for young Perdix, whom all had learned to love; rage towards the wicked uncle who loved only himself. At first they were for punishing Dædalus with the death which he so richly deserved, but when they remembered what he s had done to make their homes pleasanter and their lives easier they allowed him to live; and yet they drove him out of Athens and bade him never return.

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There was a ship in the harbor just ready to start on a voyage across the sea, and in it Dædalus embarked with To all his precious tools and his young son Icarus (îk'ȧ-rŭs). Day after day the little vessel sailed slowly southward, keeping the shore of the mainland always upon the right. It passed Trozen and the rocky coast of Argos and then struck boldly out across the sea.

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At last the famous Island of Crete was reached, and there Dædalus landed and made himself known; and the King of Crete, who had already heard of his wondrous skill, welcomed him to his kingdom, and gave him a home in his palace, and promised that he should be rewarded with great riches and honor if he would but stay and practice his craft there as he had done in Athens.

Now the name of the King of Crete was Minos. His grandfather, whose name was also Minos, was the son of Europa, a young princess whom a white bull, it was said, 23 had brought on his back across the sea from distant Asia. This elder Minos had been accounted the wisest of men so wise, indeed, that Jupiter chose him to be one of the judges of the Lower World. The younger Minos was almost as wise as his grandfather; and he was brave and 30 farseeing and skilled as a ruler of men. He had made all the islands subject to his kingdom, and his ships sailed into every part of the world and brought back to Crete

the riches of foreign lands. So it was not hard for him to persuade Dædalus to make his home with him and be the chief of his artisans.

And Dædalus built for King Minos a most wonderful palace with floors of marble and pillars of granite; and s in the palace he set up golden statues which had tongues and could talk; and for splendor and beauty there was no other building in all the wide earth that could be compared with it.

There lived in those days among the hills of Crete a 10 terrible monster called the Minotaur (min'ō-tôr), the like of which has never been seen from that time until now. This creature, it was said, had the body of a man but the face and head of a wild bull and the fierce nature of a mountain lion. The people of Crete would not have killed 15 him if they could; for they thought that the Mighty Folk who lived with Jupiter on the mountain top had sent him among them and that these beings would be angry if anyone should take his life. He was the pest and terror of all the land. Where he was least expected, there he was 20 sure to be; and almost every day some man, woman, or child was caught and devoured by him.

"You have done so many wonderful things," said the king to Dædalus, "can you not do something to rid the land of this Minotaur?"

"Shall I kill him?” asked Dædalus.

"Ah, no!" said the king. "That would only bring greater misfortune upon us."

"I will build a house for him then," said Dædalus, "and you can keep him in it as a prisoner.

"But he may pine away and die if he is penned up in prison," said the king.

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"He shall have plenty of room to roam about," said Dædalus; "and if you will only now and then feed one of your enemies to him, I promise you that he shall live and thrive."

So the wonderful artisan brought together his workmen, and they built a marvelous house with so many rooms in it and so many winding ways that no one who went far into it could ever find his way out again; and Dædalus called it the Labyrinth and cunningly persuaded the 10 Minotaur to go inside it. The monster soon lost his way among the winding passages, but the sound of his terrible bellowings could be heard day and night as he wandered back and forth vainly trying to find some place to escape.

Not long after this it happened that Dædalus was guilty 15 of a deed which angered the king very greatly; and had not Minos wished him to build other buildings for him, he would have put him to death and served him right.

"Hitherto," said the king, "I have honored you for your skill and rewarded you for your labor. But now you shall 20 be my slave and shall serve me without hire and without any word of praise."

Then he gave orders to the guards at the city gates that they should not let Dædalus pass out at any time, and he set soldiers to watch the ships that were in port so that 25 he could not escape by sea. But although the wonderful artisan was thus held as a prisoner, he did not build any more buildings for King Minos; he spent his time in planning how he might regain his freedom.

"All my inventions," he said to his son Icarus, "have 30 hitherto been made to please other people; now I will invent something to please myself."

So through all the day he pretended to be planning some great work for the king, but every night he locked himself up in his chamber and wrought secretly by candlelight. By and by he had made for himself a pair of strong wings, and for Icarus another pair of smaller ones; and then, s one midnight, when everybody was asleep, the two went out to see if they could fly. They fastened the wings to their shoulders with wax, and then sprang up into the air. They could not fly very far at first, but they did sc well that they felt sure of doing much better in time.

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The next night Dædalus made some changes in the wings. He put on an extra strap or two; he took out a feather from one wing and put a new feather into another; and then he and Icarus went out into the moonlight to try them again. They did finely this time. They flew up to 15 the top of the king's palace, and then they sailed away over the walls of the city and alighted on the top of a hill. But they were not ready to undertake a long journey yet; and so just before daybreak, they flew back home. Every fair night after that they practiced with their wings, and at the end of a month they felt as safe in the air as on the ground and could skim over the hilltops like birds.

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Early one morning, before King Minos had risen from his bed, they fastened on their wings, sprang into the air, and flew out of the city. Once fairly away from the island 25 they turned towards the west, for Dædalus had heard of an island named Sicily which lay hundreds of miles away, and he had made up his mind to seek a new home there.

All went well for a time, and the two bold flyers sped swiftly over the sea, skimming along only a little above 30 the waves, and helped on their way by the brisk east wind. Towards noon the sun shone very warm, and Dædalus

ΙΟ

called out to the boy, who was a little behind him, and told him to keep his wings cool and not fly too high. But the boy was proud of his skill in flying, and as he looked up at the sun he thought how nice it would be to soar like it s high above the clouds in the blue depths of the sky.

"At any rate," said he to himself, "I will go up a little higher. Perhaps I can see the horses which draw the sun car, and perhaps I shall catch sight of their driver, the mighty sun master himself.”

So he flew up higher and higher, but his father, who was in front, did not see him. Pretty soon, however, the heat of the sun began to melt the wax with which the boy's wings were fastened. He felt himself sinking through the air; the wings had become loosened from his shoulders. 15 He screamed to his father, but it was too late. Dædalus turned just in time to see Icarus fall headlong into the The water was very deep there, and the skill of the wonderful artisan could not save his child. He could only look with sorrowing eyes at the unpitying sea, and 20 fly on alone to distant Sicily. There, men say, he lived for many years, but he never did any great work nor built anything half so marvelous as the Labyrinth of Crete. And the sea in which poor Icarus was drowned was called forever afterward by his name, the Icarian Sea.

waves.

Old Greek Stories.

1. Dædalus's adventures can be divided into three sections. Tell what happened in each of the three episodes.

2. For other interesting Greek legends read Baldwin's Old Greek Stories or Guerber's Myths of Ancient Greece and Rome.