different localities different qualities, colouring or brilliance or
prominence, excite special notice and, with notice, disfavour. The evil
eye, it would seem, is a regular attribute both of the Gorgon and of
the wolf; for both, by merely looking upon a man, are still believed to
inflict some grievous suffering,--dumbness, madness, or death; and yet
there is little in common between the narrow, crafty eye of the wolf
and either the prominent, glaring eyes in an ancient Medusa’s head or
the passionate, seductive eyes of the modern Gorgon, unless it be that
any fixed unflinching gaze is sufficient reason for alarm.
Some such explanation will best account for the strange vagary of
superstition which brings under the category of the evil eye two
classes of things which seemingly would have no connexion either with
it or with each other, looking-glasses and the stars.
To look at oneself in a mirror is, in some districts, regarded as a
dangerous operation, especially if it be prolonged. A bride, being
specially liable to all sinister influences, is wise to forego the
pleasure of seeing her own reflection in the glass; and a woman in
child-bed, who is no less liable, is deprived of all chance of seeing
herself by the removal of all mirrors from the room. The risk in
all cases is usually greatest at night, and in the town of Sinasos
in Cappadocia no prudent person would at that time incur it[5]. The
reflection, it would seem, of a man’s own image may put the evil eye
upon him by its steady gaze: and it was in fear of such an issue that
Damoetas, in the _Idylls_ of Theocritus, after criticizing his own
features reflected in some glassy pool, spat thrice into his bosom that
he might not suffer from the evil eye[6].
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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