IVTHE KISS OF PEACE

Out of my stythe I winna rise,. . . . . . . . . .Till Kempion, the king’s son,Cum to the crag, and thrice kiss me;

implores the snake; but Kempion dares not. The snake coils in and out, and the mountain is aflame; at last Kempion summons all his courage:

He’s louted him o’er the lofty crag,And he has given her kisses three;Awa she gaed, and again she cam,The loveliest ladye e’er could be!

The same subject is found in the ballads of other countries. In the DanishJomfruen i ormehamthe young maiden has been changed into a little snake, compelled towriggle in the grass. However, the knight Jennus comes:

It was the brave knight Jennus;Forth to the greenwood he hies.As o’er the grass he rideth,A little snake he espies.It was the brave knight Jennus;Over his saddle he lay.He kissed the little serpent;A maiden it turned straightway.It was the brave knight Jennus;Troth to the maid he did plight.He bade them keep his weddingFor both with much delight.W. F. H.

It was the brave knight Jennus;Forth to the greenwood he hies.As o’er the grass he rideth,A little snake he espies.

It was the brave knight Jennus;Over his saddle he lay.He kissed the little serpent;A maiden it turned straightway.

It was the brave knight Jennus;Troth to the maid he did plight.He bade them keep his weddingFor both with much delight.W. F. H.

In another ballad the maiden has been turned by her stepmother into a lime-tree, and makes her moan:

She changed me into a lime-tree, andShe bade me e’en in the greenwood stand.She bade me stand and hope for no bote,Until a king’s son should kiss my root.Here have I tarried for years full five,Nor kissed me has any king’s son alive.Here have I tarried for years now ten,Nor has a king’s son kissed me since then.W. F. H.

She changed me into a lime-tree, andShe bade me e’en in the greenwood stand.

She bade me stand and hope for no bote,Until a king’s son should kiss my root.

Here have I tarried for years full five,Nor kissed me has any king’s son alive.

Here have I tarried for years now ten,Nor has a king’s son kissed me since then.W. F. H.

But at last the hour of her freedom arrives;the king’s daughter has heard the lime-tree’s lamentation, and she sends a message to her brother, who comes at once:

He hoisted his silken sail of red,And o’er the salt sea on he sped.The knight on his back a red cloak threw,And fared to the lime-tree without ado.He kissed himself the lime-tree’s feet,Which straight became a maiden sweet.W. F. H.

He hoisted his silken sail of red,And o’er the salt sea on he sped.

The knight on his back a red cloak threw,And fared to the lime-tree without ado.

He kissed himself the lime-tree’s feet,Which straight became a maiden sweet.W. F. H.

Corresponding poetical stories of the redeeming power of the kiss are to be found in the literature of many countries, especially, for example, in the Old French Arthurian romances (Lancelot,Guiglain,Tirant le blanc) in which the princess is changed by evil arts into a dreadful dragon, and can only resume her human shape in the case of a knight being brave enough to kiss her. This kiss is calledle fier baiser. From French the subject migrated to Italian literature, in which it was taken up and made use of first inCarduino, later on in Boiardo’sOrlando innamorato. The hero, after many perilous adventures, reaches an enchanted castle where a young and beautiful maiden is sittingby a tomb. She tells him she can be released if he will venture to lift the stone from the tomb and kiss what then appears. Without giving it a second thought, the knight opens the tomb, and a horrible serpent with hissing tongue and venomous breath darts forth. Trembling with fear, he fulfils his promise, and that very instant the monster is transformed into a lovely fairy who overwhelms her benefactor with recompenses. Thismotifformed the subject of a drama in the last century by Gozzi inLa donna serpente: fiaba teatrale tragicomica.

