Story: Ovid's Metamorphoses III (Daedalus and Icarus)

A Columnist on Crete

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(Roman Ladies Conversing, Painter Unknown)

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[Pan in on Aeliana, the island of Crete's resident gossip news anchor.]

Hello, Hello, Hello my fellow residents of Crete! Its your favorite columnist who has got all the scoops of what is happening in our lovely island of Crete, Aeliana. 

Today is a day for the books because over the weekend we had a love-filled update to all the happenings in King's castle as of late. Let's run down what we know so far, shall we?

This whole scandal started a long time ago when our seemingly ever faithful Queen Pasiphae fell in love with Taurus, the owner of Crete's biggest cattle range, and promptly cheated on King Minos. Granted this was all unknown up until the point Queen Pasiphae gave birth to an heir, only for the son to look nothing alike King Minos and too much like the not so handsome Taurus. Can we say gasp?!

Now we all know that King Minos immediately banished his wife's bastard son, Minotaur, to live in the family's vacation castle, fondly called the Labyrinth for its maze like architecture. But as any great scandal would have it, the story doesn't stop there. 

Instead we throw in the mix of a heroic man and the King and Queen's daughter, Ariadne cast as the pair of young lovers! Fast forward to last year when our young princess, desperate to flee the island and her parents' hovering selves, turned to a young handsome man by the name of Theseus. Knowing he could only escape the island with Ariadne if she didn't have to deal with her half-brother, Minotaur, Theseus hatched a plan to sneak into the Labyrinth and kill the black sheep son of the royal family. And with the help of young and naive Ariadne, Theseus did just that. 

After leaving the nation of Crete in shock at the death of worst kept royal secret, Minotaur, Theseus and Ariadne, blinded by puppy love, left the island in a rush. Yet being the bad boy we know and hate, Theseus, after escaping our lovely island of Crete abandoned our princess on of the neighboring islands. Only to be meet with fandom backlash when he returned to Crete without Ariadne and with no information on her whereabouts. 

That is until this past weekend when the entire island of Crete received wedding invitations in the mail for none other than Princess Ariadne and the god of all things: wine, theatre and ecstasy, Bacchus. Now there is a twist, us here at Crete's Column, did not see coming! 

We learned by talking to sources close to the royal family that Bacchus and Ariadne could not be happier as they reach final preparations for the wedding. Apparently, the couple got together after Bacchus, while vacationing on the very same island Theseus abandoned Ariadne on, saved Ariadne from an untimely death. Could we ever even ask for more in our soon-to-be Prince? Okay, well it looks like we are all caught up with the latest in the day to day lives of our royalty! See you next time, fellow residents of Crete! 

[Camera fades out on Aeliana waving.]

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Based off of Ovid's Metamorphoses III, Daedalus and Icarus as translated by Tony Kline (2000). 

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Author's Note

For this week's story, I decided to retell Daedalus and Icarus as if there was a TV personality 

relaying the story for a gossip segment on a show. This story has all the makings for modern scandal: a cheating wife, a bastard child, young lovers and a prince charming. While all of the major details are consistent with the original piece of literature, I did decide to focus only on the Minotaur, Theseus and Ariadne part of the story. Giving this classical tale a modern twist came with a challenge of reigning in the more outlandish pieces of the story. Nonetheless, hopefully the original concepts and lessons came through the modern framework. Hope you enjoyed my retelling!  

Reading Notes: Ovid's Metamorphoses Part A

Reading Notes

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(Thesus and Minotaur in the Labyrinth)

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• Reading the original version of the classic story of Icarus was fascinating because I had only heard of the part concerning Icarus himself and not all that lead up to his being trapped on the island, desperate to find a way out. An interesting spin on the story of Icarus could be to bring the situation to the 21st century and add a sci-fi element?
• Philemon and Baucis at first seems like a throw away story about an old village couple but the second part of the story showcases how loyalty and love to the gods can make commoners gods themselves. I could retell this story as a tall tale the current villagers, years after Philemon and Baucis' death, tell to their kids? 
• An interesting thing to note is that the each of the stories come from a different storyteller which leads to a different tone, wording etc for each of the pieces. Maybe find a way to incorporate the idea of multiple storytellers into my own retelling? 
• To be full of spite towards the gods, especially Ceres, the goddess of harvest, reminds of a teen rebelling against authority. Possibly use this train of thought to run with a different more comical approach to the first part of the story?
• Maybe utilizing the dying nymph within Ceres' oak tree as a different perspective could showcase the commoners silliness by seeing it through the gods' eyes?
• A fun note to possibly play with is that Fate does not allow Ceres and Famine to ever meet.... What would become of such a meeting and how could I use this to retell a story?
• Famine's description reminds me of the biblical four horsemen of the apocalypse, To compare the two would be a good twist to a classical story?
• Quite a gruesome ending to the story of Erysichthon, very Hannibal-esque? Could be a scary campfire story? 

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All Notes are based off of Ovid's Metamorphoses III as translated in English by Tony Kline