THE
LITERATURE OF KISSING,
GLEANED FROM
HISTORY, POETRY, FICTION, AND
ANECDOTE.
BY
C. C. BOMBAUGH, A.M., M.D.,
AUTHOR OF “GLEANINGS FOR THE CURIOUS,” “THE BOOK OF BLUNDERS,” ETC.
“Touch but my lips with those fair lips of thine,
The kiss shall be thine own as well as mine.”
SHAKSPEARE.
PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
LONDON: 16 SOUTHAMPTON ST., COVENT GARDEN.
1876.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
[Illustration]
PREFACE.
From the time of the first kisses recorded in the book of Genesis,—the
kiss with which Jacob imposed upon the credulity of his blind old father
and defrauded his brother of the blessing intended for him, and that of
Jacob the lover when he met Rachel at the well,—to the present hour,
the custom of kissing has been so universally honored in the observance
that one would naturally expect to find in any well-regulated library a
formal treatise upon its manifold phases and expressions. Yet, with the
exception of a few insignificant monographs of the seventeenth century,
the curious inquirer would find upon the shelves nothing specially
devoted to a custom with which all of human kind, from the elect of the
children of men to the dwellers _in partibus infidelium_, are familiar.
To borrow a waggish saying, the knowledge of the art has been principally
transmitted from mouth to mouth. Herrenschmidius published his
“Osculogia” in 1630; Muller, “De Osculo Sancto,” in 1674; and Kempius,
“De Osculis,” in 1680. Boberg wrote upon the fashion of kissing among the
Hebrews, and Pfanner upon the kisses of the primitive Christians,—both in
Latin. But works of this character are inaccessible to general readers.
Those modern classics, the “Basia” of Secundus, and the “Baisers” of
Dorat and of Bonnefons, are readily attainable, both in the original and
in the form of translations and paraphrases.
Beyond this extremely limited range the literature of kissing is
scattered as widely as its practice. For the earlier presentment of a
custom favored in all ages, we must recur to the Bible. There only may we
raise “the barred visor of antiquity” for full and conclusive revelation;
and there shall we find that the kiss, in all the varied forms of which
it is susceptible, was recognized among ancient kindred, and lovers, and
friends, as an expression of affection or sympathy, as a symbol of joy
or sorrow, as a token of welcome or farewell, as a mark of reverence, or
reconciliation, or gratitude, or humility. There, likewise, shall we find
the kiss of hypocrisy, as noted in the case of Absalom on the eve of his
conspiracy; the sensual kiss, as referred to in the Proverbs; and the
spiritual kiss, of the Song of Solomon.
In the annals of the later periods of human passions and activities the
records of the custom are more widely diffused. Since the woman “which
was a sinner” washed the feet of the Master, with tears, wiped them
with her hair, and kissed them so humbly and with such affectionate
tenderness, millions of good Christians have done the same in their
hearts. Since the Emperor Justinian kissed the foot of the sovereign
pontiff Constantine, millions of the faithful in the mother church have
bowed their necks to kiss the embroidered cross on the slipper of the
Pope. Since “the sweet, soft murmur of a kiss of love” was first heard in
the groves and gardens of Judea, “a great multitude, which no man could
number,” have had recourse to the same token as seal to the indenture
of their own loves, have found in the same attraction another eloquence
than that of words, and in the retrospections of after-days have lingered
lovingly upon the memories of the same rainbow radiance, the same
celestial beam that from their own life smiled the clouds away. It is the
same charm, the same story,
“Old and yet ever new, and simple and beautiful always.”
In endless succession, from generation to generation, are the kisses
arising from the filial and fraternal relations, the interchanges of
affection and friendship, the meetings and the partings, the compliments
of esteem and the promptings of admiration, the outburst of grief
and the beguilement of treachery. Whether formulated by the cautious
prescripts of Mrs. Grundy and her disciples, exhibited in the bluff and
unconventional fashion of swaggering rustics, or quickened into life
with the emotional abruptness which in Brooklyn is termed “paroxysmal;”
whether consecrated only to the holiest affections, or peddled at
church fairs and festivals as a substitute for raffling; whether under
moonlight or gaslight, by the seaside or the fireside, it is still in
its diversified forms the one perennial beatitude, the one never-ending,
still-beginning delight, which “age cannot wither, nor custom stale;”
“The young men’s vision, and the old men’s dream.”
Said Sydney Smith, as quoted in the course of the present volume, “We
have the memory of one we received in our youth, which lasted us forty
years, and we believe it will be one of the last things we shall think of
when we die.”
“I would often ask her,” says Farjeon, “being of an inquisitive turn
of mind, ‘Mother, what have you got for dinner to-day?’ ‘Bread and
Cheese and Kisses,’ she would reply merrily. Then I knew that one of our
favorite dishes was sure to be on the table, and I rejoiced accordingly.
And to this day, Bread and Cheese and Kisses bears for me in its simple
utterance a sacred and beautiful meaning. It means contentment; it means
cheerfulness; it means the exercise of sweet words and gentle thought; it
means Home!”
It is in the home-centre that we are first taught “such kisses as
belong to early days;” it is there that the maternal embrace proves an
efficacious restorative for infantile grievances.
“Who was it caught me when I fell,
And kissed the place to make it well?
My mother.”
The boy goes forth from the juvenile attractions of the Kiss-in-the-Ring
to the later allurements of the mistletoe bough; the youth of larger
growth finds exhilaration in the sportiveness that incites him to
“Catch the white-handed nymphs in shady places,
And woo sweet kisses from averted faces.”
