LOVE KISSES
“At the time of the world’s creation kisses were created and cruel
love.” Thus begins a Cypriot folk-song, and it is assuredly without the
shadow of a doubt that among all nations which on the whole know
kissing, it gets its sublimest meaning as the expression of love.
In the transport of love the lovers’ lips seek each other. When Byron’s
Don Juan wanders one evening along the shore with his Haidee, they
glance at the moonlit sea which lies outspread before them, and they
listen to the lapping of the waves and the whispering murmur of the
breeze, but suddenly they
Saw each other’s dark eyes darting light
Into each other--and, beholding this,
Their lips drew near, and clung into a kiss.
* * * * *
They had not spoken, but they felt allured,
As if their souls and lips each other beckoned,
Which, being joined, like swarming bees they clung--
Their hearts the flowers from whence the honey sprung.
The kiss of love is the exultant message of the longing of love, love
eternally young, the burning prayer of hot desire, which is born on the
lovers’ lips, and “rises,” as Charles Fuster has said, “up to the blue
sky from the green plains,” like a tender, trembling thank-offering.
Que tous les cœurs soient apaisés
Et toutes les lèvres ouvertes,
Qu’un frémissement de baisers
Monte au ciel bleu des plaines vertes!
The love kiss, rich in promise, bestows an intoxicating feeling of
infinite happiness, courage, and youth, and therefore surpasses all
other earthly joys in sublimity--at any rate all poets say so--and no
one has expressed it in more exquisite and choicer words than Alfred de
Musset in his celebrated sonnet on Tizianello:
Beatrix Donato was the soft sweet name
Of her whose earthly form was shaped so fair;
A faithful heart lay in her breast’s white frame,
Her spotless body held a mind most rare.
The son of Titian, for her deathless fame,
Painted this portrait, witness of love’s care,
And from that day renounced his art’s high claim,
Loth that another dame his skill should share.
Stranger, if in your heart love doth abide,
Gaze on my lady’s picture ere you chide.
Say if perchance your lady’s fair as this.
Then mark how poor a thing is fame on earth;
Grand as this portrait is, it is not worth--
Believe me on my oath--the model’s kiss.
W. F. H.
Thus even the highest work of art, yea, the loftiest reputation, is
nothing in comparison with the passionate kiss of a woman one loves.
This is what life has taught Musset, and a half melancholy sigh rings
through his exultation over the omnipotence of love. In turning to the
more _naïve_ speech of popular poetry, we find in a German
_Schnaderhüpfel_ (Improvisation) a corresponding homage to the kiss as
the noblest thing in the world:
My sweetheart’s poor,
But fair to behold.
What use were wealth?
I cannot kiss gold.
W. F. H.
And we all yearn for kisses and we all seek them; it is idle to struggle
against this passion. No one can evade the omnipotence of the kiss, the
best resolutions, the most solemn oaths, are of no avail. A pretty
little Servian folk-song treats of a young girl who swore too hastily.
Yestreen swore a maiden fair,
Ne’er again I’ll wear a garland,
Ne’er again I’ll wear a garland,
Wine again I’ll never drink,
Never more I’ll kiss a laddie.
Yestreen swore the maiden fair,
Clean to-day her oath’s regretted:
If I decked myself with flow’rets,
Then the flow’rets made me fairer;
If I quaffed the wine that’s ruddy,
Then my heart grew all the blither;
If I kissed my heart’s beloved,
Life to me grew doubly dearer.[6]
W. F. H.
It is through kisses that a knowledge of life and happiness first comes
to us. Runeberg says that the angels rejoice over the first kiss
exchanged by lovers.
The evening star was sitting beside a silver cloud,
A maid from out a twilight grove addressed this star aloud,
“Come, tell me, star of evening, what angels think in heaven
When by a youth and maiden the first sweet kiss is given?”
And heaven’s bashful daughter was heard to deign reply:
“On earth the choir of angels bright look down from out the sky,
And see their own felicity then mirrored on the earth,
But death sheds tears, and turns his eyes away from such blest mirth.”
W. F. H.
Only death weeps over the brief duration of human happiness, weeps
because the bliss of the kiss endures not for ever. And likewise, even
after death, lovers kiss. Jannakos and Helena, his plighted bride, die
before their wedding day. They die in a kiss and are buried together;
but over their grave grew a cypress and an orange tree, and the latter
stretched forth its branches on high and kissed the cypress.
The happiest man is the man who has the kiss. In the Greek romance of
_Babylonika_, which was attributed to Jamblicus, who lived in the second
century of the Christian era, three lovers contend for the favour of a
young maid. To one she has given the cup out of which she was wont to
drink; the second she has garlanded with flowers that she herself has
worn; to the third she has given a kiss. Borokos is called on as judge
to decide as to which has enjoyed the highest favour, and he
unhesitatingly decides the dispute in favour of the last.
The same subject is often the theme of folk-poetry, and the verdict
never alters; the joy bestowed by a kiss surpasses all other joys. A
Hungarian ballad runs thus:
As the hart holds dear the fountain,
And the bee the honied flow’rets,
So the noble grape I cherish;
After this songs melting, tender,
Kisses, too, of lips of crimson,
As thine own, O Cenzi mine.
But the wine’s might fires my senses,
And songs wake within me blitheness,
And with love intoxicated,
With thy love, mine own beloved.
And my heart no more is longing
After purple, after gew-gaws,
After what the others long for.
Happy am I in the clinking
Of the goblet filled with rich wine;
Happier still amidst sweet singing;
But my happiness were greatest,
Dared I press my kisses on a
Mouth, and that mouth only thine.
W. F. H.
The same idea is still more delicately expressed in the following
Servian ballad:
Proudly cried a golden orange
On the breezy shore:
“Certainly nowhere happiness
Is found to equal mine.”
