The Fall of Icarus, alternate title: Daedalus Icaro alta nimis ambienti orbatur. Etching appeared in: The Metamorphoses of Ovid, plate 75, second edition illustrated by Antonio Tempesta, published 1606. Icarus was the son of Daedalus who dared to fly too near the sun on wings of feathers and wax. Daedalus had been imprisoned by King Minos of Crete within the walls of his own invention, the Labyrinth. But the great craftsman's genius would not suffer captivity. He made two pairs of wings by adhering feathers to a wooden frame with wax. Giving one pair to his son, he cautioned him that flying too near the sun would cause the wax to melt. But Icarus became ecstatic with the ability to fly and forgot his father's warning. The feathers came loose and Icarus plunged to his death in the sea. Literary interpretation has found in the myth the structure and consequence of personal over-ambition.