22 Stoic Temperance with Daedalus and Icarus - Philosophy and Literature - Female Empowerment - Bluestocking Society - Women's intellectual history
Welcome to the Female Stoic podcast.
My name is Stephanie Poppins and I am an advocate for literary empowerment.
That means I believe the example set by the literary masters can broaden life perspective, create increased self-awareness, and empower us to overcome the obstacles we encounter here in the 21st century.
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By listening and referring what we hear to Stoic philosophy, we can foster a strong sense of self and navigate the world more effectively.
This podcast takes the form of both discussions and meditations, and if you like what you hear, you might consider looking me up on my socials where I post empowering videos every day.
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Or you may like my classic audiobooks and original stories available on my website, newworldbooks.uk.
Happy listening.
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Welcome to today's episode of the Female Stoic Podcast.
And today we will be looking at the story of Deedalus and Icarus, a Greek myth, which is, well, it's a very famous Greek myth and the most famous version of it being from the 8th century.
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And we will be relating this to the Stoic principle of temperance.
And if you haven't heard the story, check out my Myths and legends playlist or my audio book.
And of course, just to mention my one day retreat that's coming up next year in 2026, which will be in the heart of Yorkshire.
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It's a one day Stoic retreat, only 10 places, so take a look at that might be something you're interested in.
And we'll be doing a deep dive into some of the Stoic principles and talking about literature and having a nice day of it.
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I hope.
So Before we begin today, I would like to establish the link between Greek mythology and the Bluestocking Group, who were of course the inspiration behind this podcast.
As you know from listening to previous episodes, the Blue Stocking Society was an informal women's social and educational movement in England in the mid 18th century and it both influenced and inspired much of the literature I have read and continued to read and produce in my audiobooks.
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So the Blue Stocking Society emphasised education and mutual Co operation and was founded in the early 1750s by Elizabeth Montague and Elizabeth Facey.
It was a literary discussion group and that was a huge step away from the traditional non intellectual women's activities of the time.
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Both men and women were invited to attend, including the botanist, translator and publisher Benjamin Stillingfleet, who due to his financial standing, did not dress for the occasion as formerly as some others and appeared in everyday blue worsted stockings, hence the name The Blue Stocking Group.
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So this name referred to this informal quality of the gatherings and the emphasis on conversation rather than fashion and formality.
And by the 17th 70s it came to describe learned women in general.
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And these blue stockings were directly linked to Greek mythology through their contemporary representation as the 9 Muses.
So there was a painting made of the members of the Blue Stocking Group and it was entitled Portraits in the Characters of the Muses in the Temple of Apollo.
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It was a painting by Richard Samuel and it depicted these key members as the daughters of Zeus who presided over the arts and scientists.
They were dressed in classical robes and they posed as the Greek Muses, which is a an illustrative celebration of their intellectual and artistic achievements.
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So look out for that.
You can find that image on my blog and each week transcriptions of what I'm reading today on the podcast.
So take a look at that.
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It's quite interesting.
And of course, beyond this painting, you've got the Greek and the Roman classics, which were fundamental to the blue stockings identity and activities.
So again, that link between the Blue Stockings and Dedalus and Icarus, which we are looking at today, which is a Greek myth.
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So the Blue Stockings were studying Greek and Latin at a time when such scholarship was considered unbecoming for women.
And of course, Elizabeth Carter, as we know from previous episodes, translated the complete works of the Stoic philosopher Epictetus from Greek.
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These blue stockings were attempting to portray learning for women as a virtuous and nationalistic ideal.
So in essence, Greek mythology provided the blue stockings and their admirers with a rich, authoritative framework to celebrate female intellect and creativity in a patriarchal society.
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That's what they were doing.
So let's look at the story.
And the story relates to temperance because of course, we have a character who is existing to represent excess, excess of desire and excess of ego.
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So let's go into the story, the story of Deedalus and Icarus on the island of Crete.
Once Upon a time there lived a ferocious creature that was half man and half ball, and he was called the Minotaur.
This Minotaur loved nothing more than to feast on human flesh.
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Now the king of Crete, King Minos, believed his enemies deserved the fate of being fed to the Minotaur.
So he enlisted the help of Deedalus, A talented architect, to build a labyrinth, a maze of passages that were so complex it would be virtually impossible for anything to ever find a way out.
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Once the Minotaur was in the labyrinth, King Miners decided he had no further use for Deedalus, so he threw him into the labyrinth along with his son Icarus.
He expected they would soon die at the hand of the Minotaur, but of course Deedalus designed the passages so he knew the way out and he escaped with his son.
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Now, of course, they have to make their way to the shore and get off the island.
But how could they do that?