Answered a green apple
From its apple tree:
“Fool to boast, golden orange,
On the breezy shore;
For happiness such as I’ve found,
Its like cannot be seen.”
Then said the breezy meadow,
As yet untouched by scythe:
“Too conceited, little apple,
That speech of thine, meseems,
For happiness such as I’ve found,
Its like cannot be seen.”
Then spake a lovely maiden,
Unsullied by a kiss:
“Thou pratest folly, grass-plot,
Instead of sooth, I ween,
For happiness such as I’ve found
Its like cannot be seen.”
But a handsome lad made answer
To every speech they made;
“You’re mad, all mad, to utter
Such words as I’ve just heard,
For no one in the universe
Can be so blest as I.”
“Golden orange by the breezy
Shore I pluck thee now.
Apple, from thy apple tree
To-day I’ll shake thee down.
Grass-plot, I’ll mow thee level
With my scythe-strokes to-day.
Maiden, as yet unsullied
To-day I’ll kiss thy lips.”
W. F. H.
In another Servian lay, the lover sings that he would rather kiss his
sweetheart than be the Sultan’s guest. In Spain the lover wishes he were
the water-cooler so that he might kiss his darling’s lips when she is
drinking:
Arcarrasa de tu casa,
Chiquiya, quisiera ser,
Para besarte los labios
Quando fueras á beber.
The Greeks say that the kiss is “the key to Paradise”; yea, it is
Paradise itself, declares Wergeland:
Nay, bride, thine embrace more than heav’n I prize;
Oh, kiss me once more that to heav’n I rise.
W. F. H.
The kiss is a preservation against every ill. “No ill-luck can betide me
when she bestows on me a kiss,” sings the old trouvère, Colin Muset:
Se de li ai un douz baisier
Ne me porroit nus mals venir.
It gives health and strength, adds Heine:
Yet could I kiss thee, O my soul,
Then straightway I should be made whole.
W. F. H.
It carries life with it; it even bestows the gift of eternal youth--if
one can believe the words of the Duke of Anhalt the minnesinger:
Your mouth is crimson; over its sweet portal
A kindly Genius seems for ever flowing.
If on that mouth a kiss I were bestowing,
Methinks I should in sooth become immortal.
W. F. H.
The Persians, too, had the same idea. The jovial Hafiz laments that
“sour wisdom added to old age and virtue” has laid waste his strength,
but a remedy is to be found for these:
“Come and drink,” the maiden whispered,
“Sin and sweetness, youthful folly,
Lovingly from lips of crimson,
From my bosom’s lily chalice,
And live on with strength redoubled.”
W. F. H.
And if a kiss is no good, then nought avails. In another passage the
same bard says, that were he suddenly on some occasion to feel himself
tormented by agony and unrest, no one is to give him bitter
medicine--for such he detests--but:
Hand me the foaming juice of the vine,
Jest and sing from your heart to mine,
And if these prove not a remedy sure,
Then a pair of red lips you must straight procure.
But if these latter avail not to save,
May I be laid deep down in the grave.
W. F. H.
In the case of lovers a kiss is everything; that is the reason why a man
stakes his all for a kiss. In _Enthousiasme_ Aarestrup says:
Ha, you’re blushing! What red roses
Deck your lips! A man were fain to,
If a chasm yawned before him,
Straightway peril life to gain you.
W. F. H.
And man craves for it as his noblest reward:
From beyond the high green mountains
Lamentations fraught with sadness
Issue, soft as from a girl’s voice.
Then a youth the sound pursueth,
And he sees a maiden shackled
Fast in fetters thick of roses.
Then the fair maid called unto him:
“Doughty youth, come here and help me;
I’ll be to you as a sister.”
But the youth straightway made answer:
“In my home I have a sister.”
“Doughty youth, come here and help me,
For a brother-in-law I’ll choose thee.”
Then the lad again made answer:
“In my home I have that title.”
“Come, young hero, and assist me,
And I’ll be thy heart’s belovèd.”
Quickly kissed he then the maiden
Ere he loosed her from her fetters,
Then went homeward with his bride.
W. F. H.
Thus runs a Servian ballad, and innumerable analogues to it are to be
found in the folk-lore of other countries, in ballads as well as tales.
It is, you know, for a kiss from the princess’s lovely mouth that the
swine-herd sells his wonderful pan.
But women are aware, too, of the witchery that dwells on their lips, and
the power that lies in their kiss. According to a remarkable _saga_
which forms the subject of one of Heine’s poems, King Harald Hårfager
sits at the bottom of the sea in captivity to a mermaid. The king’s head
is reposing on her bosom; but, suddenly, a violent tremor thrills him,
he hears the Viking shouts which reach him from above, he starts from
his dream of love and groans and sighs:
And then the King from the depth of his heart
Begins sobbing, and wailing, and sighing,
When quickly the water-fay over him bends,
With loving kisses replying.
Man is the slave of the kiss; by a kiss woman tames the fiercest man; by
means of a kiss man’s will becomes as wax. Our peasant girls in Denmark
know this, too, right well. When they want one of the lads to do them a
service they promise him “seven sweet kisses and a bit of white sugar on
Whitsunday morning.” “But he will get neither,” they say to themselves.
Now, as we have discussed the kiss and its importance as the direct
expression of love and erotic emotions, we will pass over to certain
more special aspects of its nature.
In the very first place, then, we have the quantitative conditions.
