🚀 go-pugleaf

Well, folk etymologies are nice, but here's what the _The Concise
Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs_ has to say about the windows of
the soul:

     "the face is a picture of the mind as the eyes are its
     interpreter ... the face (also, eye) is the index of the
     mind."  -- Cicero

     "The eyes ... are the wyndowes of the mynde, for both ioye &
     anger are ... seene ... through them."  -- T.Phaer [1545]

     "I can refell [refute] that Paradox ... of those, which hold
     the face to be the Indexe of the minde." -- Johnson [1601]

     "The eye, which is the reflector of the external world, is
      also the mirror of the soul within."  -- G. Seaver [1940]

And, not until 1979!!! in the form it seems most familiar:

      "If the old saying, the eyes are the window of the soul,
      were true, then this young girl had misplaced her soul."
      -- J. Gerson [1979]

So actually the eye or face is the interpreter, index, mirror or
window of the soul or mind.  It's interesting that all these
expressions and uses do tend toward the view from the outside,
not the homunculus view from the inside -- the eyes of person X
show the observor Y what X's soul and mind are up to.  None of
the expressions look through the other side of the window to
suggest that the eyes of person X are the windows which the soul
of person X uses to observe the world.


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             Jeff Zucker  c/o  <blz1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu>
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