As the years glide away, destiny leads him to
“The overture kiss to the opera of love;”
while in the maturer days of manhood courtship brings the happy day when,
as a bridegroom, he meets his bride,
“And claims her with a loving kiss.”
Then come the kisses of connubial and parental love, and, finally,
“Life’s autumnal blossoms fall,
And earth’s brown clinging lips impress
The long cold kiss that waits us all.”
The observance of the custom, therefore, throughout life, and in all
the relations of life, presents a broad field for the inspirations
of the poet and the “situations” of the novelist; while in history,
tradition, legend, and story it furnishes an endless number of
charming and picturesque episodes. To gather together some of its
varied interpretations and exemplifications from the wide range of our
accumulated literature is the object of this volume. To recur to its
ancient as well as its modern phases, to re-awaken some of its historic
memories, to dwell briefly upon its poetic enchantments, to show its
employment in the drama and in fiction, in metaphor and in anecdote,
to exhibit its humorous side and its sorrowful side, to unveil the
strength of its sincerity and the peril of its treachery, is the purpose
of the editor. Inasmuch as the limitations of a duodecimo are too
disproportionate to such breadth and scope of illustration to permit
exhaustive treatment of our subject, the aim is to be selective and at
the same time comprehensive. In the preparation of a work to fill a
hiatus in our modern _Collectanea_, the difficulty which is constantly
encountered is that of exclusion. Much that is worthy of a place is
necessarily omitted, but the editor trusts that the materials which have
been appropriated will measurably supply the deficiency which has been
pointed out, and prove acceptable to a large class of readers. To those
who welcome the book it has only briefly to say, in the language of the
Eastern apologue, “I am not the rose, but I live with the rose, and so I
have become sweet.”
CONTENTS.
PAGE
THE KISS IN HISTORY 9
THE KISS IN POETRY 93
THE KISS IN DRAMATIC LITERATURE 191
THE KISS IN FICTION 225
THE KISS IN HUMOROUS STORY AND ANECDOTE 273
MISCELLANEOUS ASPECTS AND RELATIONS 321
[Illustration]
THE KISS IN HISTORY.
THE KISS IMPRIMIS.
Milton tells us in “Paradise Lost,” Book IV., how the pioneer lover
saluted the mother of the human race in the bowers of Eden:
“he, in delight
Both of her beauty and submissive charms,
Smiled with superior love, as Jupiter
On Juno smiles, when he impregns the clouds
That shed May flowers; and pressed her matron lips
With kisses pure.”
SIGNIFICANCE AMONG THE HEBREWS.
Originally, in Oriental life, the act of kissing had a symbolical
character whose import was, in many respects, of greater breadth than
that of the custom in our day. Acts, as Dr. Beard, the German theologian,
remarks, speak no less—sometimes far more—forcibly than words. In the
early period of society, when the foundation was laid of most even of
our Western customs, action constituted a large portion of what we may
term human language, or the means of intercommunication between man and
man; because then words were less numerous, books unknown, the entire
machinery of speaking being in its rudimental and elementary state, less
developed and called into play; to say nothing of that peculiarity of
the Oriental character (if, indeed, it be not a characteristic of all
nations in primitive ages) which inclined men to general taciturnity,
with occasional outbreaks of fervid, abrupt, or copious eloquence. In
this language of action, a kiss, inasmuch as it was a bringing into
contact of parts of the body of two persons, was naturally the expression
and the symbol of affection, regard, respect, and reverence; and if
deeper source of its origin were sought for, it would, doubtless, be
found in the fondling and caresses with which the mother expresses her
tenderness for her babe. That the custom is of very early date, and very
varied in its form among the Hebrews, may be seen in numerous familiar
citations from Holy Writ.
DIVERSITIES IN THE BIBLE.
SALUTATION.
David ... fell on his face to the ground, and bowed himself three times;
and they [David and Jonathan] kissed one another, and wept one with
another, until David exceeded.—1 _Samuel_ xx. 41.
Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss.—1 _Thess._ v. 26.
Salute one another with a holy kiss.—_Romans_ xvi. 16.
[See also Exod. xviii. 7; 1 Cor. xvi. 20; 1 Pet. v. 14.]
VALEDICTION.
The Lord grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her
husband [Naomi to her daughters-in-law]. Then she kissed them; and they
lifted up their voice, and wept.—_Ruth_ i. 9.
RECONCILIATION.
So Joab came to the king, and told him: and when he had called for
Absalom, he came to the king, and bowed himself on his face to the
ground before the king: and the king kissed Absalom.—2 _Samuel_ xiv. 33.
SUBJECTION.
Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his
wrath is kindled but a little.—_Psalm_ ii. 12.
APPROBATION.
Every man shall kiss his lips that giveth a right answer.—_Prov._ xxiv.
26.
ADORATION.
——All the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which
hath not kissed him.—1 _Kings_ xix. 18.
[See also Hosea xiii. 2.]
And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with
tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet,
and anointed them with the ointment.—_Luke_ vii. 38.
TREACHERY.
Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall
kiss, that same is he: hold him fast.
And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, Master; and kissed
him.—_Matt._ xxvi. 48, 49.
The kisses of an enemy are deceitful.—_Prov._ xxvii. 6.
[See also Prov. vii. 13.]
AFFECTION.
When Laban heard the tidings of Jacob his sister’s son, he ran to
meet him, and embraced him, and kissed him, and brought him to his
house.—_Gen._ xxix. 13.
Moreover he [Joseph] kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them.—_Gen._
xlv. 15.
And Joseph fell upon his father’s face, and wept upon him, and kissed
him.—_Gen._ l. 1.