It is a matter of common knowledge that lovers are liberal in the
extreme in the question of kisses, which are given and taken to
infinity, and these have likewise continually the same intoxicating
freshness as at the first meeting. Everything in love is, you know, a
reiteration, and yet love is a perpetual renewing. How inspiriting are
the words of Tove to King Waldemar, as J. P. Jacobsen gives them:
And now I say for the first time:
“King Volmer, I love thee,”
And kiss thee now for the first time,
And fling mine arms round thee;
But should you say I’ve said this before,
And you to kisses are fain,
Then say I: “King, he’s but a fool
Who minds such trifles vain.”
W. F. H.
What has a love kiss to do with the law of renewal? That one does not
arrive at anything by _one_ kiss is expressed with sufficient plainness
in an Istro-Roumanian proverb: _Cu un trat busni nu se afla muliere_
(with a single kiss no woman is caught).
This maxim holds good besides in the case of both men and women. But how
many kisses are necessary then?
There is a little Greek folk-song called “All good things are three.” It
runs as follows:
Your first kiss brought me near to the grave,
Your second kiss came my life to save;
But if a third kiss you’ll bestow,
Not even death can bring me woe.
W. F. H.
But, nevertheless, we may assume without a shadow of a doubt that he was
not satisfied with these three kisses--lovers are not wont to be so
easily contented. The Spaniards and many other nations besides say of
lovers that “they eat each other up with kisses;” but more than three
are certainly required for that purpose:
Take this kiss and a thousand more, my darling,
W. F. H.
sings Aarestrup, but Catullus outbids him, however, in one of his songs
to Lesbia:
A thousand kisses; add five score:
Another thousand kisses more;
Then best forget them all,
Lest any wight with evil eye
Our too close counting might espy,
And dire mishap befall.[7]
W. F. H.
As we see, Catullus’ love has no trifling start over Aarestrup’s, and so
a later poet seems likewise to think that even his demands are quite
ridiculously small. “Nay,” says Joachim du Bellay to his Columbelle,
“give me as many kisses as there are flowers on the mead, seeds on the
field, and grapes in the vineyards, and so that you shall not deem me
ungrateful, I will immediately give you as many again.”
Du Bellay, moreover, bitterly upbraids the poet of Verona for asking for
so few kisses that they can, when taken together, be counted:
In truth Catullus’ wants are small,
And little can they really mean,
Since he could even count them all.
W. F. H.
I must, however, take Catullus’ part to a certain extent; he is not so
precise in his demands of Lesbia as Du Bellay makes out; in another poem
he asks her:
Thy kisses dost thou bid me count,
And tell thee, Lesbia, what amount
My rage for love and thee could tire,
And satisfy and cloy desire?
And the answer runs:
Many as grains of Libyan sand
Upon Cyrene’s spicy land
From prescient Ammon’s sultry dome
To sacred Battus’ ancient tomb;
Many as stars that silent ken
At night the stolen loves of men.
Yes, when the kisses thou shall kiss
Have reached a number vast as this,
Then may desire at length be stayed,
And e’en my madness be allayed:
Then when infinity defies
The calculations of the wise;
Nor evil voice’s deadly charm,
Can work the unknown number harm.
This being the case, it is a divine blessing that, according to the
Finnish saying, “the mouth is not torn by being kissed, nor the hand by
being squeezed”:
Suu ei kulu suudellessa,
Kāsi kāttā annellessa.
But even if the mouth is not exactly torn, yet much kissing may be
almost harmful; but there is only one remedy to be found for this--“you
must heal the hurts by fresh kisses.”
Dorat, who may be regarded as a high authority on philematology,
expressly says:
A second kiss can physic
The evil the first has wrought.
W. F. H.
And Heine, whose authority in these questions should hardly be inferior,
holds quite the same theory:
If you have kissed my lips quite sore,
Then kiss them whole again;
If we till evening meet no more,
Then hurry will be vain.
You have still yet the whole, whole night,
My dearest heart, know this:
One can in such a long, long night,
Kiss much and taste much bliss.
I make use of the last of the verses quoted as a transition to the next
question we have to investigate, viz., the qualitative aspect of
kissing, as I regard it apart from its merely gustative qualities, which
have already been considered.
The love kiss gleams like a cut diamond with a thousand hues; it is
eternally changing as the sun’s shimmer on the waves, and expresses the
most diverse states and moods, ranging from humble affection to burning
desire.
The love kiss “quenches the fire of the lips,” quells and stills longing
and desire, but it also burns and arouses regret. Margaret sits at her
spinning-wheel, and, in tremulous longing, calls to mind Faust’s ardent
kiss:
My peace is gone,
My heart is sore:
’Tis gone for ever
And evermore.
And the magic flow
Of his talk, the bliss
In the clasp of his hand,
And, oh, his kiss!
My bosom yearns
For him alone;
Ah, dared I clasp him,
And hold, and own!
And kiss his mouth,
To heart’s desire,
And on his kisses
At last expire!
Numberless poets have varied the theme of the quenching yet burning
kisses of love.
O’er me flows in streams delicious
Kisses’ rosy and glowing rain,
W. F. H.
sings Waldemar at his meeting with Tove, and Aarestrup laments:
In vain I’m seeking
In ev’ry land,
Thy sweetness burning
Of mouth and hand.
W. F. H.
This “burning sweetness” seems to be an indubitable characteristic of a
genuine love kiss; we even find it again in Heine:
The world’s an ass, the world can’t see,
Thy character not knowing,
It knows not how sweet thy kisses be,
How rapturously glowing.
