The Indian singer (Rigveda I. 164. 14), says that the sun has a sharp sight, and the same idea is preserved in a relic of Hebrew mythology, which has attached itself to an historical person. Of King David, an historical hero, it is written among other features borrowed from the myth of the Solar hero (to which also must belong the idea that he takes the life of his _giant_ adversary by _hurling stones_), that 'he was ruddy, with beautiful eyes, and a good sight, admônî ʿim yephê ʿênayim we-ṭôbh rôʾî' (1 Sam. XVI. 12). The red colour itself which is praised, since the narrator evidently wishes to characterise David’s handsomeness, shows us that these traits cannot have been invented directly for the hero of this story; for it can scarcely be proved that the Hebrews in ancient times considered reddishness an element of beauty. But the red colour is admirably fitted to figures of the solar myth, as we shall have further occasion to observe in the course of this chapter. With this are connected the beautiful eyes and the good sight, which are certainly taken from the mythical description of the blazing midday sun. They are the relics of a mythic cycle only preserved in fragments, and have been tacked on to the portraiture of an historical hero, who had, like the Solar hero, to fight with a hostile giant. When the sun appeared at noon with a red glow at its highest point in the heaven, the men of old said ‘The Red one is looking down on the earth with his perfect eyes and sharp sight.’ And he viewed the diminution of the solar rays and heat as a weakening of his sight, which ended at sunset with total blindness. Samson (Shimshôn), the hero whose solar character Steinthal has raised above all doubt, ends his heroic career by being made blind. In the Greek mythology the significance of one-eyed and blinded persons is exhibited with equal clearness.[309] This mythical idea is very clearly reflected in language. In Arabic, for example, iṭlachamma or iṭrachamma signifies both _oculos hebetiores habuit_ and _obscura fuit_ [nox]. The verb aġdana, from which aġdan is derived, which is used of suffering from certain eye-diseases, expresses the idea of darkness, and the word inchasafa unites the two meanings _to be eclipsed_ (of the moon) and _to lose one’s sight_. Hence the expression, al-leyl aʿwar, ‘the night is one-eyed.’[310] It becomes clear from all this what is the meaning of the mythical words, ‘And when Isaac was old, his eyes became too dim to see.’ It may also be mentioned here that Shakespeare calls night the _eyeless_:— Thou and eyeless night Have done me shame. _King John_ V. 6.