[See also Gen. xxxi. 55, xxxiii. 4, xlviii. 10; Exod. iv. 27; Luke xv.
20; Acts xx. 37.]
A Hebrew commentator on Genesis xxix. 11 says that the Rabbins did
not permit more than three kinds of kisses, the kiss of reverence, of
reception, and of dismissal.
With reference to the expression of reverence or worship in the foregoing
quotations, it should be noted that to adore idols and to kiss idols mean
the same thing. Indeed, the word _adore_ signifies simply to carry the
hand _to the mouth_, that is, to kiss it to the idol. We still kiss the
hand in salutation. Various parts of the body are kissed to distinguish
the character of the adoration paid. Thus, to kiss the lips is to adore
the living breath of the person saluted; to kiss the feet or ground is
to humble one’s self in adoration; to kiss the garments is to express
veneration for whatever belongs to or touches the person who wears them.
Pharaoh tells Joseph, “Thou shalt be over my house, and upon thy mouth
shall all my people kiss,” meaning that they would reverence the commands
of Joseph by kissing the roll on which they were written. “Samuel
poured oil on Saul, and kissed him,” to acknowledge subjection to God’s
anointed. In the Hebrew state, this mode of expressing reverence arose
from the peculiar form of government under the patriarchal figure.
SYMBOLICAL EXPRESSION AMONG THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.
ANCIENT HISTORY AND POETRY COMMINGLED.
In Homer’s beautiful description of the parting of Hector from his wife
and child upon returning to the field of battle, occurs a touching
recital of paternal affection and solicitude (Iliad, vi.). The passage is
so beautiful that we quote it at length:
“Thus having spoke, the illustrious chief of Troy
Stretched his fond arms to clasp the lovely boy.
The babe clung crying to his nurse’s breast,
Scared at the dazzling helm and nodding crest;
With secret pleasure each fond parent smiled,
And Hector hastened to relieve his child,
The glittering terrors from his brows unbound,
And placed the beaming helmet on the ground,
Then kissed the child, and, lifting high in air,
Thus to the gods preferred a father’s prayer.
“‘O thou! whose glory fills th’ ethereal throne,
And all ye deathless powers, protect my son!
Grant him, like me, to purchase just renown,
To guard the Trojans, to defend the crown,
Against his country’s foes the war to wage,
And rise the Hector of the future age!
So when, triumphant from successful toils,
Of heroes slain he bears the reeking spoils,
Whole hosts may hail him with deserved acclaim,
And say, This chief transcends his father’s fame.’”
The grief of the venerable Priam upon learning of the death of his
favorite son, Hector, at the hands of Achilles, and his journey to
the Grecian camp to beg of Achilles the body of Hector for burial,
are portrayed with equal force (Iliad, xxiv.). The Trojan monarch,
prostrating himself before the warrior,
“Embraced his knees, and bathed his hands in tears;
Those direful hands his kisses pressed, imbrued
E’en with the best, the dearest of his blood.”
In the course of his entreaty, which completely softens Achilles, the
suppliant says:
“Think of thy father, and this face behold!
See him in me, as helpless and as old!
Though not so wretched: there he yields to me,
The first of men in sovereign misery!
Thus forced to kneel, thus grovelling to embrace
The scourge and ruin of my realm and race;
Suppliant my children’s murderer to implore,
And kiss those hands yet reeking with their gore!”
* * * * *
Virgil gives us a picture similar to that of Hector when bidding farewell
to his child. Æneas, having recovered from a dangerous wound, returns
to the combat with Turnus, first bestowing his blessing upon his son
Ascanius (Æneid, xii.):
“Then with a close embrace he strained his son,
And, kissing through his helmet, thus begun:
‘My son! from my example learn the war,
In camps to suffer, and in fields to dare:
But happier chance than mine attend thy care!
This day my hand thy tender age shall shield,
And crown with honors of the conquered field;
Thou, when thy riper years shall send thee forth
To toils of war, be mindful of thy worth:
Assert thy birthright; and in arms be known
For Hector’s nephew, and Æneas’ son.’”
Turning from the camp to the sweets of domestic life, we find in the same
charming poet (Georg. ii. 523) these lines:
“His cares are eased with intervals of bliss:
His little children, climbing for a kiss,
Welcome their father’s late return at night;
His faithful bed is crowned with chaste delight.”
