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Seeing Weasels: The Superstitious Background of the Empusa Scene in the Frogs

1968; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 18; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1017/s0009838800022059

1471-6844

E. K. Borthwick,

Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies

Every Greek scholar knows the celebrated lapsus linguae committed by the tragic actor Hegelochus at the Great Dionysia of 408 B.C., when he faltered in his enunciation of line 279 of Euripides' Orestes and gave the impression to the mirthful audience of having said I am surprised, however, that the commentators on this line (and on Ar. Ran. 303, the most notable of the references in the comic poets to Hegelochus' lapse) have only partially explained the reason for its having seemed exceptonally funny.