Finally many folk-stories on this subject may be quoted. In the tale of “Beauty and the Beast,” the transformed prince begged the young maiden he had carried off on his back for a kiss. “No,” answered she, “how could I kiss you who are so ugly and have seven horns on your forehead?” Then the beast went its way, and she saw it no more till one day she found it lying dead under a bush in the garden, whereupon she wept as she had never wept before, and cast herself down on the beast and kissed it. Then it returned to life, and the ugly beast became the handsomest prince her eyes could see.He then told her that he had been bewitched by a wicked fairy, and could not be delivered unless a maid fell in love with him and kissed him, despite his ugliness.

In this case the kiss redeems from death, and likewise death itself is nothing more than a great kiss of affection. When a human being quits this earthly life it is God who takes His child in His arms, kisses it, and carries it away from earth to brighter and more blissful spheres.

This highly poetical and beautiful conception of death has found expression in Italian, where, instead of the word “die,” one can say, “fall asleep in the Lord’s kiss” (addormentarsi nel bacio del Signore). And this has got flesh and blood in an old legend of the saints, where it is told of St Monica that, as she lay dying on her couch, a little child whom nobody knew came and kissed her on her breast, and straightway, as if the child had called her, she bowed her head and breathed forth her last sigh.

The kiss of affection follows man even after death; with a kiss one takes leave of the lifeless body.

In Genesis we read that when Jacob wasdead, “Joseph fell upon his father’s face and wept upon him and kissed him”; and it is told of Abu Bekr, Mahomet’s first disciple, father-in-law, and successor, that, when the prophet was dead, he went into the latter’s tent, uncovered his face, and kissed him.

In the curious poem ofEbbe Tygesøns dödsridt, when the knight’s horse carries his corpse back to his betrothed, it is said:

She lifted up his gory head,And raised it to her lips to kiss;She swooned away, and fell back dead,In very sooth, as she did this.W. F. H.

In ancient times lovers always demanded of each other this act of love. “When the alabaster box, filled with Syrian perfume, has been poured out over my dead body, then do thou, O Cynthia, press thy last kisses on my cold lips,” sings Propertius in one of his elegies:

Osculaque in gelidis pones suprema labellis,Cum dabitur Syrio munere plenus onyx.Propertiusiii. 4, 29, 30.

And the same wish is expressed by Tibullus (I., i. 61, 62):

Flebis et arsuro positum me, Delia, lecto,Tristibus et lacrymis oscula mixta dabis.“You’ll weep for me, dear Delia, ere flames have caught my bier,And mingle with your kisses full many a bitter tear.”W. F. H.

Flebis et arsuro positum me, Delia, lecto,Tristibus et lacrymis oscula mixta dabis.

“You’ll weep for me, dear Delia, ere flames have caught my bier,And mingle with your kisses full many a bitter tear.”W. F. H.

The death-kiss is something so natural that it is superfluous to point out its existence amongst different nations. It was not only a mark of love, but it was also an article of belief that the soul might be detained for a brief while by such a kiss. Ovid, in hisTristia, laments over his joyless existence in Tomis, whither Augustus had banished him, and is in despair because, when the hour of death approaches, he will not have his beloved wife by his side to detain his fleeting spirit by her kisses mingled with tears.

The kiss is the last tender proof of love bestowed on one we have loved, and was believed, in ancient times, to follow mankind to the nether world. Even in our own days, popular belief in many places demands that the nearest relative shall kiss the corpses forehead ere the coffin lid is screwed down; in certain parts, indeed, it is incumbent on every one who sees a dead body to kiss it, otherwise he will get no peace for the dead.

Salute invicem in osculo sancto.Pauli Epist. ad Romanos, xvi. 16.

Salute one another with an holy kiss.

Thekiss, as expressive of deep, spiritual love, also came to figure in the primitive Christian Church.

Christ has said: “Peace be with you, my peace I give you,” and the members of Christ’s Church gave each other peace symbolically through a kiss. St Paul repeatedly speaks of the “holy kiss” (ϕίλημα ἄγιον), and, in his Epistle to the Romans, writes: “Salute one another with an holy kiss”; and he reiterates this exhortation in both his Epistles to the Corinthians (1, xvi. 20, and 2, xiii. 12), and his first Epistle to the Thessalonians (v. 26), wherein he says: “Greet all the brethren with an holy kiss.”

