"Who said ""In the Country of the Blind The One-eyed Man is King?"
Riders of the Purple Wage in the story as the quote, "In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is King". The original phrase is "In regione caecorum, rex est luscus," from Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus' Collecteana Adagiorum. This is likely to also be a reference to the early SF writer H. G. Wells' story, "The Country of the Blind" in which a sighted man finds himself in a literal country of the blind, plots to use his advantage to rule them, but fails because his ability is not appreciated by the population. Algis Budrys said that "Riders of the Purple Wage" shows how to
The Country of the Blind them early on, rendering all newborns blind. As the blindness slowly spread over many generations, the people's remaining senses sharpened, and by the time the last sighted villager had died, the community had fully adapted to life without sight. Nuñez descends into the valley and finds an unusual village with windowless houses and a network of paths, all bordered by kerbs. Upon discovering that everyone is blind, Nuñez begins reciting to himself the proverb, "In the Country of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is King". He realizes that he can teach and rule them, but the villagers have no concept