in which the heinous villainess of the Wizard of Oz is recast as the victim of our misunderstanding.

Sources which were helpful in the preparation of this story include:

Durant, Will. The Life of Greece (The Story of Civilization: Part II). NY: Simon and Schuster, 1939.

Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths, vols. 1 & 2. Baltimore, Md.: Penguin Books, 1960.

Hamilton, Edith. Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes. NY: Warner Books, 1942.

Vandenberg, Philipp. The Mystery of the Oracles: World-Famous Archaeologists Reveal the Best-Kept Secrets of Antiquity. NY: Macmillan, 1979.

Virgil (Translated by W.F. Jackson Knight). The Aeneid. Baltimore, Md.: Penguin Books, 1956.

Wikipedia. Archimedes.

Liberty has been taken with the geography of Sicily, especially with the description of Camicus (site of the Roman Agrigentum), which is located on the southern shore of the island. The narrative creates a landscape that is actually a composite drawn from several different locations in Sicily, including Catania and Syracuse, and from other sea coasts as well; it also lumps together attributes of many different parts of the ocean! But the story profits from the imprecision, for nothing can compare to the mood set by the ominous volcanoes and the whirlpools and deadly currents lifted from the most treacherous regions of the sea! May Sicily forgive me for subjecting it to my imagination!

The description of the Sibyl of Cumae owes much to Virgil’s description of her in The Aeneid which, although it is, itself, an act of literature, serves as something akin to a historical source for anyone wishing to portray her.

The great magnifying lens of Daedalus does not, of course, belong to the original myth; it is merely a foreshadowing of the legend which was later to grow around the historical figure of Archimedes, who was credited with building a "death ray" during the Roman siege of Syracuse (during the Second Punic War). According to some sources, he constructed a giant lens capable of focusing the sun’s rays into such an intense beam of light that it was able to set fire to the Roman ships attacking the city; while some attributed Archimedes’ "death ray" to a complicated system of bronze mirrors working together to concentrate reflected sunlight into a small area designated to initiate the conflagration. Was it possible that the mirrors were only meant to obscure the vision of the Roman troops by shining a blinding light into their eyes? The well-documented use of derricks and grappling hooks to pull Roman ships out of the sea during the siege of Syracuse has, by proving the genius of Archimedes, lent some credibility to the possibility that the famous Greek scientist may also have invented a working "death ray", exactly as writers such as Lucian record. However, many modern scholars and scientists doubt the veracity of that story. The concept has been put to several empirical tests in modern times, with mixed results and interpretations. In this story, I have merely moved the legend back in time and attributed its first expression to Daedalus.

When using a myth as the raw material of one’s story, one may take one of several paths: one may submerge it entirely in the modern world, as the myth of Pyramus and Thisbe was transformed into Romeo and Juliet, and later into West Side Story. Daedalus and Icarus could be dressed in contemporary clothes and their flight be brought back to believability for modern audiences by giving it another form, more plausible to our senses. The raw father-and-son tale, or the battle between prudence and exhilaration, functionality and spirit, and pragmatism and unrealistic longing, could be distilled from the myth and conveyed by means of a drama set in a non-mythological setting.

Or, on the other hand, one could lay the story back in ancient times but, in the manner of Mary Renault’s The King Must Die, seeking to "get to the bottom of the myth" and to portray the historical and cultural reality which could have generated it, shorn of all the extravagant embellishments of fantasy. This would result in a historical novel in which the myth was simply a hyperbole, brought back down to earth. An exotic and interesting setting would remain, but now magic would no longer reign, but the flesh and blood people who were at the root of the fable.

Or, finally, one could work in the medium of the myth, itself, accepting and using its gods and heroes and portraying the fantasy as though it were a fact. For literature of quality, this would no doubt qualify as magical realism, while for a "lower tier" of literature, the result would be described as sword and sorcery. Although I have chosen to rework the story of Daedalus and Icarus in terms of the relationship between the characters and the meaning of its lesson, I have not sought to dig through this myth to its reality, as Schliemann who shoveled through the Iliad to find Troy, but to retain it as my fictional landscape. I am happy to be close to another time and sensibility which I have been in life-long mourning for.

I hope this story profits from its choices.

      - JRS, November 2007.