[25\1: ~--io/nti eis Aï/dao chersi\ kat' ophthalmou\s ele/ein su/n te sto/m' erei=sai~, ~l~ 426; cf. ~L~ 453, ~ô~ 296. To do this is the duty of the next of kin, mother or wife. The necessity for closing the sightless eyes and dumb mouth of the dead is intelligible without reference to any superstitious _arrière pensée_. Such an idea is, however, dimly discernible in such a phrase as ~a/chris ho/tou _psuchê/n_ mou mêtro\s che/res ei=lan ap' o/ssôn~, _Epigr. Gr._, 314, 24. Was there originally some idea of the "soul" being released by these means?--Seat of the soul in the ~ko/rê~ of the eye: ~psuchai\ d' en ophthalmoi=si tô=n teleutô/ntôn~, Babr. 95, 35 (see Crusius, _Rh. Mus._ 46, 319). Augurium non timendi mortem in aegritudine quamdiu oculorum pupillae imaginem reddant, Plin., _N.H._ 28, 64; cf. Grimm, p. 1181. (If a person can no longer see his or her ~ei/dôlon~ {47} in a mirror it is a sign of approaching death, Oldenburg, _Rel. d. Ved._, 526 [p. 449^3 French tr.].)--Among many peoples it is believed that the eyes of the dead must be closed in order to prevent the dead person seeing or haunting anyone in the future: Robinsohn, _Psychol. d. Naturv._, 44; cf. Cic., _Verr._ v, 118 (of the Greeks); Vg., _A._ iv, 684 f.: extremus si quis super halitus errat ore legam. Serv. ad loc.: muliebriter, tamquam possit animam sororis excipere et in se transferre (cf. _Epigr. Gr._, 547; _IG. Sic. et It._, 607e, 9-10). ~psuchê/~ making its exit through the mouth: ~I~ 409; cf. "Among the Seminoles of Florida when a woman died in childbirth the infant was held over her face to receive her parting spirit and thus acquire strength and knowledge for future use," Tylor, i, 433.] [26\1: And even ~ana\ pro/thuron tetramme/nos~, ~T~ 212, i.e. with feet turned towards the door. The reason for this custom--which existed elsewhere, too, and still exists--is hardly to be sought only in the _ritus naturae_, as Plin. 7, 46, thinks. This has generally little to do with the customs observed on the solemn occasions of life. The meaning of the practice is much more naively revealed in a statement about the manners of the Pehuenchen Indians in South America given by Pöpig, _Reise in Chile, Peru, etc._, i, 393. There they carry the dead man feet foremost out of the door "because if the corpse of the dead man were carried out otherwise his wandering ghost might come back into the house". The Greek custom, though in Homeric times long faded to a mere symbol, must be supposed to have depended originally upon similar fears of the return of the "soul". (Similar precautions arising from the same belief were customary at funerals elsewhere: Oldenberg, _Rel. d. Veda_, 573-4 [489 F.T.]. Robinsohn, _Psychol. d. Naturv._, 45 f.) Belief in the incomplete departure of the soul from this world has dictated these customs, too.] [27\1: The details of the procedure until the funeral dirge are given in ~S~ 343-55.]