At first Icarus kept close to his father, but soon he had lost all sense of danger, and with the reckless wantonness of youth, determined to go his own way. He reveled in the strong free strokes of his great wings; he mounted ever higher and higher, till the sea was spread below him like a blue plain, and the sandy islands showed like cloths of gold.
Dædalus was winging his careful way lower down, below the scattered clouds, close above the golden islets, and shouted to his son to return. But Icarus, drunk with the delights of flight, mounted ever higher, up into the fierce rays of Phœbus, the Sun-god, who held out burning arms to the adventurous youth, beckoning him to race his fiery car across the heavens.
The horrified father, floating on outspread wings over the Ægean Sea, looked up to see his boy like a tiny speck in the sun's rays. He knew the fierce heat of those rays; he knew that the wings were only fastened on by wax that could not hold against that scorching heat. And lo! as he looked, the speck grew larger and larger, and headlong down the sky he beheld Icarus falling, falling, his limp wings sagging from his shoulders, his frantic arms struggling to spread them and stay his fall. The drooping wings could not uphold him; he came whirling down the hissing air, and his agonized father watched his helpless boy fall into the blue waves beneath. For a moment he saw him struggle feebly, and then, like a bubble, he sank, and the unruffled waters lay calm and smiling as before.
By the sad sea shore of the Ægean, where he landed after that disastrous flight, Dædalus raised a cenotaph to his lost son, and thereon he laid the wings, once the artist's pride, and now the father's bane. "Icarus, O my Icarus!" he cried; and still those waters echo the name of Icarus.
SCYLLA, THE DAUGHTER OF NISUS
BY MRS. GUY E. LLOYD
In Crete, the greatest and most powerful of the isles of Greece and the cradle of Jupiter, there once stood a splendid palace where lived the wealthy King Minos. To this palace came as guests one day Nisus, King of Megara, and his fair daughter Scylla; and there they abode many days, with every day fresh delights sought out by King Minos to give them pleasure. And Scylla, like a fond and foolish maiden, was dazzled by the pomp and by the flattery of King Minos, and he seemed to her the greatest and wisest of living men, and she would fain have tarried there forever, hearkening to his words and admiring all his riches.
But King Nisus would not longer stay, and they departed, bearing with them rich gifts from the generous king, and returned to their own castle at Megara. Very small and mean did her home seem to Scylla now, and often would she climb to the top of a turret that looked over the sea, and thence she would gaze and gaze towards the south, and her thoughts would fly back to the fair island of Crete with its cities and its palaces, and its strong and noble king, till she envied the birds that skimmed past her turret on swift, light wings. They could fly to Crete whenever they would, and settle on the palace eaves; but the princess must sit still in her high turret, and hide even her longing away within her heart.