"Vivian, Charles E - History of Aeronautics" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vivian Charles E)

rather in the air--since surely this people must have been
responsible for the first hot-air balloons. Far less
questionable is the legend of Icarus, for here it is possible to
trace a foundation of fact in the story. Such a tribe as
Daedalus governed could have had hardly any knowledge of the
rudiments of science, and even their ruler, seeing how easy it
is for birds to sustain themselves in the air, might be excused
for believing that he, if he fashioned wings for himself, could
use them. In that belief, let it be assumed, Daedalus made his
wings; the boy, Icarus, learning that his father had determined
on an attempt at flight secured the wings and fastened them to
his own shoulders. A cliff seemed the likeliest place for a
'take-off,' and Icarus leaped from the cliff edge only to find
that the possession of wings was not enough to assure flight to
a human being. The sea that to this day bears his name
witnesses that he made the attempt and perished by it.

In this is assumed the bald story, from which might grow the
legend of a wise king who ruled a peaceful people--'judged,
sitting in the sun,' as Browning has it, and fashioned for
himself wings with which he flew over the sea and where he
would, until the prince, Icarus, desired to emulate him.
Icarus, fastening the wings to his shoulders with wax, was so
imprudent as to fly too near the sun, when the wax melted and he
fell, to lie mourned of water-nymphs on the shores of waters
thenceforth Icarian. Between what we have assumed to be the
base of fact, and the legend which has been invested with such
poetic grace in Greek story, there is no more than a century or
so of re-telling might give to any event among a people so
simple and yet so given to imagery.

We may set aside as pure fable the stories of the winged horse
of Perseus, and the flights of Hermes as messenger of the gods.
With them may be placed the story of Empedocles, who failed to
take Etna seriously enough, and found himself caught by an
eruption while within the crater, so that, flying to safety in
some hurry, he left behind but one sandal to attest that he had
sought refuge in space--in all probability, if he escaped at
all, he flew, but not in the sense that the aeronaut understands
it. But, bearing in mind the many men who tried to fly in
historic times, the legend of Icarus and Daedalus, in spite of
the impossible form in which it is presented, may rank with the
story of the Saracen of Constantinople, or with that of Simon
the Magician. A simple folk would naturally idealise the man
and magnify his exploit, as they magnified the deeds of some
strong man to make the legends of Hercules, and there,
full-grown from a mere legend, is the first record of a pioneer
of flying. Such a theory is not nearly so fantastic as that
which makes the Capnobates, on the strength of their name, the
inventors of hot-air balloons. However it may be, both in story