The holy kiss has gradually found admission into the ritual of the Church, and was imparted on occasions of particular solemnity, such as baptism, marriage, confession, ordination,obsequies, etc., etc. At a wedding the ceremony was as follows: On the conclusion of High Mass and after theAgnus Deihad been chanted, the bridegroom went up to the altar and received the kiss of peace from the priest. After this he returned to his wife, and gave her the priest’s kiss of peace at the foot of the crucifix. Reminiscences of this rite still survive in several churches in England.

The holy kiss played an important part even at the Mass; in the Greek Church it was imparted before, in the Roman Catholic Church after, the consecration of the elements. The priest kissed the penitent, and through this kiss gave him peace; this was the true kiss of peace (osculum pacis). We have a peculiar memorial of this in Old Irish, where the wordpōc, which is derived from the Latinpax, means “kiss,”—not “peace.” This change of meaning must, I suppose, be attributed partly to a misunderstanding of the priest’s words when he kissed the penitent:Pacem do tibi(Peace I give unto thee),i.e., people understood the kiss as the chief thing, and thoughtpacemreferred to that. The same peculiarity is again to bemet with in mediæval Spanish, wherepazhas also the meaning of “kiss.” In an ancient romance which relates how Fernando dubbed the Cid a knight, it says at the end, “He buckled a sword on his waist, and gave him ‘peace’ (i.e., a kiss) on the mouth”:

El rey le ciñó la espadaPaz en la boca le ha dado.

The holy kiss occurs even in the early Christian love-feasts, the so-called ἀγαπαί, and indeed was often exchanged in the church itself by all the faithful without regard to sex, which gave the heathen cause for scandal, and its use was restricted so that only men kissed men, and women, women.

The kiss of peace was in vogue in France down to the thirteenth century. We find it in the story about a very unpleasant incident to which Queen Margaret, the wife of St Louis, was exposed. One day when she was in church and the kiss of peace was to be imparted, she saw close beside her a woman in splendid apparel, and taking the latter to be a lady of rank, she gave her the kiss of peace. It turned out, however, that the queen had made a mistake; she had kissedone of the common courtesans who always swarmed about the Court. She then complained to the king, the consequence of which was that certain ordinances were drawn up with respect to the dress of women of that class, in order to render all confusion with respectable women henceforward impossible.

The kiss of peace in the churches seems to have been abolished in the latter part of the Middle Ages, at different times in different countries.

In the middle of the thirteenth century a special instrument for conveying the kiss was introduced into England—the so-calledosculatoriumortabella pacis, which was composed of a metal disc with a holy picture, and was passed round the church to be kissed.

From the English Church the osculatory was gradually introduced into other churches, but nowhere does it appear to have contrived to rejoice in any particularly long stay. In various ways it gave occasion to scandal.

It was provocative of contention and strife in the church itself, when people of position quarrelled violently as to whom the honour belonged of kissing it first. Contentions asto precedence at church are, as we see, of long standing.

It seems also to have served as a sort of profane intermediary between lovers. When a young and beautiful girl kissed it she had close beside her a fine young fellow who waited impatiently to take it directly from her hand and lips. We read in one of Marot’s poems:

I told the maid that she was fair;I’ve kissed the Pax just after her.W. F. H.

Through the use of the osculatory, the well-known custom of gallants such as, from the Greek romances and Ovid, existed in ancient times, was revived—Huet calls itelegans urbanitatis genus—when the lover drank out of the goblet from the very place which the beloved one’s lips had touched. Formerly a sort ofpaxwas employed even in Danish churches. The Catholic priests showed the people “a picture in a book” (of course the picture of some saint), and this picture was kissed by the congregation; for which purpose a small fee termed “kiss-money” or “book-money” was handed to the parish clerk.

