Storie di trickster e di parodia in Esopo, Euforione (SH 415 ii.1) e Licofrone (Alex. 648‑719)

This work aims to analyze some trickster stories, which can be told both for fun and on serious or sacred occasions, but also to draw some parallels between a selection of poems by Euphorion (Thrax, Chiliades, and Araí) and Lykophron or Aesop. The obscene allusions to Semiramis in the Thrax are analyzed, in an imprecatory poem that produces a comic effect. In the same way, some elements of ‘irony’ and ‘parody’ are explored to relate the mythical and glorious past of the Greek world to Lykophron’s Alexandra (Alex. 648–719 and 815–819). Erysichthon throws σκώμματα against Demeter (Callimachus’ Sixth Hymn, The Hymn to Demeter), and seems to be the protagonist of a mythical tale that is inappropriate for the whole work, and which recalls certain passages of Euphorion (the end of the Thrax, the episode of Semiramis, the events of Calchas, the Argive mantis, Xenarchus called Metretes, etc.) where, in addition to referring to the oscillating use of humor and parody, the figure of the trickster is added. Also Thersites, the Trojan hero with an unclear role in the Iliad—cowardly, lame, hunchback—was the subject of a story of Euphorion (cfr. fr. 134 Cusset-Acosta-Hughes = fr. 67 Lightfoot = fr. 132 Clúa = fr 110 van Groningen).