* * * * *
Xenophon says, in “Agesilaus” (v. 4), that it was a national custom with
the Persians to kiss whomsoever they honored. And Herodotus (i. 134),
in speaking of their manners and customs, says, “If Persians meet at any
time by accident, the rank of each party is easily discovered: if they
are of equal dignity, they salute each other on the mouth; if one is an
inferior, they only kiss the cheek; if there be a great difference in
situation, the inferior falls prostrate on the ground.” Respecting the
mode of salutation between relatives, the following passage from the
“Cyropædia” of Xenophon (i. 4) is worth transcribing:
“If I may be allowed to relate a sportive affair, it is said that when
Cyrus went away, and he and his relations parted, they took their leave,
and dismissed him with a kiss, according to the Persian custom,—for
the Persians practise it to this day,—and that a certain Mede, a very
excellent person, had been long struck with the beauty of Cyrus, and when
he saw Cyrus’s relations kiss him, he stayed behind, and, when the rest
were gone, accosted Cyrus, and said to him, ‘And am I, Cyrus, the only
one of all your relations that you do not know?’ ‘What!’ said Cyrus,
‘are you a relation?’ ‘Yes,’ said he. ‘This was the reason, then,’ said
Cyrus, ‘that you used to gaze at me; for I think I recollect that you
frequently did so.’ ‘I was very desirous,’ said he, ‘to salute you, but I
was always ashamed to do it.’ ‘But,’ said Cyrus, ‘you that are a relation
ought not to have been so.’ So, coming up to him, he kissed him. The
Mede, having received the kiss, is said to have, asked this question:
‘And is it a custom among the Persians to kiss relations?’ ‘It is so,’
said Cyrus, ‘when they see one another at some distance of time, or when
they part.’ ‘Then,’ said the Mede, ‘it seems now to be time for you to
kiss me again; for, as you see, I am just going away.’ So Cyrus, kissing
him again, dismissed him, and went his way. They had not gone very far
before the Mede came up with him again, with his horse all over in a
sweat; and Cyrus, getting sight of him, said, ‘What! have you forgotten
anything that you had a mind to say to me?’ ‘No, by Jove,’ said he, ‘but
I am come again at a distance of time.’ ‘Dear relation,’ said he, ‘it is
a very short time.’ ‘How a short one?’ said the Mede: ‘do you not know,
Cyrus, that the very twinkling of my eyes is a long time to be without
seeing you, you who are so lovely?’ Here Cyrus, from being in tears,
broke out into laughter, bid him go his way and take courage, adding that
in a little time he would be with him again, and that then he would be
at liberty to look at him, if he pleased, with steady eyes and without
twinkling.”
* * * * *
The kiss among the ancients was an essential implement in the armory of
love. Virgil, for instance, uses it in the device by which Queen Dido
was to be inspired with a passion for Æneas. Venus, in the course of her
instructions to Cupid, says:
“Thyself a boy, assume a boy’s dissembled face;
That when, amid the fervor of the feast,
The Tyrian hugs and fonds thee on her breast,
And with sweet kisses in her arms constrains,
Thou mayst infuse thy venom in her veins.”
* * * * *
Horace, in the ode to Lydia, in which he gives such free expression to
his jealousy (Ode XIII.), refers with considerable point and feeling to
the osculatory attentions of his rival. The following translation is by
Bulwer-Lytton:
“When thou the rosy neck of Telephus,
The waxen arms of Telephus, art praising,
Woe is me, Lydia, how my jealous heart
Swells with the anguish I would vainly smother!
“Then in my mind thought has no settled base,
To and fro shifts upon my cheek the color,
And tears that glide adown in stealth reveal
By what slow fires mine inmost self consumeth.
“I burn, whether he quarrel o’er his wine,
Stain with a bruise dishonoring thy white shoulders,
Or whether my boy-rival on thy lips
Leave by a scar the mark of his rude kisses.
“Hope not, if thou wouldst hearken unto me,
That one so little kind prove always constant;
Barbarous indeed, to wound sweet lips imbued
By Venus with a fifth part of her nectar.[1]
“Thrice happy, ay, more than thrice happy, they
Whom one soft bond unbroken binds together;
Whose love serene from bickering and reproach
In life’s last moment finds the first that severs.”
The closing lines of an ode to Mæcenas (Lib. II. Ode XII.) are worth
noting:
“Say, for all that Achæmenes boasted of treasure,
All the wealth which Mygdonia gave Phrygia in tribute,
All the stores of all Araby—say, wouldst thou barter
One lock of Lycimnia’s bright hair?
“When at moments she bends down her neck to thy kisses,
Or declines them with coy but not cruel denial,
Rather pleased if the prize be snatched off by the spoiler,
Nor slow in reprisal sometimes.”
Literally, “when she turns to meet the ardent kisses, or with a gentle
cruelty denies what she would more delight to have ravished by the
petitioner; sometimes she is eager to snatch them herself.”
* * * * *
In the Latin Anthology is an ode to another Lydia, by an unknown poet,
but probably Gallus, which breathes throughout the rapturous idolatry of
the enamored writer. We have only space for these lines:
“Unveil those rosy cheeks, o’erspread
With blushes of the Tyrian red,
And pout those coral lips of thine,
And breathe the turtle’s kiss on mine;
Deep on my heart you print that kiss,
You melt my wildered soul in bliss.
Ah, softly, girl! thy amorous play
Has sucked my very blood away!
Hide thy twin bosom fruit, just shown
Milk-ripe above thy bursting zone;
Such sweets, as India’s summer gale
Wafts from her spice-beds, they exhale.”
* * * * *
Ovid appropriates the kiss most effectively in his passages descriptive
of the endearments, the fascinations, the yearnings, and the transports
of love. Briseis in her letter to Achilles, begging him to return to the
Grecian camp, is made to say:
“Oh that the Greeks would send me hence to try
If I could make your stubborn heart comply!
Few words I’d use; all should be sighs, and tears,
And looks, and kisses, mixed with hopes and fears;
My love like lightning through my eyes should fly,
And thaw the ice which round your heart does lie;
Sometimes my arms about your neck I’d throw;
And then embrace your knees and humbly bow.
There is more eloquence in tears and kisses
Than in the smooth harangues of sly Ulysses.”[2]
In the letter of Sappho to her lover, Phaon, when he had forsaken her,
and she had resolved upon suicide, we have a picture of that “sorrow’s
crown of sorrow,” the remembrance in adversity of happier days:
“Yet once your Sappho could your cares employ,
Once in her arms you centred all your joy;
Still all those joys to my remembrance move,
For, oh, how vast a memory has love!
My music then you could forever hear,
And all my words were music to your ear;
You stopped with kisses my enchanting tongue,
And found my kisses sweeter than my song.
The fair Sicilians now your soul inflame:
Why was I born, ye gods, a Lesbian dame?”
