Icarius was a farmer in Attica who had the bad luck of impressing Dionysus, who gifted him the secret of wine. Icarius shared the drink with some shepherds, who had never tasted anything like it. They got completely wasted, and the next day woke up with the worst hangover in history: they didn’t know what a hangover was, so they assumed Icarius had poisoned them. They beat him to death and buried him without a second thought.
Dionysus, furious at what happened to his friend, raised him into the sky. There Icarius remains, as Boötes the Herdsman, driving the Bears across the night forever.
Lyrics
Down in ancient Attica, Icarius opened up the cask,
A gift from Dionysus, no dark or twisted task.
The vineyard workers cheered, their laughter filling all the air,
They sang along the hillside without a single sorrow there. (dancing in the grove!)
They held their cups together, they danced until the embers died,
Shared brotherhood and music, washed in the crimson tide.
A night of easy joy beneath the canopy of trees,
Where music rode the branches and swayed upon the breeze.
Then dawn broke on the hillside, a heavy sickness in their breath,
Blind panic in the morning mist, convinced they drank of death!
They mistook the dizzy sunrise for a poison in their blood,
And turned their drunken rage into a violent, blind flood! (blind flood!)
Arcturus burns in the frozen night,
Boötes herds the celestial flight!
Driving the oxen, steering the plow,
Tracking the bears round the northern brow!
(They threw the master down the well…)
Turned harmless joy into living hell!
(Follow the arc across the sky…)
Where honest plowmen never die!
They threw him in the shadows, buried beneath the mountain clay,
Until his faithful daughter found where her murdered father lay.
Sweet Erígone weeping, broken in the olive shade,
She tied the cord and hung herself beside the hollow blade. (hanging from the bough!)
Then madness swept the valley like an airborne plague of dread:
Young maidens took the rope until the village wept and bled!
The murderers repented, praying on their bloody knees,
To lift the wicked curse among the weeping olive trees! (wrath divine!)
Then dawn broke on the hillside, a heavy sickness in their breath,
Blind panic in the morning mist, convinced they drank of death!
They mistook the dizzy sunrise for a poison in their blood,
And turned their drunken rage into a violent, blind flood! (blind flood!)
Arcturus burns in the frozen night,
Boötes herds the celestial flight!
Driving the oxen, steering the plow,
Tracking the bears round the northern brow!
(They threw the master down the well…)
Turned harmless joy into living hell!
(Follow the arc across the sky…)
Where honest plowmen never die!
Dionysus took the shepherd and he set him in the stars,
Far beyond the madness, beyond the mortal scars!
Look north along the great bear’s tail: follow the golden arc!
Arcturus guides the farmer’s eyes across the velvet dark! (follow the arc!)
With Izar and with Muphrid carved in timeless diamond stone,
The Herdsman walks forever by the frozen cosmic throne!
(Driving the plow!)
(Chasing the bears!)
Arcturus burns in the frozen night,
Boötes herds the celestial flight!
Driving the oxen, steering the plow,
Tracking the bears round the northern brow!
(They threw the master down the well…)
Turned harmless joy into living hell!
(Follow the arc across the sky…)
Where honest plowmen never die!
Follow the arc to Arcturus…
The boyero drives the sky.
Behind the Great Bear,
Behind the Little Bear.
(Never dying…)
Boötes herds the dark.
Like every Astronomika Beats song, this one hides more than one astronomical clue. If you already caught them, tell us in the comments what you found. If not, give it another listen.