Even after the use of thepaxhad been abolished by the Reformation, the “book-money,” as a customary due to the clerk, was retained. But at a congress at Roskilde in 1565, parish clerks were forbidden to demand this fee.

The holy kiss is still imparted in the Greek Church on Easter Sunday; all the faithful greet each other in church with kisses, and the words, “Christ is risen,” the reply to which being, “Verily, He hath risen.” In the Roman Catholic liturgy this usage has been confined to certain masses, and the holy kiss is only exchanged among the clergy, not among the members of the congregation. First, the bishop and archdeacon kiss the altar, then the archdeacon kneels down and the bishop gives him the kiss of peace with the words:Pax tibi, frater, et ecclesiæ sanctæ Dei(Peace be with thee, brother, and with God’s Holy Church). The archdeacon answers:Et cum spiritu tuo(And with thy spirit), after which he gets up, genuflects towards the altar, and carries the kiss of peace to the chief canon, whom he kisses on the left cheek with the wordspax tibi, and thus it is sent round toall the officiating clergy with many different ceremonies.

The holy kiss soon spread beyond the walls of the church, and came into usage even in secular festivities. Thus, during the Middle Ages, it was the custom to seal the reconciliation and pacification of enemies by a kiss. The old German poets mention such a kiss under the name of “Vredekuss,” and so widespread was the custom of the kiss of reconciliation, that the verbat sone, orudsone, got the meaning of “to kiss.”Sônenhas still this meaning in Frisian.

In an old French miracle-play St Bernard of Clairvaux says to Count William and the Bishop of Poitiers, who had had a long-standing feud with each other, and between whom he had managed to make peace: “In order to show that your friendship is true and sincere, you must kiss each other.” Count William then goes up to the bishop, saying: “My lord, I crave your forgiveness for the wrong I have inflicted on you; I have erred greatly towards you. Kiss me now to seal our peace, and I will kiss you with loyal heart.”

Even knights gave each other the kiss ofpeace before proceeding to the combat, and forgave one another all real or imaginary wrongs.

InCovenant Vivien, Vivien exchanges the kiss of peace with Girart and six other illustrious warriors before the great fight with King Desramé begins.

Manzoni has made use of the kiss of peace in the pathetic scene inI promessi Sposi(The Betrothed), when Fra Cristoforo obtains forgiveness from the nobleman whose son he has slain. The nobleman receives the monk in his palace. Surrounded by all his relations, he stands in the middle of his great hall, with left hand on his sword-hilt, whilst with his right he holds a flap of his cloak pressed against his chest. Cold and stern, he gazes contemptuously and with suppressed wrath at the novice as he enters, but the latter exhibits such touching remorse and noble humility that the nobleman, there and then, abandons his stiffness. He raises up the kneeling brother himself, grants him his forgiveness, and, finally, “carried away by the emotion that prevailed, he threw his arms round the latter’s neck, and gave and received the kiss of peace.”

After the Middle Ages the kiss of peacedisappears altogether as the official token of reconciliation; solitary instances, indeed, can certainly be quoted from Catherine of Medici’s Court, but they are rather to be regarded as studied efforts to re-introduce an old and abandoned usage. After the murder of Francis de Guise in 1563, his widow and brother meet Admiral de Coligny; the latter swore that he had not the least suspicion of the assassin’s plot, whereupon they kiss each other, and mutually promise to forget all enmities, and henceforward to live in peace and harmony. This kiss of peace was as powerless to revive the old custom as Lamourette’s memorable attempt at the time of the Revolution. On the 7th July 1792, when the quarrel amongst the members of the Legislative Assembly had reached a terrible height, at the time when the Austrian and Prussian armies were marching on Paris, Lamourette got up and made a fervent patriotic speech, in which, in the most moving terms, he exhorted all the members of the Assembly to sink their differences. He finished by saying: “Let us forget all dissension and swear everlasting fraternity”—et jurons-nous fraternité éternelle, and the deputies at oncefell into each others arms, and in a universal kiss of reconciliation every one forgave each other’s wrongs. But this unity did not last long. The quarrels began again the following day, and two years afterwards Lamourette himself died by the guillotine; but the expression, a kiss of Lamourette—un baiser de Lamourette—still survives in the French language as a half ironical term for a short-lived reconciliation.

