Blue eyes
Vassilis Zidianakis
• The eye does not see itself. It looks outwards. The Greeks’ existential perception of themselves did not result from introspection, but from how they saw themselves reflected back in the eyes of others. The word πρόσωπο, denoting both person and personality, literally means before the other’s eye.
• In Homer, “seeing” is described as an arrow of fire -one of the primal elements- shot from the eye, like a ray of sun. The word describing this capacity, δέρκομαι, gives rise to the word dragon and the image of deadly flames darting from its eyes.
• Could the very idea of “evil eye” derive from this lethal association of sight with fire? For many cultures the eye is where the human soul -a force for evilresides. The Greek word for the “evil eye” connoted calumny, envy, accusation, evil.
• The element of water is also evoked, however, since sight is the product of reflection and the eye a liquid mirror. Those susceptible to the evil eye are happy, beautiful, admirable, and perfect. Constant protection from the evil eye is therefore necessary, constituting a source of inspiration in designing objects deterring the evil eye from time immemorial. The most popular of these talismans are the blue eye like beads found all over the Mediterranean which act like liquid mirrors deflecting the evil eye.
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