The emotions consequent on the first kiss have been described in the old
_naïve_, but, nevertheless, exceedingly delicate love-story, of Daphnis
and Chloe. As a reward Chloe has bestowed a kiss on Daphnis--an innocent
young-maid’s kiss, but it has on him the effect of an electrical shock:
“Ye gods, what are my feelings. Her lips are softer than the rose’s
leaf, her mouth is sweet as honey, and her kiss inflicts on me more pain
than a bee’s sting. I have often kissed my kids, I have often kissed my
lambs, but never have I known aught like this. My pulse is beating fast,
my heart throbs, it is as if I were about to suffocate, yet,
nevertheless, I want to have another kiss. Strange, never-suspected
pain! Has Chloe, I wonder, drunk some poisonous draught ere she kissed
me? How comes it that she herself has not died of it?”
Impelled, as it were, by some irresistible force, Daphnis wanders back
to Chloe; he finds her asleep, but dares not awake her: “See how her
eyes slumber and her mouth breathes. The scent of apple-blossoms is not
so delicious as her breath. But I dare not kiss her. Her kiss stings me
to the heart, and drives me as mad as if I had eaten fresh honey.”
Daphnis’ fear of kisses disappears, however, later on, directly his
simplicity has made room for greater selfconsciousness. That a kiss is
like the sting of a bee, or pains like a wound, is a metaphor which many
poets have used, and the metaphor comes undoubtedly near the truth.
With growing passion, kisses become mad and violent:
Thy ruby lips, they kissed so wild,
So madly, so soul-disturbing;
W. F. H.
and such kisses leave marks behind them. Aarestrup’s mistress has
beautiful plump shoulders:
They curve, as of a goddess,
So naked and so bold.
I’ll brand your comely shoulders,
Such guerdon have they earned!
Look where my lips enfevered
Have scars of crimson burned.
W. F. H.
Hafiz’ mistress is afraid that “his too hot kisses will char her
delicate lips.” With continually increasing desire kisses grow more and
more voluptuous, and assume forms which have been celebrated by poets of
antiquity and the Renaissance. Many burning, erotic verses have been
composed on the subject _columbatim labra conserere_, or kissing as
doves kiss.
Kisses at last grow into bites. Mirabeau, in a love-letter to Sophie,
writes: “I am kissing you and biting you all over, _et jaloux de la
blancheur je te couvre de suçons_”; and the classic poets often speak of
the tiny red marks on cheeks or lips, neck or shoulders, which the
lovers’ _morsiunculæ_ have left behind.
Arethusa writes to Lycas: “What keeps you till now so long away from me?
Oh, suffer no young girl to print the mark of her teeth on your neck.”
The Italians use the expression _baciare co’ denti_ (kiss with the
teeth) to signify “to love.” We can only treat these kisses as a sort of
transitional link, of shorter or longer duration, according to
circumstances. They are, as it were, “a sea fraught with perils,” which
in Mlle. de Scudéry’s celebrated letter (_la carte de tendre_), carries
one to strange countries (_les terres inconnues_); but, as these
countries lie outside the regions of pure philematology, I shall not
pursue my investigations further. I will, however, first quote what old
Ovid has written, although I am not at all prepared to assert that his
opinion is entitled to have any special weight, more especially as it
is far from being unimpeachable from a moral point of view:
Oscula qui sumpsit, si non et cetera sumet,
Hæc quoque quæ data sunt perdere dignus erit.
Quantum defuerat pleno post oscula voto?
Heu mihi rusticitas, non pudor ille fuit.[8]
After the foregoing it would seem superfluous to enter into a closer
investigation of--if the term be allowed--the topographical aspects of
kissing. The love kiss is, as you are aware, properly directed towards
the mouth--a fact sufficiently known, and in testimony of which I have,
moreover, brought forward a number of passages from respectable and
trustworthy writers. I shall only add a German “Sinngedicht” of
Friedrich von Logau:
If you will kiss, then kiss the mouth,
All other sorts are but half blisses,
The face--ah, no--nor hand, neck, breast,
The mouth alone can give back kisses.
W. F. H.
Von Logau’s vindication of the mouth as the only place that ought to be
kissed is extremely logical, and, I take it, from a purely theoretical
point of view, unobjectionable; but, practically, the case is quite the
contrary. The royal _trouvère_, Thibaut de Champagne, treats in a
lengthy poem--one of the so-called _jeux-partis_--the question whether
one should kiss one’s mistress’s mouth or feet. Baudouin’s opinion is in
favour of kissing her on the mouth, and he gives his reasons for it at
some length; but Thibaut replies, that he who kisses his darling on the
mouth has no love for her, because that is the way one kisses any little
shepherdess one comes across; it is only by kissing her feet that a
lover shows his affection, and it is by such means alone that her favour
is to be won.
The question of feet or mouth is threshed out minutely by the two
contending parties, who at last agree in the opinion that one ought to
kiss both parts, beginning with the feet and ending with the mouth.
It cannot be denied that Thibaut de Champagne has a far better insight
into the matter than Von Logau, and yet even the old French poet’s point
of view must be characterised as being somewhat narrow.
All the other poets, you must know, teach us that not only the mouth,
but every part of our sweetheart’s body says, “Kiss me.”
Friends, if it only were my fate!
If fate would will it so,
I’d kiss her beauties small and great
From bosom down to toe.
W. F. H.
So sings Aarestrup, and he returns again and again to the same idea in
his _ritorneller_:
When scarce the mouth can longer feel such fooling,
Because thy lips are all too hotly burning,
Press them to bosom’s Alpine snows for cooling.
The arms so white and tender woo caresses;
A lovely pleasance, too, those plump white shoulders!
But through the soul a bosom-kiss straight presses.
Her snow-white shoulders! All what may be said on
Such beauty I have uttered. For my guerdon
Grant me one now to rest my weary head on.
At kisses pressed upon your neck’s fair closes
You thrilled and threw your head back, and I straightway
Planted upon your throat my kisses’ roses.
About my darling I am wheeling, flying,
Like to a gadfly round a lily’s chalice,
Buzzing until in nectar-cup mute dying.
