Notes on the throbbing of the right eye

A. From the story “Jīmūtavāhana’s adventures in a former birth”:

Note: this text is extracted from Book IV, chapter 22.

“Then the next day that maiden came there, and at every step my mind, full of strange longings, flew to meet her, and her arrival was heralded by this my right eye, throbbing as if through eagerness to behold her. And that maid with lovely eyebrows was beheld by me, on the back of a knotty-maned lion, like a digit of the moon resting in the lap of an autumn cloud...”

Throbbing of the right eye in men portends union with the beloved.——In all countries involuntary twitchings or itchings are looked upon with great superstition—movements of the right ear, hand, leg, etc., signifying good luck and the left bad luck. This was the case among the Hindus, but it applied only to men. With women the omens were reversed.

Thus in Kālidāsa’s Sakuntalā (Act V), Sakuntalā says,

“Alas! what means this throbbing of my right eyelid?”

to which Gautamī replies,

“ Heaven avert the evil omen, my child! May the guardian deities of thy husband’s family convert it into a sign of good fortune!”

As is natural, such superstitions enter largely into English literature. To give a few examples:

“ Mine eyes do itch;
Doth that bode weeping?”
                                  Shakespeare, Othello, iv, 3.

“If your lips itch, you shall kisse somebody.”
                                  Melton, Astrologaster, p. 32.

“We shall ha’ guests to-day
. . . My nose itcheth so.”
                                  Dekker, Honest Whore.

“ By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.”
                                  Shakespeare, Macbeth, iv, 1.

In The Encyclopædia of Superstitions, Folk-Lore and the Occult Sciences (edited by Cora Linn Daniels and Prof. C. M. Stevans, Chicago and Milwaukee, 1903, vol. i, pp. 298-300 and p. 338) numerous references will be found under the headings “Itching” and “Twitching.” Apart from superstitions relating to all parts of the face are included those regarding the palm, knee, elbow, leg, etc. For sneezing see Vol. Ill, Appendix I, of this work. —n.m.p.

B. From the story of “the Merchant and his Wife Velā”:

Note: this text is extracted from Book XI, chapter 67:

“And in one place I saw a maiden engaged in worshipping a liṅga, who was beautiful, although dressed in the garb of a dweller in the forest. I began to think: ‘This girl is wonderfully like my beloved. Can she be my beloved herself? But how comes it that I am so lucky as to find her here?’ And while these thoughts were passing in my mind, my right eye throbbed frequently, as if with joy, and told me that it was no other than she. And I said to her: ‘Fair one, you are fitted to dwell in a palace; how comes it that you are here in the forest?’ But she gave me no answer”

Cf. Eustathius’ novel Hysmine and Hysminias, Book IX, chapter iv:

“’Επὶ δὴ τούτοις πῦσιν ὀφθαλμὸς ἤλατό μου ὁ δεξιὸς, καὶ ἦν μοι τὸ σηεῖμοω ἀγαθὸν, καὶ τὸ προμάντευμα δεξιώτατον.”

See also Theocritus, iii, 37:

“ἅλλεται ὀφταλμός μεν ὁ δεξιός· ἆρα γ’ἰδησῶ αὐτάν”;

where Fritsche quotes Plaut. ,Pseudol., I, i, 105.

Brand in his Papular Antiquities, vol. iii, p. 172, quotes the above passage from Theocritus, and a very apposite one from Dr Nathaniel Home’s Dæmonologie:

“If their ears tingle, they say they have some enemies abroad that doe or are about to speake evill of them: so, if their right eye itcheth, then it betokens joyful laughter.”

Bartsch in his Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche aus Meklenburg, says:

“Throbbing in the right eye betokens joy, in the left, tears.”

In Norway throbbing in the right ear is a good sign, in the left a bad sign (Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 327). Forcellini s.v. “Salisatores” quotes from Isidore, viii, 9:

“Salisatores vocati sunt, qui dum eis membrorum quaecunque partes salierint, aliquid sibi exinde prosperum, seu triste significare praedicunt.”

——For details of Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiæ, see Thorndike, History of Magic, vol. i, pp. 623-633. See also Vol. II, pp. 144n¹, 145n.— n.m.p.