A wife’s affection is shown in the letter of Laodanna to her husband at
Aulis with the Grecian fleet:
“Yet while before the leaguer thou dost lie,
Thy picture is some pleasure to my eye;
There must be something in it more than art,
’Twere very thee, could it thy mind impart:
I kiss the pretty idol, and complain,
As if (like thee) ’twould answer me again.”
This pretty conceit, which the moderns have often copied from Ovid,
occurs in the epistle of Paris to Helen:
“If you your young Hermione but kiss,
Straight from her lips I snatch the envied bliss.”
In his “Art of Love” (Book I.) Ovid thus pursues his course of
instruction:
“Tears, too, are of utility: by tears you will move adamant. Make her,
if you can, to see your moistened cheeks. If tears shall fail you, for
indeed they do not always come in time, touch your eyes with your wet
hand. What discreet person will not mingle kisses with tender words?
Though she should not grant them, still take them ungranted. Perhaps
she will struggle at first, and will say, ‘You naughty man!’ Still, in
her struggling she will wish to be overcome. Only, let them not, rudely
snatched, hurt her tender lips, and take care that she may not be able to
complain that they have proved a cause of pain. He who has gained kisses,
if he cannot gain the rest as well, will deserve to lose even that which
has been granted him. How much is there wanting for unlimited enjoyment
after a kiss! Oh, shocking! ’twere clownishness, not modesty. Call it
violence, if you like; such violence is pleasing to the fair; they often
wish, through compulsion, to grant what they are delighted to grant.”
* * * * *
Turning from Ovid to the Greek Anthology, we find this epigram:
“The kiss that she left on my lip
Like a dew-drop shall lingering lie:
’Twas nectar she gave me to sip,
’Twas nectar I drank in her sigh!
“The dew that distilled in that kiss
To my soul was voluptuous wine:
Ever since it is drunk with the bliss,
And feels a delirium divine.”
* * * * *
Anacreon, in one of his odes, speaks of the heart flying to the lips; and
Plato, in a distich quoted by Aulus Gellius, tells us of the effect of a
kiss upon his susceptibility:
“Whene’er thy nectared kiss I sip,
And drink thy breath in melting twine,
My soul then flutters to my lip,
Ready to fly and mix with thine.”
Plato also wrote:
“My soul, when I kissed Agathon, did start
Up to my lips, just ready to depart.”
“Oh! on that kiss my soul,
As if in doubt to stay,
Lingered awhile, on fluttering wing prepared
To fly away.”
* * * * *
Anacreon uses this figurative expression:
“They tainted all his bowl of blisses,
His bland desires and hallowed kisses.”
By the ancient expression “cups of kisses,” reference is most probably
made to a favorite gallantry among the Greeks and Romans of drinking
when the lips of their mistresses had touched the brim. Ben Jonson’s
oft-quoted verses to Celia, in which occur the lines—
“Or leave a kiss within the cup,
And I’ll not ask for wine,”—
are translated from Philostratus, a Greek poet of the second century.
Lucian has a conceit upon the same idea: “that you may at once both drink
and kiss.” And Meleager says:
“Blest is the goblet, oh! how blest,
Which Heliodora’s lips have pressed!
Oh! might thy lips but meet with mine,
My soul should melt away in thine.”
Agathias also says:
“I love not wine; but thou hast power
T’ intoxicate at any hour.
Touch first the cup with thine own lip,
Then hand it round for mine to sip,
And temperance at once gives way;
My sweet cup-bearer wins the day.
That cup’s a boat which ferries over
Thy kiss in safety to thy lover,
And tells by its delicious flavor
Plow much it revels in thy favor.”
* * * * *
Longepierre, to give an idea of the luxurious estimation in which
garlands were held by the ancients, relates an anecdote of a frail
beauty, who, in order to gratify three lovers without leaving cause
for jealousy with any of them, gave a kiss to one, let the other drink
after her, and put a garland on the brow of the third; so that each was
satisfied with his favor, and flattered himself with the preference.
* * * * *
In one of Anacreon’s odes we find the strong and beautiful phrase, “a lip
provoking kisses.”
“Then her lip, so rich in blisses,
Sweet petitioner for kisses.”
Tatius speaks of “lips soft and delicate for kissing;” and that grave
old commentator, Lambinus, in his notes upon Lucretius, tells us, with
all the authority of experience, that girls who have large lips kiss
infinitely sweeter than others!
* * * * *
Æneas Sylvius, in his story of the loves of Euryalus and Lucretia, where
he particularizes the beauties of the heroine, describes her lips as
exquisitely adapted for biting.[3] And Catullus, in his poems (viii.),
asks, “Whom will you love now? Whose will you be called? Whom will
you kiss? Whose lips will you bite? But you, Catullus, be stubbornly
obdurate.” As Lamb has it:
“Whose fondling care shalt thou avow?
Whose kisses now shalt thou return?
Whose lip in rapture bite? But thou,
Hold, hold, Catullus, cold and stern.”
Or, as Elton renders it:
“Whom wilt thou for thy lover choose?
Whose shall they call thee, false one, whose?
Who shall thy darted kisses sip,
While thy keen love-bites scar his lip?
But thou, Catullus, scorn to feel:
Persist—and let thy heart be steel.”
Plautus alludes to this biting;[4] and Horace says (Ode XIII.), as
already quoted:
“Or on thy lips the fierce fond boy
Marks with his teeth the furious joy.”