They could not swim, the nearest land was too far away.
They couldn't leave by ship, as all the vessels were controlled by King Minas.
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So Deedle has looked up to the sky, he saw the seagulls, and he decided he would build a set of wings with which to fly away.
With these wings, he said, you will fly like a bird.
But be careful son, make sure you do not fly too close to the sun.
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If you do, the wax that holds the feathers together of the wings that I have made will certainly melt.
And Icarus, being the sun, being young and foolish, nodded.
But in reality he was barely listening to his father.
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So they donned the wings and began to fly.
But of course Icarus, too late, realised his wings were starting to melt.
He'd flown too close to the sun and before he knew it, he was falling with a heavy splash into the sea, never to be seen again.
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So this is a cautionary Greek myth or tale, and it exhibits this hubris, this extreme arrogance of Icarus the sun, and depicts his ambition and his father's ambition, but the dangers of overreaching human limits.
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And of course, this is what the Stoic principle of temperance refers to.
So this myth is lamenting the tragic consequences of unchecked desire.
It's encouraging us to balance invention with moderation, and it's prompting us to be moderate in our self praise and acknowledgement of our achievements.
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If you imagine Icarus soaring towards the sun, he's believing he's got like he's believing he can defy any of the natural boundaries.
Deedalus is representing the moderation, so he's warning his son not to fly, neither too high or too low.
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And the wings themselves are symbolising intellect, creativity and the drive for discovery.
But of course, there needs to be a balance, and this is what stoic temperance is all about.
South, this is the warning.
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Unchecked ambition over pleasure, seeking disregard for the consequences will lead to downfall.
And ultimately, Deedeless's survival leaves him with a lifelong grief, which shows the personal cost of his invention and his son's fatal ambition, with AC claiming Icarus while life continues but painfully for him.
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This is quite relevant today, this tension between our capacity for brilliant invention and technology, the striving for this materialistic gain versus the necessity for humility and restraint.
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And we spoke about humility last week, actually the week before last, in the episode about Charles Dickens and the Christmas Carol.
So we need to exercise a sense of balance in order to maintain the protection of our inner peace.
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That's what the lessons from this story are telling us.
And as you know, as Stoics, it's all about the protection of inner peace, keeping the walls of our inner citadel high, and the Stoic principle of temperance encourages us to check our greed and desire.
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The primary lesson here is a multifaceted 1.
So there are fatal consequences of excess in pride, excess in ambition, excess in a failure to listen to reason, of which we are all guilty of voluntary simplicity.
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That's what we're aiming for, and that's the lesson we can take from this story.
Detach from an unmanaged and unregulated materialistic Dr. and the drive for the pursuit of wealth, for the pursuit of an end goal in a growth may itself result in that wealth and the end goal.
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But the end goal should not be the driving force behind the inner growth.
So in order to practice temperance, we need to seek to become more psychologically resilient.
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That should be our driving force.
To be psychologically resilient and to focus on the journey rather than the end goal means we are protecting our inner peace.
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We are building mental toughness.
We are reducing our fear of the loss of material things.
So if we are working towards an end goal and becoming over ambitious and losing sight of the journey itself, we are scared of the loss of that end goal.
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We have lost the appreciation for the journey and the simple things we obtain along the way and we are not exercising temperance now.
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As we know, Marcus Aurelius, a Stoic philosopher, stressed enjoying life's gifts without attachment to them.
And that is the key here, being content with what we need and maintaining inner discipline amidst life's ups.
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And down South in the story of Deedalus and Icarus, for Icarus to understand he's been given a gift, this is the way out.
This is the escape to understand the fragility of that gift, to not overestimate the value and the strength of the wings, to understand the limitations and to work within.
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That would have been his key to escape.
Again, going back to the humility here, Marcus Aurelius said the mind unmastered by passions is a very citadel for a man has no fortress more impregnable.
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We're in to find refuge and be untaken forever unmastered by passions.
So in the story of Deedalus and Icarus, we have the passion for technology and invention by Deedalus.
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Then we have the ego of Icarus and this drive for more, more, more.
I can fly higher, higher, higher, and a detachment to the practicality of what's actually happening for a man, says Aurelius, has no fortress more impregnable wearing to find refuge.
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There's no refuge in the attachment of man or woman to a material object, the drive to accumulate objects, their drive for more technology, greater, higher, further.
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The refuge is in the impregnable force, the fortress, the inner citadel wherein 1 maintains inner peace and the Stoic principle of temperance.
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Understanding that there has to be a balance with all desires is the key here.
And this is the lesson Epictetus said.
Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.
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It was enough to have an invention, to understand the limitations of that invention, just to be able to survive, get across the sea and get to the other side.
