Wednesday 19 April 2017

Quotes 2017 #110

"Tiresias goes blind for having seen what must not be seen, the coupling of two snakes, or perhaps the nakedness of Athena, or perhaps even the Gorgon in the eyes of the goddess with the penetrating gaze (oxyderkes). He then predicts to Narcissus that he will go on living as long as he does not see himself, and to Pentheus that he will lose his life for having SEEN the sacred rites of Dionysus, or for having LET himself BE SEEN as a boar by the Bacchants."

Jacques Derrida, Memoirs of the Blind. (Brault and Naas trans.)