Rom. and Jul., Act III. Sc. 2.
Many of the phrases of the ancient tongues, in which the eye bears a part, have been handed down to us, and are still preserved in our own. My space, however, forbids me to do more than allude to them; but there is one very forcible expression in the Hebrew
עַיִן בְּעַיִן
, literally, eye in eye, which we render much less forcibly—face to face. The Welsh have preserved it exactly in their llygad yn llygad. Indeed, this is not the only instance in which they are proud of having handed down the Hebrew idiom in all its purity. Shakspeare twice uses the old phrase:
"Since then my office hath so far prevailed,
That face to face, and royal eye to eye,
You have congreeted."—Hen. V., Act V. Sc. 2.
And in Tro. and Cres., Act III. Sc. 3; but it appears now to be obsolete.
Before concluding, I cannot help noticing, in connexion with this subject, the Old English term "the apple of the eye." I am unable to trace it beyond the Anglo-Saxon. The Teutonic sehandes ougen, pupilla oculi, is totally distinct; seha being merely medius punctus oculi, whence sehan, videre. In the Semitic languages, as well as in the Greek and Latin, the origin of the term is the same, and gives no clue to the meaning of the Saxon term. Thus, in the Hebrew
אִישׁוֹן