Plutarch tells us that Flora, the mistress of Cn. Pompey, used to say,
in commendation of her lover, that she could never quit his arms without
giving him a bite. And Tibullus, in his confession of his illicit
love for Delia, the wife of another, and of his devices for covering
his tracks, says, among other things, “I gave her juices and herbs for
removing the livid marks which mutual Venus makes by the impress of the
teeth.”
* * * * *
Anacreon finds in the brevity of life arguments for the voluptuary as
well as for the moralist:
“Can we discern, with all our lore,
The path we’re yet to journey o’er?
No, no, the walk of life is dark,
’Tis wine alone can strike a spark!
Then let me quaff the foamy tide,
And through the dance meandering glide;
Let me imbibe the spicy breath
Of odors chafed to fragrant death,
Or from the kiss of love inhale
A more voluptuous, richer gale.”
* * * * *
Of the amatory writers who exhaust rhetoric to express the infinity of
kisses which they require from the lips of their mistresses, Catullus
takes the lead. In his famous verses to Lesbia (Carm. 5), he says:
“Let us live and love, my Lesbia, and a farthing for all the talk of
morose old sages! Suns may set and rise again; but we, when once our
brief light has set, must sleep through a perpetual night. Give me a
thousand kisses, then a hundred, then another thousand, then a second
hundred, then still another thousand, then a hundred. Then, when we shall
have made up many thousands, we will confuse the reckoning, so that we
ourselves may not know their amount, nor any spiteful person have it in
his power to envy us when he knows that our kisses were so many.”
Roman superstition recognized an occult and mischievous potency in the
sentiment of envy. Moreover, there was a prevalent notion that it excited
the envy of the gods to _count_ what gave one pleasure.
The following metrical versions of the foregoing are worth a place here.
The first is by George Lamb (1821):
“Love, my Lesbia, while we live;
Value all the cross advice
That the surly graybeards give
At a single farthing’s price.
“Suns that set again may rise;
We, when once our fleeting light,
Once our day in darkness dies,
Sleep in one eternal night.
“Give me kisses thousand-fold,
Add to them a hundred more;
Other thousands still be told,
Other hundreds, o’er and o’er.
“But, with thousands when we burn,
Mix, confuse the sums at last,
That we may not blushing learn
All that have between us past.
“None shall know to what amount
Envy’s due for so much bliss;
None—for none shall ever count
All the kisses we will kiss.”
The second is by C. A. Elton, whose translations of the classic poets
were first published in 1814:
“Let us, my Lesbia, live and love;
Though the old should disapprove;
Let us rate their saws severe
At the worth of a denier.
Suns can set beneath the main,
And lift their fated, orbs again,
But we, when sets our scanted light,
Must slumber in perpetual night.
Give me, then, a thousand kisses;
Add a hundred billing blisses;
Give me a thousand kisses more;
Then repeat the hundred o’er;
Give me other thousand kisses;
Give me other hundred blisses;
And when thousands now are done,
Let us confuse them every one,
That we the number cannot know,
And none that saw us kissing so
Might glut his envious busy spleen
By counting o’er the kisses that had been.”
In another poem addressed to Lesbia (Carm. 7), Catullus says:
“You ask how many kisses of yours, Lesbia, maybe enough for me; and more.
As the numerous sands that lie on the spicy shores of Cyrene, between the
oracle of sultry Jove and the sacred tomb of old Battus;[5] or as the
many stars that in the silence of night behold men’s furtive amours; to
kiss you with so many kisses is enough and more for madly fond Catullus;
such a multitude as prying gossips can neither count, nor bewitch with
their evil tongues.”
Lamb’s translation is as follows:
“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?
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 shalt 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.”
Thomas Moore gives the following exceedingly free rendering of the answer
to the question:
“As many stellar eyes of light
As through the silent waste of night,
Gazing upon the world of shade,
Witness some secret youth and maid,
Who, fair as thou, and fond as I,
In stolen joys enamored lie,—
So many kisses, ere I slumber,
Upon those dew-bright lips I’ll number;
So many vermil, honeyed kisses,
Envy can never count our blisses:
No tongue shall tell the sum but mine;
No lips shall fascinate but thine!”
We cannot dismiss Catullus without one more specimen of his osculatory
exuberance. In his lines “To My Love” (Carm. 48), he says:
“Were I allowed to kiss your sweet eyes without stint, I would kiss on
and on up to three hundred thousand times; nor even then should I ever
have enough, not though our crop of kissing were thicker than the dry
ears of the cornfield.”
Or in Lamb’s metrical version:
“If, all-complying, thou wouldst grant
Thy lovely eyes to kiss, my fair,
Long as I pleased, oh! I would plant
Three hundred thousand kisses there.
“Nor could I even then refrain,
Nor satiate leave that fount of blisses,
Though thicker than autumnal grain
Should be our growing crop of kisses.”
* * * * *
Martial, in his “Epigrams,” bestows a variety of attentions upon the
promiscuous custom of kissing in Rome, as he found it in his day. In an
epigram addressed to his friend Flaccus (xii. 98), he complains in very
strong and very amusing terms of the persistent salutes of a certain
class, who paid no heed whatever to times and seasons, places and
circumstances, but broke through all forms and guards and conventional
restraints.
On another occasion he pointed his invective in this manner (xii. 59):
“Rome gives, on one’s return after fifteen years’ absence, such a number
of kisses as exceeds those given by Lesbia to Catullus. Every neighbor,
every hairy-faced farmer, presses on you with a strongly-scented kiss.
Here the weaver assails you, there the fuller and the cobbler, who has
just been kissing leather; here the owner of a filthy beard, and a
one-eyed gentleman; there one with bleared eyes, and fellows whose mouths
are defiled with all manner of abominations. It was hardly worth while to
return.”
