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Where Did The Phrase The Eyes Have It First Appear In Literature?

Saw this phrase in several recent novels and older poetry. Is it originally from Shakespeare, or did it debut in a later detective story?
2025-10-17 08:29:15
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9 Answers

Best Answer
Kavita Maheshwari
Kavita Maheshwari
This is a bit of a harder one to pinpoint in older texts, but I can think of a few instances where it is expressed in the works of Shakespeare, for example, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ when it is said that ‘love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind’. I have just finished reading ‘Captivating The Eyes’, a modern fantasy romance novel where the entire magic system and plot of the book revolves around the power of sight and how different characters perceive the world. It is a really interesting concept that is explored throughout the book, and not just used as a quote.
2026-08-02
Olivia
Olivia
I saw ‘the ayes have it’ used as the caption for an old political cartoon. I wondered where that had come from. The formal phrase is from centuries of parliamentary procedure and is used to indicate that the majority have voted for something. So ‘ayes’ are heard in many legislative halls long before anyone started making eyes at this phrase.

The play on words ‘the eyes have it’ has been developed by writers and cartoonists. At first sight it seems to be just a literal translation of ‘the ayes have it’ into a visual image. But in practice it is much more. The phrase turns up in Victorian and Edwardian magazines and papers, in comedies played on the stage, in cartoons with captions. Here the image of eyes or of spectacles is used as a punch line. The homophony of ‘the ayes have it’ and ‘the eyes have it’ is used as a pun. Lexicographers point out that this is a very common development of homophony: first the formal phrase is in use; later the same words are used in humorous echoes in all kinds of popular culture. I love this little piece of language evolution. It gives me so much pleasure when I see the gag used in films and photo captions.
2025-10-19
Emma
Emma
This plays off of a longer joke with origins in the 19th century when visual media and illustrated periodicals first began to appear. In this era, the core legislative phrase “the ayes have it” (old vote-calling formula) was reworked by authors, cartoonists and performers of all kinds into the little wordplay “the eyes have it.”

The image is used in a short story, in cartoons that run as strips in magazines such as Punch, in playbills, in advertisements for vaudeville performances, etc. It is such a wild meme that it is hard to trace it to any one written work, but in its many forms across the various newspapers, magazines, and theater scripts it is hilarious. In general, this type of humor is transferred from formal oratory to popular culture, and thus is able to be used in a very casual, even insolent way.
2025-10-21
Jude
Jude
I love finding wordplay, and “the eyes have it” is one of these tiny treasures which originated as a pun on “the ayes have it” (the official way of declaring that a vote has been carried). The phrase started life long before it became popular in print and cartoons, and clever writers continued to use the sound-alike to make humorous visual comments in captions, in jokes, and as a line for a character to say on stage. This type of wordplay was much loved by the humorists of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Locating the first literary usage of ‘the eyes have it’ is a bit of a non-starter, since it appears in newspapers and in cartoons, not between the covers of one book. But as formal procedure is here juxtaposed with witty observation, I have always liked the way this phrase seems to smile with itself.
2025-10-22
Uma
Uma
A personal note about tracing out the etymology of a parliamentary phrase first mentioned in newspapers, cartoons and other entertainment in order to arrive at a more serious origin in the decisions of assemblies and parliaments throughout history. Long ago “the ayes have it” was used to inform the body of a majority decision having been reached. The homophone “the eyes have it” was clearly a joke to be used in a visual setting – a scene with lots of spectators, a theater, a magic show where attention was focused on someone’s eyes or their gaze.

Puns are by their very nature ephemeral, so they turn up in all sorts of odd places in 19th-century periodicals. There’s the illustrated magazine, the stage comedian’s script, the caption on a photograph. Most often of course the writer uses the phrase in a clever way and then moves on to other things. I enjoy tracking down these uses of the phrase because they make me feel as though I’ve uncovered some private jest, a cartoonist’s aside, long since forgotten.
2025-10-23

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