W. F. H.
Allow me also to call your attention to a pretty little myth which Dorat
composed about a “kiss in the bosom’s Alpine snow.” The kiss is a fair
rose, and roses bloom everywhere in these tracks; through witchcraft two
vigorous rosebuds sprouted forth on woman’s white bosom:
Le bouton d’un beau sein est éclos du baiser;
Une rose y fleurit pour y marquer sa trace;
Fier de l’avoir fait naître, il aime à s’y fixer.
But if the object of one’s affection is not within reach, and _oscula
corporalia_ are, for that reason, practically impossible, her image may
be kissed, as a French song naïvely says:
I will make a portrait gay,
Like to thee, set in a locket;
Kiss it five score times a day
Guard it safely in my pocket.
W. F. H.
But if one is not fortunate enough to possess an image of the object of
one’s affection, then anything that has in any way been associated with,
or is reminiscent of, him or her may be kissed. Tovelille exults to King
Volmer:
For all my roses I’ve kissed to death
Whilst thinking, dear love, of thee.
W. F. H.
But F. Rückert sings with pain and mockery:
With fervour the hard stone I’m kissing,
For your heart is as hard as a stone.
W. F. H.
Such _oscula impropria_ are often mentioned by ancient as well as modern
poets. _Propertius_ (I. 16) says:
Ah, oft I’ve hither sped with verse to greet
Thee, leaning on thy steps with kisses pressed.
How often, traitress, turning towards the street,
I’ve laid in secret garlands on thy crest.
W. F. H.
Eighteen hundred years afterwards Dorat writes:
I kiss the kindly blades of grass
Because they have approached your charms:
The sands o’er which your footsteps pass,
And leafy boughs that stretched their arms
To hide our happiness, dear lass.
W. F. H.
Lovers often send each other kisses through the air, as in Béranger’s
well-known song on the detestable Spring:
We loved before we ever met;
Our kisses crossed athwart the air.
W. F. H.
But should the distance be too great for such a platonic interchange of
kisses, certain small, obliging _postillons d’amour_ are employed Heine
uses his poems for that purpose:
O would that all my verses
Were kisses light and sweet:
I’d send them all in secret
My sweetheart’s cheeks to greet.
While the young girl in Runeberg has recourse to a rose that has just
blossomed:
Through the grove amidst the blooming flow’rets
Walked the bonnie maiden unattended,
And she plucked a new-born rose, exclaiming:
‘Lovely flow’ret, if you’d only wings on,
I would send you to my well-belovèd
When I’d fastened just two tiny greetings
Lightly on your right wing and your left wing;
One should bid him cover you with kisses,
And the other send you back to me soon.’
W. F. H.
But however much poets may clothe with grace such kisses sent and
received by post--and it cannot be denied that many of them are
extraordinarily charming from a poetical point of view--they are, and
must be, nevertheless, in reality only certain mean substitutes with
which lovers in the long run cannot feel fully satisfied. “The kiss,”
says the practical Frenchmen, “is a fruit which one ought to pluck from
the tree itself” (_Le baiser est un fruit qu’il faut cueiller sur
l’arbre_). Kisses ought to be given, as they should be taken, in secret;
only in such case have they their full freshness, their intoxicating
power. Heine says of such:
Kisses that one steals in darkness,
And in darkness then returns--
How such kisses fire the spirit,
If with ardent love it burns!
No profane eyes should see them: they only concern the pair of
lovers--none other in the whole world. Secrecy and silence must rest
over these kisses, as over all else that regards the soul of love, so
that the butterfly’s wings may not lose their delicate down.
The strait-laced Cato degraded a senator of the name of Manilius for
having kissed his wife in broad daylight and in his daughter’s presence.
Plutarch, however, considers the punishment excessive, but adds: “How
disgusting it is in any case to kiss in the presence of third parties.”
Clement of Alexandria, one of the Fathers of the Church, endorses this
opinion, and exhorts all married people to refrain from kissing one
another before their servants.
All delicate-minded persons must undoubtedly sympathise with the
ancient ascetic conception in proportion as they unconsciously follow it
in practice. A kiss to or from a woman we love is a far too delicate
pledge of affection to bear the gaze of strangers.
How many engaged couples would, do you suppose, find favour in Cato’s
eyes? How often do they not by their behaviour offend the commonest
notions of decency? Their kisses and caresses, which ought to be their
secret possession, they expose quite unconcernedly to the sight of all.
One evening at a large party I saw a young girl ostentatiously kiss on
the mouth the gentleman to whom she was engaged. Cato would certainly
turn in his grave if he knew that such immodest behaviour was actually
tolerated by people of refinement and position; and how disgusted and
indignant he would be--unless, indeed, he preferred to smile--at the
sight of the duty-kisses after dinner, which are often exchanged between
man and wife at dinner-parties. Ah, yes, when the belly’s full ...! How
warranted is Kierkegaard’s satire on the conjugal domestic kiss with
which husband and wife, in lack of a napkin, wipe each other’s mouth
after meals. On the lips of youth alone you reap the sweetest harvests:
Sur les lèvres de la jeunesse
Tu fais les plus douces moissons.
(DORAT).
The young maiden will only give her love-kiss to her sweetheart, the
stalwart swain; an old suitor is spurned with scorn. The lovely Mara,
white and red, walked by the spring and tended her sheep:
See an old, old suitor comes riding up on horseback,
Shouting: “God’s peace be thine, fair Mara, white and red.
Tell me, canst thou offer me a draught of cold clear water;
Tell me, can the basil ever verdant here be gathered,
And may I snatch a kiss from thee, fair Mara, white and red?”
