The Storyteller: Greek Myths (TV Series)

Daedalus & Icarus (1991)

Michael Gambon: The Storyteller

Photos 

Quotes 

• The Storyteller : Daedalus, the master who designed this labyrinth. Whose mind produced these dizzy passages. Daedelus the genius, who invented ships which could sail under the sea, fireworks which would knock down a wall, lenses, that set together could see as far as the stars. Fantastic machines. He fell so far, he fell so far from grace he finished a broken man. Making the same little clay figure over and over: a child with wings.

  The Dog : A child with wings? Who was that?

  The Storyteller : The one thing Daedelus made he had no control of. The one thing he ever truly loved. Icarus, his son.

• The Storyteller : The gods play with us. Into Talos, his sister's boy, went all the joy of creation. A keen eye and a quick wit, as if the two boys had been born to the wrong parent. For Talos was the kind of son Daedelus had dreamed of.

• The Storyteller : Talos fell, twisting and turning like a starfish. He fell so slowly through the air, it seemed to Deadelus he was falling forever, that he never going to land, that he was flying. Then the ground reminded him. It came to meet Talos and jolted him asleep.

  Daedalus : [softly]  What have I done?

• The Storyteller : And people say Daedalus did use his brain. The maze he built to imprison the monster, the Minotaur, was designed like the brain itself. And a thousand years later, it still stands here.

  The Dog : So was Minos pleased?

  The Storyteller : Minos was cruel. Minos had two secrets: who the minotoar was and how to get out of the labyrinth. Now Daedelus knew both of them. When the monster was taken to its new prison, Deadelus and Icarus were locked in with it. Down there somewhere, in the heart of the labyrinth.

• The Dog : He died?

  The Storyteller : He died.

  The Dog : That's terrible. Why did he fly too high? He promised he wouldn't fly too high.

  The Storyteller : I think when Talos dropped from the sad heights above Athens, Icarus was already falling. As if a single thread held them all together. Talos fell, Icarus fell, Daedelus fell.

• The Storyteller : Water took his son from him, water killed the king. But there's no peace in vengeance, no rest in revenge. Daedelus survived, but sometimes he wished he hadn't. Sometims, as he sat in his workshop day upon day, staring at nothing, he wished he had gone back to Crete and a quick death, not the slow dying inside.

• The Storyteller : Daedalus, the greatest crafstman in Greece, there was no one like him. He was born in Athens.

  The Dog : Like us.

  The Storyteller : And he learned the art of making from the godess Athena herself. But his greatest dream was to fly, to sour through the clouds like a bird.

  The Dog : Is that why his son had wings? Did they both grow wings?

  The Storyteller : No, no, they didn't. Poor Icarus had nothing so graceful as wings. Even his hands were awkward and clumsy.

• Icarus : [Daedelus is hugging his son]  You're squeezing me. We're not saying goodbye, are we?

  The Storyteller : Daedelus clung to his son on the hill. Then he kissed Icarus and it seemed as if some great bird was feeding it's chick mouth to mouth, as birds do. Or that if Daedelus was willing his knowledge into his clumsy son.