Il funambolo e la fabula mendax di Dedalo in Vn. poet. syll. 23 Z (= 112 R = 101 SB)

Abstract

This paper analyzes the epigram De funambulo (De tightrope walker), contained in Vn. poet. syll. 23 Z(urli) (=112 R =101 SB), from the points of view of its style, of its structure and of its materies sermonis. It focuses mainly on the paradoxical nature of its debunking and demythologizing pointe (starring Daedalus), conducted on the blade of a demystification which appears ‘acrobatic’ and deliberately absurd. Its mechanism is based on the strategic quote of a passage of the poem Aetna (510-511), contained in the Appendix Vergiliana. The article also includes two critical digressions on anth. Voss. 18 Z, 47, 48, the source of which is identified in Sil. 12, 89-95 (particularly 95) and on Vn. poet. syll. 87-88 Z: the paper’s author acknowledges, beyond the references to the Virgilian model, already detected either by previous scholars, a parodial reversal pertaining to fables that makes implicit reference to the apologue “The hen / goose with the golden eggs” (Avian. 33).