Les rois des nations, devant toi prosternés,De tes pieds baisent la poussière.Racine—Athalie.

The kings of the Gentiles, prostrate before thee, kiss the dust of thy feet.

Margaret of Scotland, who was betrothed to Charles the Seventh’s son, the Dauphin Louis (afterwards Louis XI.), one day walked through a hall where Alain Chartier was sitting asleep in a chair. On perceiving the sleeping poet, she went up to him and kissed him on the lips. Many of her suite were astonished at this, “for nature had, so far as Chartier was concerned, suffered a beautiful and rich mind to take up its abode in an ugly body.” The princess replied that they were not to marvel at what she had done, for it was not the man she had kissed, but the mouth from which so many golden words had proceeded. Margaret’s kiss was therefore an expression of the respect she had for the poet, and the admiration and regard inspired by his poetical genius. A little further back in the Middle Ages we meet with anotherstriking instance of a kiss as expressive of veneration; but this kiss is of a more humble nature. We are told that, when the Emperor Otto I. had taken leave of his pious mother in the church attached to a monastery, the latter followed him with her eyes as long as she could, and then returned to the church and kissed the place whereon his feet had stood.

The kiss of veneration is of ancient origin; from the remotest times we find it applied to all that is holy, noble, and worshipful—to the gods, their statues, temples, and altars, as well as to kings and emperors; out of reverence, people even kissed the ground, and both sun and moon were greeted with kisses.

In the first book of Kings God says to Elijah: “Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him” (xix. 18).

In the thirty-first chapter of Job, Job extols his own piety: “If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness; and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand” (26, 27). Here, undoubtedly, allusion is made to the kissing ofhands whereby the heathen were wont to salute the heavenly bodies.

When the prophet Hosea laments over the idolatry of the children of Israel, he says that they make molten images of calves and kiss them.

Even in remote classical times a similar homage was paid to the gods; people kissed the hands, knees, and feet, even the mouths, of their idols. Cicero informs us, in one of his speeches against Verres, that the lips and beard of the famous statue of Hercules at Agrigentum were worn away by the kisses of devotees.

Bayle tells us, in reference to this passage, that a physician was asked one day why it was that a bronze face could, in this manner, be worn away through being kissed, whereas, on the other hand, kisses did not leave the slightest trace on the countenance of the most fashionable courtesan. His answer was that the reason, he supposed, was that statues were kissed for centuries, but that the woman in question was only kissed for a very few years, viz., so long as her beauty lasted. This explanation was, however, considered unsatisfactory, and the physician’s attention wascalled to the fact that soft flesh must be far sooner worn away than hard bronze; besides, lover’s kisses being considerably more violent than those of mere respect. The physician then urged another reason, viz., that which kisses wear away from bronze lips is lost for ever, but that which is worn away from living lips is immediately replaced by renewal of tissue in the body.

The kiss of veneration came to play a very important part in Christian society. St Luke the Evangelist tells us that when Christ sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house there came a woman who had been a great sinner, bringing with her a vase of ointment. “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” (vii. 38). When the Pharisee wondered at His having allowed such a woman to touch Him, He rebuked him by the parable of the two debtors, and added, “Thou gavest me no kiss, but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint, but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment.”

Again in the Psalms, “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.”

