Hegelochus: The Ancient Greek Actor We Only Know About Because He Really, Really Fluffed Up His Line

In Ancient Greece, living around 400 BCE, there was an actor named Hegelochus. We only know this because he really, really fucked up his lines, and was mocked by comedic writers for centuries.

Hegelochus, we have figured out from fragments of plays which remain available to us, was an Athenian actor who had landed a juicy role in Orestes, by Euripides. To describe it in a way which will annoy fans of Ancient Greek plays, cinema, or similes in general, it was like landing the role of Optimus Prime in Michael Bay's Transformers (2007). 

The play, very much like Michael Bay's Transformers (2007), was a tragedy, which followed Orestes in the aftermath of killing his mother. The role was a tragic one, with plenty of dramatic moments as he and his sister Electra attempt to escape execution for the murder.

In short, Hegelochus really shouldn't have been getting huge laughs out of the material. But on one performance (we don't know when, but let's choose to imagine opening night) he managed to keep people laughing for a good century by accidentally pioneering the gag reel.

During a tragic scene in which he discusses his mother's murder with his sister, Hegelochus was supposed to utter the emotionally-loaded line "γαλήν' ὁρῶ, galḗn' horô". But instead, he came out with a surprising "γαλῆν ὁρῶ, galên horô".

For those of you who have been slacking on your Ancient Greek (tsk tsk), that may look like a teeny tiny pronunciation error. But for those who could understand the language, this was quite the amusing mistake. 

Instead of saying "after the storm I see again a calm sea", a line which meant he was recovering from a bout of madness, he had declared "after the storm I see again a weasel".

That's a mistake so bad that simply quickly getting out the following line "sister, why wrap your head in your dress and cry?" isn't going to stop your audience from having quite a lot of questions about weasels, and the surprising presence of weasels. For example: This guy, who is trying to explain he is no longer going mad, is now seeing weasels running around the place?

The fluffed line was enough to bring the house down. As well as being quite a surprising twist – I can't think of any tragic monologues which couldn't be improved with an impromptu weasel attack – this was considered funny as the weasels were thought to be unlucky, contrasting with the upbeat attitude of the line.

Here's the bit that is perhaps a bit funnier to modern audiences; we only know about this incident because it got written into quite a few comic plays afterwards, becoming a legendary error in acting history. People found it so funny that for a good hundred years, comedic writers could still milk the incident for laughs.

Hegelochus's tale was mentioned by no less than four comic poets in their works: Strattis, Aristophanes, Sannyrion, and Plato (no, not that one). These are not retellings of the incident either, but more references that are clearly meant to be familiar to the audience, suggesting the story was known to just about everybody in the audience. 

Strattis merely makes a character say that the play was ruined by casting Hegelochus, while others made more of an effort with their references. In Sannyrion's Danae, Zeus is attempting to sneak into Danae's chamber, and thinks through his options, leading to what is genuinely quite a funny line.

"What should I turn myself into and sneak in through the chimney? Let me think," Zeus says. "Suppose I became a weasel? But Hegelochus the tragic actor, would immediately give me away. When he saw me, he’d shout in a loud voice, 'For now after the storm I see a weasel' again."

Essentially, as one scholar explains, turning Hegelochus into a sort of Phantom of the Opera type character, who is always lurking somewhere off stage and ready to pounce down into the performance to really fuck up your play.

It's not clear when the references stopped getting passed down from play to play, but thanks to the diligent work of archaeologists and linguists, we now know precisely which ancient actor not to cast in Hamlet, assuming you want your Hamlet to be weasel-free. 

Academic studies have been written, looking into how he made that mistake, explaining that it couldn't have been caused by him running out of breath, taking that excuse from the man who had been dead for 2,400 years.

And that is all we know of Hegelochus, a human who lived as rich a life as you or I all those hundreds of years ago. All forgotten apart from one badly pronounced line, proclaiming that he'd seen a weasel, because people mocked him about it for ages. 

It really makes you proud to be human.