Icarus is the son of the brilliant Athenian inventor Daedalus. Daedalus and Icarus were imprisoned in a labyrinth that Daedalus originally created to contain the deadly Minotaur. To escape, Daedalus fashions two pairs of waxen wings, assembled from scraps of leather, metal, and thread. He warns Icarus to not fly too high or too low, but Icarus, driven by his curiosity and joy, flies too close to the sun. The wax melts, his wings disintegrate, and he tumbles to his death in the sea.