C. H. Spurgeon used these lines as the text of a sermon he preached in the “Music Hall,” London, on the 3rd of July 1859, in which he did his utmost to make his congregation understand what is meant by saying we are to “kiss Christ.” “The kiss,” says he, “is a mark of worship; to kiss Christ is at the same time to recognise Him as God, and to pay Him divine worship. The kiss is a mark of homage and subjection; we ought likewise to acknowledge Christ as our King, and promise to follow blindly His behests. The kiss is a sign of reconciliation; we ought to show that we are reconciled with God. Lastly, the kiss is the greatest of all tokens of love; to kiss Christ is therefore only a figurative way of expressing to love Him with deep and fervent love.”[14]

As the woman that was a sinner showed her reverence for Christ by kissing His feet, so all saintly men and women henceforward were honoured in a like manner. They were saluted humbly by kisses on their hands orfeet, and the legend goes that he who kissed the hand of St Dominic never afterwards committed sin. In many countries, more especially in Southern Italy, kissing the hands of the priest is still customary.

The kiss reverential was extended to everything that was holy, or had been consecrated to sacred purposes.

People kissed the Cross with the image of the Crucified, and such kissing of the Cross is always regarded as a particularly holy act. In many countries it is required, on taking an oath, as the highest asseveration that the witness is speaking the truth, and as a last act of charity, the image of the Redeemer is handed to the dying or death-condemned to be kissed. Kissing the Cross brings blessing and happiness. In the south of France people used formerly, in moments of difficulty or danger, when no Cross was at hand, to kiss their thumbs laid in the form of a cross. When devout Catholics salute the Pope by humbly kissing his slipper, they are fond of explaining away this greeting. They say that it is not to be taken as any personal homage paid to the Pope; the kiss having nothing to do with his slipper, but the crosswhich is embroidered on it. Therefore Christ it is to whom they are prostrating themselves. This idea, however, is undoubtedly a later fancy; the kiss on the slipper ought, I take it, more correctly to be considered as humble homage to the Pope as primate of the Church, and such, therefore, must be the view the Pope himself holds, since he has, times without number, exempted cardinals and other persons of high rank from kissing his slipper. The number of kings and ambassadors who, in the course of time, have refused to submit to this ceremony, have undoubtedly regarded it as a humiliation; and popular conception bears this out thoroughly. To “kiss the slipper” has become in many languages synonymous with a low and unworthy cringing. In the old German war-song against Charles V., we find:

Ah, think the whole imperial raceThrough Popery fell in sore disgraceAnd German might was riven.Will you for all their knaveryTo slipper-kiss be given?W. F. H.

People kiss the image of Our Lady. The legend tells us that John of Antioch even dared to kiss Mary’s mouth, and this kissgave him wisdom and great eloquence, and spread a golden glory round his mouth, hence his surname Chrysostom (golden mouth).[15]

People kiss the pictures and statues of saints. Down in St Peter’s church in Rome there is a remarkable old bronze figure of St Peter, which is said to date from the fifth century, and the faithful have, in all ages, shown the highest veneration to this image, in consequence of which a great part of the right foot has been gradually kissed away.

Even nowadays the kiss bestowed on the pictures of the saints plays an enormous part in the Roman Catholic, but more particularly in the Greek Church. Not only their pictures, but even their relics are kissed; they make both soul and body whole. St Balbina obtained forgiveness for her sins by kissing St Peter’s chains, and Pascal’s niece was cured of a disease in her eyes by kissing one of the thorns of Christ’s Crown. This cure, the historical authenticity of which is, however, somewhat doubtful, made a greatsensation, and provoked a violent controversy between the Jansenists and Jesuits.

Besides, there are legends innumerable of sick people regaining their health by kissing relics; innumerable, too, are the satires which arose by reason of abuses in respect to cures which were achieved with relics genuine and false. One of the best known is perhaps the mediæval story ofThe Monk’s Breeches.

