Sight and Light

In his ninth Paean Ode (frg. 52k), Pindar addresses the sun’s ray as the mother of all eyes. Like many other such phrases, Pindar’s label attests to the powerful idea, pervasive in early Greek poetry, that there is a natural kinship between the eye and the sun. The image of the sun as “seeing” goes back to the Homeric epics, which adopted concepts of the all-seeing sun-god from Egypt and the ancient Near East. But it is only with the emergence of Greek philosophy and science (above all from the fifth century bce onwards) that this poetic notion is converted into a systematic model of perception, based on paradigms of organic equality or even connaturality. Sun and eye are thought to share physical and operational similarities: the very emission of fire is associated with the ability to see. The fact that seeing is a capacity inherent in light and fire implies, however, that sight does not necessarily need a living body or mind to be exercised. Sight is an activity that can be unconnected, even detached, from subjectivity: it can be understood in relation to anything that is endowed with fire or reflective of light. ¹