W. F. H.
But straightway comes the answer from fair Mara, white and red:
“I charge thee, old, old suitor, to horse and ride hence quickly,
No drink is here thy portion from the fountain cold and clear,
And the ever-verdant basil by thee shall not be gathered,
Nor durst thou snatch a kiss from me, fair Mara, white and red.”
W. F. H.
Again, fair Mara, white and red, walked by the spring and tended her
sheep:
See a young and handsome suitor comes riding up on horseback,
Shouting: “God’s peace be thine, fair Mara, white and red.
Tell me, canst thou offer me a draught of cold clear water;
Tell me, can the basil ever verdant here be gathered,
And may I snatch a kiss from thee, fair Mara, white and red?”
W. F. H.
But straightway comes the answer from fair Mara, white and red:
“I charge thee, handsome laddie, to horse and ride hence quickly,
Wouldst thou drink of this cool fountain, thou must hither
come some morning,
For cold and clear’s the water in the hours of early dawn.
Wouldst thou gather from the bushes, thou must hither come at mid-day,
For the flower-trees smell the sweetest about the noon-tide hour.
Wouldst thou kiss the beauteous Mara, then hither come at evening,
At evening sighs each maiden who finds herself alone.”
W. F. H.
In another Servian ballad we find the same glorification of the stalwart
young lover, the same contempt for, and detestation of, old men who go
a-wooing.
High upon a mountain’s slope once stood a maiden,
Mirroring her lovely image in the stream,
And her image in these words addressing:
‘Image fraught to me with so much sadness
Had I known a time was ever coming
When thou shouldst be kissed by agèd lover,
Then amidst the green hills I had wandered,
Gath’ring with my hands their bitter herbage,
Squeezing out of it its acrid juices,
Washed thee then therewith that thou should’st savour
Bitterly wheresoe’r the old man kissed thee.’
‘O my lovely image, had I known that
Thou wert fated for a young man’s kisses,
I had hurried to the verdant meadows,
Gathered all the roses in the meadows,
Squeezing from the roses their sweet juices,
Laved thee with them, O mine image, that thou
Savoured of fragrance wheresoe’r he kissed thee.’
W. F. H.
A kiss must be given and taken in frank, joyous affection. To have
recourse to violence is unknightly, unlovely, and despicable in the
highest degree. This is a sphere wherein the brutal axiom regarding the
right of the stronger can never hold good. An Albanian folk-song tells
us of a young man who is in search of a young maiden with whom he is in
love; he finds her at a brook, and, against her will, kisses her mouth
and cheeks. Filled with shame, the young maiden tries to wash away the
kisses in the brook, but its water is dyed red, and “when the women in
the neighbouring village come thither to wash their clothes, the latter
turn red instead of white. And, in the gardens watered with water from
the brook, scarlet flowers sprout up; and the birds which drank of the
water thereof lost their power of song.”
This ballad shows us, in burning words, how deeply a man outrages a
woman when he kisses her against the dictates of her heart. A Southern
imagination alone can find an expression so sublime and poetical: in
French it runs simply and frankly: _Un baiser n’est rien, quand le
cœur est muet_. In Teutonic countries it is expressed somewhat more
awkwardly. In Denmark people say: _Kys med gevalt er æg uden salt_ (a
kiss snatched by force is as an egg without salt); and in Germany still
less elegantly: _Ein aufgezwungener Kuss ist wie ein Hühneraug’ am Fuss_
(like a corn on one’s foot).
The question of kissing by main force can be treated not only from an
ethical, but also from a juristic point of view. Holberg relates that in
Naples the individual who kissed in the street a woman against her will
was punished by not being allowed to approach within thirty miles
distance of the spot where the outrage had taken place; and a German
jurist wrote in the end of the eighteenth century, a minute and
extremely solid treatise on the remedy that a woman has against a man
who kisses her against her will (_Von dem Rechte des Frauenzimmers gegen
eine Mannperson, die es wider seinen Willen küsset_). The author begins
by classifying kisses; he distinguishes between lawful and unlawful
kisses, and frames the following classification:--
Kisses are either
I.--LAWFUL,
_A._ As spiritual kisses.
_B._ As kisses of reconciliation and kisses of peace.
_C._ As customary kisses; partly,
_a._ By way of salutation.
1. At meeting.
2. On arrival.
3. At departure; partly,
_b._ As mark of courtesy.
_c._ In jest.
_D._ As kisses of respect.
_E._ As kisses on festive occasions.
_F._ As kisses of love:
α. Between married people.
β. Between such as are engaged to be married.
γ. Between parents and children.
δ. Between relations.
ε. Between intimate friends; or,
II.--UNLAWFUL, when they are given--
_A._ Out of treachery or malice.
_B._ Out of lust.
After this particularly happy attempt to reduce kissing to a system, our
jurist maintains the view that all depends on the person who kisses and
the person who is kissed.
If, for instance, a peasant or a vulgar citizen takes such a liberty as
to kiss a noble and high-born lady against her will, her claim against
the aggressor ought to be far greater than it would be in the case of
one of less ignoble descent; but, on the other hand, if Hans steals from
his Greta “an informal, hearty, rustic kiss,” and she complains to the
authorities about it, there will scarcely be any grounds for litigation.
On the whole, says he, a kiss between individuals of the same position
in society is not to be regarded as a tort, and he more closely defines
how he arrives at this conception. It can only be actionable in the case
of a party having some consciously unchaste intention when he kissed, or
in the case of an _osculum luxuriosum_ or _libidinosum_--in such cases
only can a verdict be brought in of what, according to Roman law, is
termed _crimen osculationis_, and in no other case can the wrong-doer be
punished by fine or imprisonment, _propter voluntatem perniciosæ
libidinis_. The punishment, however, should be proportioned in severity
according to the rank of the injured party. In the case of a nun or a
married woman it ought to be most severe; less severe if the lady be
unmarried but betrothed, and mildest when she is neither married nor
betrothed.
