Chapter 2

Saw each other’s dark eyes darting lightInto 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 apaisésEt toutes les lèvres ouvertes,Qu’un frémissement de baisersMonte 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 nameOf 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.

Beatrix Donato was the soft sweet nameOf 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 morenaïvespeech of popular poetry, we find in a GermanSchnaderhüpfel(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.

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 heavenWhen 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 ofBabylonika, 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 offolk-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 longingAfter purple, after gew-gaws,After what the others long for.Happy am I in the clinkingOf the goblet filled with rich wine;Happier still amidst sweet singing;But my happiness were greatest,Dared I press my kisses on aMouth, and that mouth only thine.W. F. H.

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 longingAfter purple, after gew-gaws,After what the others long for.

Happy am I in the clinkingOf the goblet filled with rich wine;Happier still amidst sweet singing;But my happiness were greatest,Dared I press my kisses on aMouth, 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 orangeOn the breezy shore:“Certainly nowhere happinessIs found to equal mine.”Answered a green appleFrom 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 foundIts like cannot be seen.”But a handsome lad made answerTo every speech they made;“You’re mad, all mad, to utterSuch words as I’ve just heard,For no one in the universeCan be so blest as I.”“Golden orange by the breezyShore I pluck thee now.Apple, from thy apple treeTo-day I’ll shake thee down.Grass-plot, I’ll mow thee levelWith my scythe-strokes to-day.Maiden, as yet unsulliedTo-day I’ll kiss thy lips.”W. F. H.

Proudly cried a golden orangeOn the breezy shore:“Certainly nowhere happinessIs found to equal mine.”

Answered a green appleFrom 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 foundIts like cannot be seen.”

But a handsome lad made answerTo every speech they made;“You’re mad, all mad, to utterSuch words as I’ve just heard,For no one in the universeCan be so blest as I.”

“Golden orange by the breezyShore I pluck thee now.Apple, from thy apple treeTo-day I’ll shake thee down.Grass-plot, I’ll mow thee levelWith my scythe-strokes to-day.Maiden, as yet unsulliedTo-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 labiosQuando 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 baisierNe 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 portalA 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.

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. InEnthousiasmeAarestrup says:

Ha, you’re blushing! What red rosesDeck 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 mountainsLamentations fraught with sadnessIssue, soft as from a girl’s voice.Then a youth the sound pursueth,And he sees a maiden shackledFast 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 maidenEre he loosed her from her fetters,Then went homeward with his bride.W. F. H.

From beyond the high green mountainsLamentations fraught with sadnessIssue, soft as from a girl’s voice.Then a youth the sound pursueth,And he sees a maiden shackledFast 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 maidenEre 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 remarkablesagawhich 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 heartBegins 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 foolWho 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 byonekiss 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 eyeOur 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 amountMy rage for love and thee could tire,And satisfy and cloy desire?

And the answer runs:

Many as grains of Libyan sandUpon Cyrene’s spicy landFrom prescient Ammon’s sultry domeTo sacred Battus’ ancient tomb;Many as stars that silent kenAt night the stolen loves of men.Yes, when the kisses thou shall kissHave reached a number vast as this,Then may desire at length be stayed,And e’en my madness be allayed:Then when infinity defiesThe 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 physicThe 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.

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 everAnd evermore.And the magic flowOf his talk, the blissIn the clasp of his hand,And, oh, his kiss!My bosom yearnsFor him alone;Ah, dared I clasp him,And hold, and own!And kiss his mouth,To heart’s desire,And on his kissesAt last expire!

My peace is gone,My heart is sore:’Tis gone for everAnd evermore.

And the magic flowOf his talk, the blissIn the clasp of his hand,And, oh, his kiss!

My bosom yearnsFor him alone;Ah, dared I clasp him,And hold, and own!

And kiss his mouth,To heart’s desire,And on his kissesAt last expire!

Numberless poets have varied the theme of the quenching yet burning kisses of love.

O’er me flows in streams deliciousKisses’ rosy and glowing rain,W. F. H.

sings Waldemar at his meeting with Tove, and Aarestrup laments:

In vain I’m seekingIn ev’ry land,Thy sweetness burningOf 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 oldnaïve, 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, andthe 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 enfeveredHave scars of crimson burned.W. F. H.

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 enfeveredHave 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 subjectcolumbatim 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’morsiunculæhave 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 expressionbaciare 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 isfar 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 isextremely logical, and, I take it, from a purely theoretical point of view, unobjectionable; but, practically, the case is quite the contrary. The royaltrouvère, Thibaut de Champagne, treats in a lengthy poem—one of the so-calledjeux-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 greatFrom bosom down to toe.W. F. H.

So sings Aarestrup, and he returns again and again to the same idea in hisritorneller:

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 onSuch beauty I have uttered. For my guerdonGrant me one now to rest my weary head on.At kisses pressed upon your neck’s fair closesYou thrilled and threw your head back, and I straightwayPlanted 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.

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 onSuch beauty I have uttered. For my guerdonGrant me one now to rest my weary head on.

At kisses pressed upon your neck’s fair closesYou thrilled and threw your head back, and I straightwayPlanted 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 composedabout 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, andoscula corporaliaare, 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 dayGuard 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 deathWhilst 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.

Suchoscula impropriaare often mentioned by ancient as well as modern poets.Propertius(I. 16) says:

Ah, oft I’ve hither sped with verse to greetThee, 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 grassBecause they have approached your charms:The sands o’er which your footsteps pass,And leafy boughs that stretched their armsTo 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, certainsmall, obligingpostillons d’amourare employed Heine uses his poems for that purpose:

O would that all my versesWere kisses light and sweet:I’d send them all in secretMy 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’retsWalked 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-belovèdWhen I’d fastened just two tiny greetingsLightly 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 unfruit 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 undoubtedlysympathise 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 mouthafter meals. On the lips of youth alone you reap the sweetest harvests:

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