Hollowed Hand & Robber’s Fist
From ocean foam were spawned the triple Graeae, sea-virgins, born to darkness — eyeless, toothless, already ancient and gray-headed. Three sisters passed amongst themselves one all-seeing eye, one tooth of divination, each appliance to be used in turn: fitted into its raw socket, activated, then plucked out and handed on. How total the unseeing must be after giving up the eye to one’s sister. How deep the unknowing after giving up the tooth.
Perseus, hero on a quest, snatched their eye and held it hostage until the blinded creatures told him what he wanted to know. Then he flew off in his borrowed magic sandals and, as he left, tossed the eyeball into Lake Tritonis.
Perseus “laid ambush for
the sentinel eye …,
the ball of the sleepless eye
that passed from hand to hand,
giving each her share
under the wing of sleep in turn.”
—Nonnus, Dionysiaca 25. 64 ff
Mythic Hero: a thief who steals glory as a path to immortality.
The hero Perseus “crept up on tiptoe,
keeping his footfall noiseless,
and with hollowed hand and
robber’s fist
caught the roving eye...”
—Nonnus, Dionysiaca 24. 270 ff
(trans. Rouse) (Greek epic C5th A.D.)*