A Franciscan friar was a very intimate friend of a merchant in Orleans and his wife—especially of the latter. One evening the merchant returned home unexpectedly from a journey, and the friar, who had tried to the best of his ability to entertain the wife in the husband’s absence, for certain circumstances which were capable of being misunderstood, thought it wisest to disappear as quick as possible; but in his haste he forgot his breeches. The merchant, however, did not notice anything; the night was dark, and next morning he even put on the friar’s breeches instead of his own. On coming back home from his office in the afternoon—he had long discovered his mistake—he demanded, with violent and hasty words, an explanation from his wife; but the latter,who had discovered at once in the morning what had happened, hurriedly sent a messenger to the friar to consult with him as to what was to be done. According to their arrangement she answered her husband very calmly:

“My dear friend, don’t fly into a passion; you ought to thank me instead of quarrelling with me. You know we have no children, and we have tried everything—but all in vain. Now I heard that St Francis’ breeches could work miracles, even of that sort, and that is why I had them fetched for you. Take them off now, for I expect some one from the monastery will be coming for them directly.” The poor man in his delight quickly got out of his breeches, and directly he had done so there came a knocking at the door. It was the friar, followed by a choir boy carrying holy-water and a censer. He had come to fetch the precious relic of the monastery, and inquisitive neighbours flocked in from all quarters. He wrapped the breeches reverently up in a white hand-cloth, and sprinkled them with holy-water while the boy incensed them, after which he lifted up the sacred bundle. Meanwhile all fellon their knees, and after pronouncing a panegyric on St Francis, he himself carried round the breeches so that the people who had assembled might kiss them. This they did with deep piety and emotion, more especially the honest and grateful merchant.

This little story afforded much merriment in the Middle Ages. People found much enjoyment in its burlesque humour, and never got tired of hearing it. It occurs as afabliau, afarce, and a story, and belongs to thefacetiæwith which the Pope’s Secretary, Poggio, amused his friends inIl Bugiale(The Lie Manufactory).

Even as regards the great ones of this world the kiss used to serve in various ways as a mark of humility and reverence. Its use in ancient times was remarkably widespread; people threw themselves down on the ground before their rulers, kissed their footprints, literally “licked the dust,” as it is termed. In the Psalms, Solomon sings of the promised King: “They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust”; and the prophet Isaiah says: “Kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and queens thy nursing mothers:they shall bow down to thee with their face before the earth and lick up the dust of thy feet” (xlix. 23).

They kissed not only the ground under the powerful, but also their feet, knees, hands, or the hem of their garments.

Certain Roman Emperors adopted these oriental usages. Thus Caligula ordered people to kiss his hands and feet, and even in the Middle Ages the custom of kissing the feet of kings was in vogue.

Nearly everywhere, wheresoever an inferior meets a superior, we observe the kiss of respect. The Roman slaves kissed the hands of their masters; pupils and soldiers those of their teachers and captains respectively.

During the Middle Ages the vassal paid homage to his feudal lord by a kiss on the hand or foot, hence the expressiondevoir la bouche et les mains. It is well-known what befell Charles the Simple when Rollo, the Norman chieftain, had to pay him feudal homage. The proud Viking would not bow down to the king, but laid hold of the latter’s feet and lifted them up to his mouth, whereat the king, amidst the laughter of the spectators, tumbled down. Thus the scene is depictedbriefly and graphically in theRoman de Rou:—

Quant baisier dut le pie, baisier ne le deigna,La main tendi aual, le pie al rei leua,A sa bouche le traist e le rei enuersa;Asez s’en ristrent tuit, e li reis se dreça.[16]

They also kissed their liege lords on the thigh, and this method of kissing can be traced down to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; but the kiss on the hand was undoubtedly most frequently in use; and it was the general custom for the vassal at the same time to hand his lord a present, which is the reason why the wordbaise-main(hand-kiss) gradually got this meaning.

