[f. EYE sb.1 + STRING sb.] In pl. The strings (i.e., muscles, nerves or tendons) of the eye. (The ‘eyestrings’ were formerly supposed to break or crack at death or loss of sight.)
1601. B. Jonson, Poetaster, Induct. Cracke eystrings … let me be euer blind.
1607. Beaum. & Fl., Woman Hater, II. i. D ij b. The last words that my dying father spake, Before his eye-strings brake.
1611. Shaks., Cymb., I. iii. 17. I would haue broke mine eye-strings; crack’d them, but To looke vpon him.
1639. Fuller, Holy War, II. xxxix. (1647), 96. When once those eye-strings begin to break, the heart-strings hold not long after.
1675. Hobbes, Odyssey (1677), 108. All his Eye-strings with the fire did strut.
1682. Otway, Venice Preserv’d, II. i. 24. Gaze on thee till my Eye-strings crackt with Love.
1707. Mortimer, Husb., 178. See … that their [sheep’s] Gums be red … the Eye-strings ruddy.
1776. Toplady, Bk. Praise, 159. When my eyestrings break in death.
1778. Arminian Mag., I. 268. His Eye-strings were broke, his Speech entirely gone.
