I Used To Think That Icarus’ Death Was Just A Tragic Accident—the Kind So Prevalent In Greek Mythology,

i used to think that icarus’ death was just a tragic accident—the kind so prevalent in greek mythology, where the hero survives the most dangerous part but tragedy befalls in the most unexpected/preventable way as a result of hubris/arrogance/carelessness. but icarus’ fate was no accident. tragic, yes, but also beautiful in its inevitability: a tribute to the inexorable entanglement between love and death, desire and destruction, intimacy and decay — all of which are ultimately just forms of want and loss. after all, everything has a price, an equal and opposite reaction.

desire is synonymous with fire. it’s something i think mortals are only capable of experiencing in tiny doses: little fires in our guts, live wires down our spine, warm flushes across our cheeks. like taking very small sips of too-hot tea, desire must be drawn out over a lifetime of intimacy—lest it burn us up completely. but apollo feels things with all his immortal intensity: he is pure fire and light and heat. i am not sure there exists a purer form of love than that of the sun.

this is why icarus’ fate is no accident, nor another allegory on the dangers of hubris. it was inevitable from the start. the same way achilles’ virility and vitality was paid for with his death at such a young age, the heat from apollo’s fleeting, fatal moment of desire for icarus is the same as a lifetime’s worth of slow-burning love between two mortals.

i like to believe that icarus didn’t lose his life—not exactly. he just lived it all at once in a single, blazing moment of intimacy with the sun.