His epigram to Linus (vii. 95) is rarely exceeded in its sarcastic
severity. It closes in this manner:
——“No doubt,
Th’ icicles hanging at thy dog-like snout,
The congealed snivel dangling on thy beard,
Ranker than th’ oldest goat of all the herd.
The nastiest mouth in town I’d rather greet,
Than with thy flowing frozen nostrils meet.
If therefore thou hast either shame or sense,
Till April comes no kisses more dispense.”
The satirist thus pays his respects to a lady whose physical attractions
do not appear to have had much charm for his fastidious taste:
“In vain, fond Philænis, thou woo’st my embrace:
Bald, carrotty, one-eyed, thy tripartite grace!
The wretch, poor Philænis, that would thee salute,
Can never aspire to the buss of a brute.”
(ii. 33.)
And again:
“Why on my chin a plaster clapped?
Besalved my lips that are not chapped?
Philænis, why? The cause is this:
Philænis, thee I will not kiss.”
(x. 22).
The illustrious Postumus comes in for a share of repugnance in this
delicate fashion. We give the literal translation:
“I commend you, Postumus, for kissing me with only half your lip; you
may, however, if you please, withhold even the half of this half. Are you
inclined to grant me a boon still greater, and even inexpressible? Keep
this whole half entirely to yourself, Postumus.” (ii. 10.)
And elsewhere, thus:
“To some, Postumus, you give kisses, to some your right hand. ‘Which do
you prefer?’ you say: ‘choose.’ I prefer your hand.”
In another place (iii. 53) Martial addresses Chloe in this ungallant and
uncourtly style:
“I could do without your face, and your neck, and your hands, and your
limbs, and your bosom, and other of your charms. Indeed, not to fatigue
myself with enumerating each of them, I could do without you, Chloe,
altogether.”
This _brusquerie_ has been imitated by Thomas Moore in the following
manner:
“I could resign that eye of blue,
Howe’er its splendor used to thrill me;
And e’en that cheek of roseate hue—
To lose it, Chloe, scarce would kill me.
“That snowy neck I ne’er should miss,
However much I’ve raved about it;
And sweetly as that lip can kiss,
I _think_ I could exist without it.
“In short, so well I’ve learned to fast,
That sooth, my love, I know not whether
I might not bring myself at last
——To do without you altogether.”
On the other hand, when it comes to the kisses of his favorite (xi. 8),
Martial indulges in the following exuberant fancy:
“The fragrance of balsam extracted from aromatic trees; the ripe odor
yielded by the teeming saffron; the perfume of fruits mellowing in their
winter repository; or of the flowery meadows in the vernal season; or
of silken robes of the empress from her Palatine wardrobes; of amber
warmed by the hand of a maiden; of a jar of dark Falernian wine, broken
and scented from a distance; of a garden that attracts the Sicilian
bees; of the alabaster jars of Cosmus, and the altars of the gods; of
the chaplet just fallen from the brow of the luxurious;—but why should
I mention all these things singly? not one of them is enough by itself;
mix all together,[6] and you have the perfume of the morning kisses of
my favorite. Do you want to know the name? I will only tell you of the
kisses. You swear to be secret. You want to know too much, Sabinus.”
One more selection from Martial (vi. 34) will suffice for this branch of
our subject:
“Give me, Diadumenus, close kisses. ‘How many?’ you say. You bid me count
the waves of the ocean, the shells scattered on the shores of the Ægean
Sea, the bees that wander on Attic Hybla, or the voices and clappings
that resound in the full theatre when the people suddenly see the
countenance of the emperor. I should not be content even with as many as
Lesbia, after many entreaties, gave to the witty Catullus: he wants but
few who can count them.”
The following imitation was written by Sir C. Hanbury Williams:
“Come, Chloe, and give me sweet kisses,
For sweeter sure girl never gave;
But why, in the midst of my blisses,
Do you ask me how many I’d have?
“I’m not to be stinted in pleasure;
Then, prithee, my charmer, be kind,
For, while I love thee above measure,
To numbers I’ll ne’er be confined.
“Count the bees that on Hybla are playing;
Count the flowers that enamel its fields;
Count the flocks that on Tempe are straying;
Or the grain that rich Sicily yields.
“Go number the stars in the heaven;
Count how many sands on the shore:
When so many kisses you’ve given,
I still shall be craving for more.
“To a heart full of love let me hold thee,
To a heart which, dear Chloe, is thine;
With my arms I’ll forever enfold thee,
And twist round thy limbs like a vine.
“What joy can be greater than this is?
My life on thy lips shall be spent;
But the wretch that can number his kisses
With few will be ever content.”
TRACES IN ENGLISH HISTORY.
Kissing appears to have been the usual method of salutation in England in
former times. A Greek traveller, named Chalondyles, who visited Britain
five centuries ago, says:
“As for English females and children, their customs are liberal in the
extreme. For instance, when a visitor calls at a friend’s house, his
first act is to kiss his friend’s wife; he is then a duly-installed
guest. Persons meeting in the street follow the same custom, and no one
sees anything improper in the action.”
Another Greek traveller of a century later, also adverts to this
osculatory custom. He says:
“The English manifest much simplicity and lack of jealousy in their
customs as regards females; for not only do members of the same family
and household kiss them on the lips with complimentary salutations
and enfolding of the arms round the waist, but even strangers, when
introduced, follow the same mode, and it is one which does not appear to
them in any degree unbecoming.”
