Mythology; Mythology, Greek -- Juvenile literature
Dædalus, grandson of a king of Athens, was the greatest artificer of
his day. Not only as an architect was he great, but as a sculptor he
had the creative power, not only to make men and women and animals
that looked alive, but to cause them to move and to be, to all
appearances, endowed with life. To him the artificers who followed him
owed the invention of the axe, the wedge, the wimble, and the
carpenter's level, and his restless mind was ever busy with new
inventions. To his nephew, Talus, or Perdrix, he taught all that he
himself knew of all the mechanical arts. Soon it seemed that the
nephew, though he might not excel his uncle, equalled Dædalus in his
inventive power. As he walked by the seashore, the lad picked up the
spine of a fish, and, having pondered its possibilities, he took it
home, imitated it in iron, and so invented the saw. A still greater
invention followed this. While those who had always thought that there
could be none greater than Dædalus were still acclaiming the lad,
there came to him the idea of putting two pieces of iron together,
connecting them at one end with a rivet, and sharpening both ends, and
a pair of compasses was made. Louder still were the acclamations of
the people. Surely greater than Dædalus was here. Too much was this
for the artist's jealous spirit.
One day they stood together on the top of the Acropolis, and Dædalus,
murder that comes from jealousy in his heart, threw his nephew down.
Down, down he fell, knowing well that he was going to meet a cruel
death, but Pallas Athené, protectress of all clever craftsmen, came to
his rescue. By her Perdrix was turned into the bird that still bears
his name, and Dædalus beheld Perdrix, the partridge, rapidly winging
his way to the far-off fields. Since then, no partridge has ever built
or roosted in a high place, but has nestled in the hedge-roots and
amongst the standing corn, and as we mark it we can see that its
flight is always low.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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