concept

Looking taboo

Myth & story

The narrative prohibition against looking back or looking on a forbidden sight. Not orpheus-and-eurydice as one telling alone, and not forbidden-knowledge as every broken rule.

Shinto

  • Looking taboo appears in Shinto.

    The Kojiki charges Izanagi not to look upon Izanami in Yomi; the broken looking-ban drives the underworld rupture. Named looking-taboo motif in that narrative, not Orpheus alone and not the broader taboo concept edge already filed.

    from Ō no Yasumaro (compiler); Donald L. Philippi (translation) · Kojiki, 712 CE; Philippi trans. 1968

    appears in · sourced · documented

Hellenic religion

  • Looking taboo appears in Hellenic religion.

    Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book 10 makes Orpheus’s backward look the condition that loses Eurydice. A named looking-taboo beat in that poem, not Actaeon’s seeing Diana as the same claim and not every gaze dump.

    from Ovid · Metamorphoses, 8 CE

    appears in · sourced · documented

sources

  • Kojiki · Ō no Yasumaro (compiler); Donald L. Philippi (translation)

    Donald L. Philippi, Kojiki.

  • Metamorphoses · Ovid

    Ovid, Metamorphoses.