And he sat among the
pillars of the hall, upon his throne of beaten gold, and around him
stood the speaking statues which Daidalos had made by his skill.
For Daidalos was the most cunning of all Athenians, and he first
invented the plumb-line, and the auger, and glue, and many a tool
with which wood is wrought. And he first set up masts in ships,
and yards, and his son made sails for them: but Perdix his nephew
excelled him; for he first invented the saw and its teeth, copying
it from the back-bone of a fish; and invented, too, the chisel, and
the compasses, and the potter's wheel which moulds the clay.
Therefore Daidalos envied him, and hurled him headlong from the
temple of Athene; but the Goddess pitied him (for she loves the
wise), and changed him into a partridge, which flits for ever about
the hills. And Daidalos fled to Crete, to Minos, and worked for
him many a year, till he did a shameful deed, at which the sun hid
his face on high.
Then he fled from the anger of Minos, he and Icaros his son having
made themselves wings of feathers, and fixed the feathers with wax.
So they flew over the sea toward Sicily; but Icaros flew too near
the sun; and the wax of his wings was melted, and he fell into the
Icarian Sea. But Daidalos came safe to Sicily, and there wrought
many a wondrous work; for he made for King Cocalos a reservoir,
from which a great river watered all the land, and a castle and a
treasury on a mountain, which the giants themselves could not have
stormed; and in Selinos he took the steam which comes up from the
fires of AEtna, and made of it a warm bath of vapour, to cure the
pains of mortal men; and he made a honeycomb of gold, in which the
bees came and stored their honey, and in Egypt he made the
forecourt of the temple of Hephaistos in Memphis, and a statue of
himself within it, and many another wondrous work.
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