But if the unchaste intention cannot be distinctly proved, the woman has
no grounds for complaining of any sort, and, in accordance with the
procedure of the German courts, the kiss is to be considered innocent
till the contrary is proved.
Our jurist thus takes a really liberal view in the case of a “kiss taken
by force”; he may almost be said to regard it as _eine grosse
Kleinigkeit_ (an unimportant trifle).
With regard to the question of a woman’s right to defend herself in
such cases, he is of opinion that she is justified in repulsing the
insulter by a box on the ears, but only if the offence amounts to
_crimen osculationis_, and this box on the ears may not be inflicted
with “the fist of an Amazon,” as, by such requital, she easily loses her
right to take legal action in the matter. She must, above all, be
careful that the box on the ears be not excessive (_die Ohrfeige
proportionirlich einzukleiden_), as otherwise the man can bring an
action against her; consequently the woman ought to use her right of
self-defence with great caution.
Our jurist concludes with considerations of cases when the woman who has
been kissed forfeits all claims, viz., when, for instance, by look or
gestures she says, “I should like to see the man who would dare to kiss
me,” and, by such conduct, obviously exposes herself to the danger.
Holberg has also occupied himself with this question, and tells the
following story in one of his epistles (No. 199):--
“Last week I was at a party where a curious incident happened. A person
stole up to a lady and gave her a kiss unexpectedly. The Vestal virgin
took this _douceur_ in such ill part that, in her wrath, she gave him a
sound box on the ears. He gave a start, and every one expected he was
going to pay her back in the same coin; but, to show his respect for the
fair sex, he made a low bow, and kissed the very hand that had but
lately struck him. All present praised this act of courtesy, on his
part.” Holberg, on the contrary, does not commend the man’s politeness;
like the German jurist, he sees nothing wrong about a kiss--indeed, he
even goes so far as to say that the young man ought to have given the
maiden a box on the ears in return. This coarse way of looking at the
subject from a bachelor’s point of view is wittily defended in the
following rather startling way:
“I candidly confess that if anything of the kind had happened to me I
should have returned the good lady’s salutation in the same way, and
that not out of anger or desire of being revenged, but for the purpose
of showing the courtesy with which one ought to treat a woman; for
kissing the lady on the hand which has boxed his ears is equivalent to
saying: ‘As you are a feeble creature of no importance, and cannot hurt
me, your act deserves ridicule rather than revenge or rage.’ No
sensible woman can be pleased with such a compliment, as there is
nothing worse than being treated like a puppet; and I hope no maid or
matron will take this opinion of mine in ill part, but will rather
regard it as a proof of the justice I have always shown to women by
always taking them seriously. A kiss is nothing but a salutation, and
cannot be looked on as anything else. We are no longer living in the
golden age, when a young lady almost fainted at hearing the word
pronounced.”
English ladies regard the matter from quite another point of view. In
1837 Mr Thomas Saverland brought an action against Miss Caroline Newton,
who had bitten a piece out of his nose for his having tried to kiss her
by way of a joke. The defendant was acquitted, and the judge laid it
down that “when a man kisses a woman against her will she is fully
entitled to bite his nose, if she so pleases.”--“And eat it up, if she
has a fancy that way,” added a jocular barrister half aloud.
Let us next consider how the thing stands when it is apparently only a
question of a kiss snatched by force--for it is, you know, a matter of
general knowledge that a woman’s “No” is not always to be taken
seriously. The refusal may, you know, be merely feigned. The maiden’s
“No” is the swain’s “Yes,” Peder Syv teaches us, and Runeberg, who also
understood women, says:--
Ev’ry girl is fond of kisses,
Though she may pretend to scorn them.
W. F. H.
If one is now convinced that the German proverb which says: _Auf ein
Weibes Zunge ist Nein nicht Nein_ (On a woman’s tongue “no” is not
“no”), what then? Well, but how the point is to be finally settled is
not satisfactorily explained by the authorities within my reach; and
this is the reason why I dare not pronounce an opinion on the question
at issue. But I am convinced that the momentary difficulty will afford
the man the necessary diplomatic qualities as well as the requisite
tact. There is only one thing I can lay down for certain, viz., that if
a man follows his natural simplicity and reserve, and takes the girl’s
feigned “No” seriously, she will only laugh at him afterwards--such,
again, is woman’s nature.
A well-known French _chanson_ deals with a hunter who meets a young
girl out in the forest. Struck by her beauty, he wants to kiss her:
And takes her by her white hand,
Intending to caress her;
W. F. H.
but she begins to cry, and, moved by her tears, he releases her; but he
has hardly got clear of the wood before she begins to laugh at him
heartily, and in derision shouts after him: “When you’ve got hold of a
quail you ought to pluck it, and when you’ve got hold of a girl you
ought to embrace her”:
Quand vous teniez la caille,
Il fallait la plumer.
Quand vous teniez la fillette,
Il fallait l’embrasser.
I quote these verses, for they may possibly afford inexperienced young
men some matter for reflection.
Besides, a woman’s “No” has often a piquancy about it which lovers of a
somewhat more refined class set great store by. Even Martial (v. 46) has
expressed himself in favour of this in a little epigram which begins
thus:
While ev’ry joy I scorn, but that I snatch;
And me thy furies more than features catch.
And Marot, who was likewise much skilled in “_ars amandi_,” even begs
his mistress not to give him her kisses readily:
Mouth of coral, rare and bright,
That in kissing seems to bite;
Longed-for mouth, I pray you this:
Feign deny me when you kiss.
