The same may be said of Phrixus, the son of
Athamas, that is fabled to have ridden through the
ayr upon a golden ram. And certainly of Daedalus
the Athenian; although his story be strange, yet
methinks it is not without relation unto astrology, but
rather he practised it constantly himself and taught
it unto his son.
 
But because Icarus was governed
by youth and audacity, and sought not the attainable
but let his minde carry him into the zenith, he came
short of truth and defected from reason and was
precipitated into a sea of unfathomable perplexities.
But the Greeks tell an idle myth of him and loosely
call a golfe of their sea Icarian after his name.
 
Doubtless Pasiphae also, hearing from Daedalus
of the Bull that appeareth amongst the constellations
and of Astrology itself, fell in love with the doctrine;



 

whence they derive the belief that Daedalus conjoined her in wedlock with the bull. The reader will not fail to note how neatly this explanation of the Pasiphae myth puts a colophon upon Lucian’s masterly treatment of the flight-legends, which is entirely his own. 
 
Again, there be-those who, dissecting the science
into parts, have made different discoveries, some
collecting the particulars of the moon, some those of
Jupiter, and some those of the sun, concerning their
course and motion and potency.