Chaucer often alludes to it. Thus, the Frere in the Sompnour’s Tale, upon
the entrance of the mistress of the house into the room where her husband
and he were together,
“ariseth up ful curtisly,
And hire embraceth in his armes narwe,
And kisseth hire swete and chirketh as a sparwe
With his lippes.”
Robert de Brunne (1303) says that the custom formed part of the ceremony
of drinking healths:
“That sais wasseille drinkis of the cup,
Kiss and his felow he gives it up.”
In Hone’s “Year-Book” occurs the following passage:
“Another specimen of our ancient manners is seen in the French embrace.
The gentleman, and others of the male sex, lay hands on the shoulders,
and touch the side of each other’s cheek; but on being introduced to
a lady, they say to her father, brother, or friend, _Permettez moi_,
and salute each of her cheeks.... And was not this custom in England
in Elizabeth’s reign? Let us read one of the epistles of the learned
Erasmus, which, being translated, is in part as follows:
“‘Although, Faustus, if you knew the advantages of Britain, truly you
would hasten thither with wings to your feet; and, if your gout would
not permit, you would wish you possessed the wings of Dædalus. For just
to touch on one thing out of many here, there are lasses with heavenly
faces, kind, obliging, and you would far prefer them to all your Muses.
There is, besides, a practice never to be sufficiently commended. If you
go to any place, you are received with a kiss by all; if you depart on
a journey, you are dismissed with a kiss; if you return, the kisses are
exchanged. Do they come to visit you, a kiss is the first thing; do they
leave you, you kiss them all around. Do they meet you anywhere, kisses in
abundance. In short, wherever you turn, there is nothing but kisses. Ah,
Faustus, if you had once tasted the tenderness, the fragrance of these
kisses, you would wish to stay in England, not for ten years only, but
for life.”
This unctuous expatiation of the far-famed Dutchman is in rather broad
contrast with the stern reprobation of John Bunyan, who says, in his
“Grace Abounding:”
“The common salutation of women I abhor; it is odious to me in whomsoever
I see it. When I have seen good men salute those women that they have
visited, or that have visited them, I have made my objection against it;
and when they have answered that it was but a piece of civility, I have
told them that it was not a comely sight. Some, indeed, have urged the
holy kiss; but then I have asked them why they have made balks? why they
did salute the most handsome, and let the ill-favored ones go?”
More than a century before this decided expression of the great
allegorist, Richard Whytford had said, in his “Type of Perfection” (1532):
“It becometh not, therefore, the personnes religious to follow _the
manere of secular personnes_, that in theyr congresses or commune
metynges, or departyngs, done use to kysse, take hands, or such other
touchings that good religious-personnes shulde utterly avoyde.”
In Collet’s “Relics of Literature” maybe found this suggestive paragraph:
“Dr. Pierius Winsemius, historiographer to their High Mightinesses the
States of Friesland, in his _Chronijck van Frieslandt_, 1622, tells
us that the pleasant practice of kissing was utterly ‘unpractised and
unknown’ in England till the fair princess Ronix (Rowena), the daughter
of King Hengist of Friesland, ‘pressed the beaker with her lipkens, and
saluted the amorous Vortigern with a husjen (a little kiss).’”
But, whether this Anglo-Saxon incident be true or mythical, it is certain
that in the time of Cardinal Wolsey, who lived cotemporaneously with
Erasmus, from whom we have quoted, the osculatory reputation of the
English was widely spread. Cavendish, the biographer of Wolsey, says, in
reference to a visit at the château of M. Créqui, a distinguished French
nobleman:
“Being in a fair great dining chamber, I awaited my Lady’s coming; and
after she came thither out of her own chamber, she received me most
gently, like one of noble estate, having a train of twelve gentlewomen.
And when she with her train came all out, she said to me, ‘Forasmuch as
ye be an Englishman, whose custom is in your country to kiss all ladies
and gentlewomen without offence, and _although it be not so here_ in this
realm [France, _temp._ Henry VIII.], yet will I be so bold to kiss you,
and so shall all my maidens.’ By means whereof, I kissed my lady and all
her women.”
When Bulstrode Whitelock was at the court of Queen Christina of Sweden,
as ambassador from Oliver Cromwell, he waited on her on May-day, to
invite her to “take the air, and some little collation he had provided as
her humble servant.” She came with her ladies; and “both in supper-time
and afterwards,” being “full of pleasantness and gayety of spirits, among
other frolics, commanded him to teach her ladies _the English mode of
salutation_, which, after some pretty defences, their lips obeyed, and
Whitelock most readily.”
In a curious book published in London in 1694, entitled “The Ladies’
Dictionary; being a General Entertainment for the Fair Sex,” the author,
who deals with the fashions of the time, remarks under the article
“Kissing,” as follows:
“But kissing and drinking both are now grown (it seems) to be a greater
custom amongst us than in those days with the Romans. Nor am I so austere
to forbid the use of either, both which, though the one in surfeits, the
other in adulteries, may be abused by the vicious; yet contrarily at
customary meetings and laudable banquets, they by the nobly disposed, and
such whose hearts are fixed upon honor, may be used with much modesty and
continence.”
This osculatory custom seems to have disappeared about the time of
the Restoration. Peter Heylin says it had for some time before been
unfashionable in France. When he visited that country, in 1625, he
thought it strange and uncivil that the ladies should turn away from the
proffer of a salutation; and he indignantly exclaims “that the chaste and
innocent kiss of an English gentlewoman is more in heaven than their best
devotions.” Its abandonment in England might have formed part of that
French code of politeness which Charles II. introduced on his return.
Apropos of this, we may here quote a letter of Rustic Sprightly to the
“Spectator” (No. 240):
“MR. SPECTATOR,