All malevolence, violence, brutality, unhappiness and darkness are gathered within a single box, surrounded only by a faint glimmer of hope. When all the malevolence is unleashed from the box, only the hope of it not spreading will remain, helplessly. Perhaps the world we live in is Pandora's box itself; in a world where malevolence dominates, a faint goodness and hope attempt to resist, even against the madness of malevolence that seeks to spread everywhere.

Washington Irving, Rip Van Winkle, 1819

Illustrated by Burka Bayram

In Greek mythology, Icarus, son of master craftsman Daedalus - architect of the famous Labyrinth in Crete - became a symbol of tragic overreach. After Theseus, the king of Athens, escaped the Labyrinth with the aid of Ariadne, King Minos suspected that it was Daedalus and Icarus who betrayed the Labyrinth's secrets, resulting in their imprisonment. Determined to regain freedom, Daedalus fashioned wings for himself and Icarus, made from feathers, threads, clothes, and beeswax. Before their daring flight, Daedalus warned Icarus against complacency and hubris, advising him to fly neither too low nor too high to avoid the dangers of the sea and the sun. Enraptured by the joy of flight, Icarus soared ever higher, until the sun's fierce heat melted the beeswax in his wings, causing him to plunge into the sea and drown - a poignant reminder of the perils of excessive ambition, epitomized in the cautionary idiom, "flying too close to the sun".