But because of the unwavering desire and demand for greater, further, faster, higher, Icarus and Deedalus suffer, one with their life and the other with eternal suffering, with eternal torment.
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So a natural healthy want for us.
For example, I'm hungry.
I will eat enough to satiate.
My desire is satisfied upon getting what you desire, and that's enough.
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An unhealthy want is a bottomless pit.
So something a desire that strikes, spiralling out of control, no matter how much of that thing is consumed, it still leaves us feeling impoverished, regardless of how much we accumulate, how much we consume.
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And that's what today's episode is about.
We are trying to avoid desiring too many things, attaining too much, and holding onto our ambition too tightly.
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And of course, you know, with a dichotomy of control the difference between what we can control and what we cannot.
If we desire, we are desiring external things, wealth, status, possessions or even a specific outcome or goal.
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These are largely beyond our direct control.
We understand we can work towards goals, towards tasks and to focus on the journey itself rather than the attainment of the end product is the key to inner peace.
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If we pin our happiness to these externals and if we pine the loss of these externals, that will only lead to discontent.
How do we manage this?
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Because that's the key.
It's very easy, especially in 21st century society where we are bombarded with advertisements, consumerism, and the desire for more.
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These symbols, these messages, every single day.
How do we manage this?
The key here is the shift in perspective, looking at the things we already have and understanding that it's good for us to meditate on what would happen if we lost those things, which is going to help us foster a gratitude for our current situation and reduce the longing for more, Epictetus said.
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Wealth consists not in having great possessions but in having few wants.
So this idea of visualising the loss of what we already have makes us appreciate what we have currently and then be satisfied with anything that would come along to accompany that.
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So we don't want this bottomless pit because this is going to lead to lack of inner peace.
We don't want our desires to spiral out of control.
We want to regulate and so mitigate this chance of external forces attacking our inner citadel.
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And how do we do that?
We limit our exposure to such things, and it's good to question ourselves.
We're going to move on to the journal task soon, and that involves questioning ourselves about the things we're chasing or the things we have chased in the past.
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Are these essential for a good life, as Marcus Aurelius would say?
Is this necessary?
Most of what we do arguably is not necessary.
It's not essential.
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It can distract us from focusing on our purpose, virtue, and of course, wisdom.
And that's what we're seeking to do here.
Focus on the Stoic principles, understand what will bring us continuing peace, and regulate our exposure to the external things that are not going to protect our inner peace.
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And in the case of Deederless and Icarus, the desire for more, for hire faster, longer, this does not lead to inner peace.
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So let's have a look at our journal task for this week.
Think of a time now, as I always say, if you have your journal with you, great.
If you don't, come back to the podcast and bring it with you and have a look in your journal because this is something you can refer to as part of your growth.
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So an essential tool really, And it's something all the Stoic philosophers did and many of the authors that we cover each week.
So think of a time that you really wanted something and you couldn't see a way forward beyond that thing.
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A time when you were warned about excess, yet you took the chance and you carried on regardless.
A time you had an unfettered desire for something or were so hyper focused on obtaining something that nothing else seemed to matter.
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We've all had those times.
The time when we almost lost sense of how important and yet how unimportant that thing really was.
And in our journals we should write down one line that describes that place, that time we were in, what it was that we desired.
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And underneath that, we will look more closely at that.
So how could temperance have benefited you at that time?
If you're a temperate, What does this mean if you're a temperate person?
Well, you're not a victim of your passions.
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You have the inner strength to manage your impulses like anger, like craving, like desire.
You recognise the emotion as it's happening, the desire.
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So you're avoiding being a slave to your appetites essentially or your desires.
And the the key here is reason, understanding.
If I achieve this, will it contribute to my sense of inner peace?
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And of course this self-control is linked holistically to the well-being of all of you, not just your mind.
So you have your desire written down something that was uncontrollable or you were focused on excessively, and underneath you're writing down how temperance could have benefited you at that time.
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What could you have done differently?
Ultimately, we're talking about a shift from temporary pleasure to lasting fulfilment.
And of course, we can't see that at a time, especially if we're younger, it's harder to maintain a more balanced view because we have less experience and we believe the attainment of such goals is going to bring us greater satisfaction and greater happiness.
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But of course, as we come to understand ourselves and our limitations, we realise that actually that's not the case at all.
Hey Stephanie here, thank you for listening to the Female Stoic podcast.
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It is an honour and I just want to say I really appreciate you being here.
It's amazing the power of women in literature and the stoic messages they have to share.
Please, if you can, return the favour by spreading their words and sharing this podcast far and wide so more of us can benefit from their wisdom.
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And don't forget to leave a review if you like what you've heard.
See you next time.
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