W. F. H.
Dorat has also expressed himself in favour of such. “Promise me nine
kisses,” says he to his Thais, “give me eight, and let me struggle for
the ninth.”
The first eight kisses you accord
Will crown my love’s felicity;
But I shall die in joy’s reward
If for the ninth a struggle be.
W. F. H.
Even if the answer is not a decided negative, yet it can, you know, be
couched in such equivocal words as to be tantamount to neither a
permission nor a refusal. Many girls agree with the Swedish song:
But “yes” ’s a word I will not say,
Nor will I either answer “nay.”
W. F. H.
There is a saying in Jutland that runs thus: “Maren, may I kiss
you?--Guess. You won’t then, I suppose?--Guess once more? You
will?--But how could you guess it then?” This tallies capitally with the
following German saying: “_Zwinge mich, so thu’ ich keine Sünde,” sagte
das Mädchen_ (“Constrain me, so that I shall not commit sin,” said the
maiden). Naturally in this case, there can be no question of any _crimen
osculationis_, for, as the jurists have it, _volenti non fit injuria_.
Let us finally examine all these kisses from an ethical standpoint. We
have all of us, you know, learnt from our earliest childhood that--
He who kisses maidens hath
A very naughty habit;
W. F. H.
and popular belief adds, by way of warning, that it causes sores on the
mouth. Ah, yes, that is certainly very true, but what becomes of our
childish lore in the main when we attain to somewhat riper age? Now,
only listen to the ballad about what happened in the case of the young
Serb, in spite of all he had learnt:
Here, so people told us,
Dwells a youth industrious,
Who from ancient volumes
Late and early studies.
As for books they tell us:
Don’t vault on the saddle,
Buckle not thy sword on,
Drink no wine that fuddles,
Never kiss a maiden.
But the young man harkens
Not to what they tell him:
Keenest sword he seizes,
Hottest wine he drinketh,
Fairest maids he kisses.
W. F. H.
When so learned a man as our Serb succumbs to the tempting kiss, what is
to be said then about all the rest who are less instructed? And let us
remember ere we sit in judgment on any one--and it ought to be regarded
as peculiarly extenuating circumstances--that a woman’s mouth is a
direct incentive to kissing, that it is formed, as you know, for that
purpose, asserts an old troubadour, and created to kiss and smile:--
And when I gazed upon her red mouth sweet,
To match whose charms not Jove himself were meet,
That mouth for laughter and for kisses framed,
I fell thereof so amorous straightway
That I lacked power to do aught or to say.
W. F. H.
The roguish mouth with the white teeth and the moist red,
delicately-shaped lips say to every man who is not made of marble,
“Kiss me, kiss me”:
Her fresh mouth’s playing
Seems ever saying
To kiss I am fain
Again, again.
W. F. H.
How human is Byron’s wish that all women had but one mouth so that he
might kiss them all at the same time:
That womankind had but one rosy mouth,
To kiss them all at once from north to south.
Runeberg has uttered a similar wish, and with a minute account of his
reasons:
I gaze on a bevy of damsels,
I’m gazing and gazing incessant,
The fairest of all I’ll be choosing,
And yet as to choice I’m uncertain;
For one has the brightest of bright eyes,
Another girl’s cheeks are more rosy,
A third one’s lips are the riper,
The fourth has a heart far more tender.
There isn’t a single maid lacking
A something that captures my senses.
There isn’t one there I’d say “no” to,
Oh, would I might kiss the whole bevy!
W. F. H.
Even an ecclesiastic such as Æneas Silvius Piccolomini, when wishing to
describe how beautiful and fascinating a young girl was, writes that
“no one could see her without being seized at once with a desire to kiss
her.” So as not to shock my readers, I may mention that he wrote this
before he was made Pope and assumed the name of Pius II.
It ought now to be taken as proved that women--beautiful women--and
kisses are of a piece. It is at the same time nature’s ordinance, and we
find it verified in all countries and in all ages. Odin himself says,
you know, in Hávamál, where he instructs mortals in the wisdom of life:
Ships are for voyages,
And shields for ward,
Sword-blades to smite,
And maids to kiss.
W. F. H.
And the Greeks sing: “Wine belongs to chestnuts, honey to nuts, and
kisses morning and night to young maids.”
I am inclined to assume that women also agree with this view; certainly
I have no positive enunciation to support my assumption, but I am able
to quote a German proverb which most assuredly points in this direction:
“_Ich kann das Küssen nicht leiden_,” _sagte das Mädchen_, “_wenn ich
nicht dabei bin_” (“I cannot bear kissing,” said the maiden, “when I am
not taking any part in it.”)
Now if, in spite of all I have quoted, some rigid moralist or other will
persist that kissing young maids is always a “bad” habit, and if,
peradventure, a still sterner moralist will maintain it is a sin into
the bargain, I should reply that, in any case, it is one of those sorts
of sin that are venial. The Pope himself will not refuse his absolution,
say the Italians, and they certainly ought to understand things in Rome.
“Kiss me,” runs an Italian folk-song, “the Pope will forgive you; kiss
me and I will kiss you, and the Pope will forgive us both.”
O bella figlia, o bella garzona,
Baciate me, chè il Papa vi perdona;
Baciate me, chè io bacerò vui,
Chè il Papa ci perdona tutti e dui.
If the Pope is so complaisant then, to be sure, a subordinate servant of
the Church such as Aarestrup’s Father Hugo may well say:
Child, a kiss is but a trifle,
If it’s only long and sweet.
W. F. H.
III
AFFECTIONATE KISSES
Seigneur, tu m’as donné les baisers de ma mère,
Je te bénis, Seigneur!
F. E. ADAM.
I bless thee, O Lord, for having given me my mother’s kisses.