If the lord was absent when the vassal waited on him, the latter had to kiss the door, the lock or bolt, which was regarded as a valid substitution for kissing the hand. From this arose the expressions,baiser l’huis, (the door),baiser le verrouil, (the bolt), which were used partly as an expression of slavishsubserviency, and partly in an ironical sense of lovers who have been rejected by their mistresses, and thus constrained to

Kiss the door, and kiss its chainsFor ladies’ sake who are within.W. F. H.

As expressive not only of respect, but also of repentance, children in former days were made to kiss the rod by which they had been chastised. Geiler von Keiserberg writes in the sixteenth century: “When children are thrashed they kiss the rods and say:

Liebe ruot, trute ruotwerestu, ich tet niemer guot.[17]

“They kiss the rods and jump over them, yea they leap over them.” We have a memorial of this custom in the phrase, “kissing the rod.”

There is still one great power that we have not mentioned, and one who demands, too, homage by kisses,i.e., the devil; but, in order that the humility shown to him may be as great as possible, he must be kissed on his behind,i.e., on the place where the back ceases to be called the back. Old pictures of the Sabbath onBlocksberg exhibit to us his Satanic majesty, in the guise of a goat or cat, sitting on a high seat, while his worshippers reverently approach and kiss him under his tail. In several confessions of witches we find this kiss still more closely described: “The devil has a big tail, and under it a sort of face, but with this face he never speaks, as the only use he makes of it is to let his most devoted followers kiss the same; for kissing this face is regarded as an especially great honour.” This somewhat awkward kiss occurs, moreover, in several sagas. InHarehyrdenthe Jeppe gives up his magic flute to the king on condition that the latter kisses his ass under its tail. It can also be shown in actual life, and we have some anecdotes from the Middle Ages which seem to prove that thepodex-kiss was used as a derisory punishment. There is also a story told of a merry knight, once upon a time, compelling a party of monks to pay their respects to their abbot in the aforesaid less dignified way.

Kissesin anoseem also to have been required of neophytes on their reception into certain secret societies.

The part this kiss plays in insulting speechought to be sufficiently well known. The Romans ere now spoke aboutlingere culumorlambere nates; the Germans more decently say:Küss mich da ich sitz’(Kiss me where I sit), orEr kann mich küssen da wo ich keine Nase habe(He can kiss me where I have no nose). Frenchmen even use the last mentioned paraphrastic expression. It is told in an old poem about Theodore de Beza, whose youth was, as you are aware, a very dissipated one, that, on one occasion, he said of a lady that he would like to kiss her, but he did not know how he could manage to do so as her nose was far too long. When the lady learnt this she wittily replied:

... Pour si peu ne tenez,Car si cela seulement vous en garde!J’ai bien pour vous un visage sans nez.[18]

We have no knowledge if this offer tempted the rigid Calvinist that was to be; but the lady was undoubtedly young, and even if he had not found her face so remarkably beautiful, yet it would have been very different had the invitation come from an oldcrone, as the well-known saying, “baiser le cul de la vieille,” implies the deepest ignominy that can befall a man, at any rate a gambler—viz., to lose without scoring a point.

There is a Jutland variant of the story about Theodore de Beza: “I was driving one day with Niels Hundepenge, and we saw at a distance a woman walking on in front. Says Niels, ‘Peter, there goes a pretty girl; just see what a figure, and how she steps out.’ When we got up to her we found she was pock-marked and hideous. Then says Niels, ‘Now, my girl, if you were only as good-looking in front as you are behind, I should want to kiss you.’ ‘Well, if you think so,’ replied she, ‘you can kiss me, you know, where you fancy I am best looking.’ ”

Allow me, in connection with this, to call your attention to a peculiarity about the Latin wordosculum. The first syllable os of course signifies “mouth,” the two last, on the other hand, mean the correlative part on the reverse side of the body. This circumstance has been made use of in a Latin anecdote about a married lady. An importunate suitor asked her for a kiss,whereupon she replied that this could not be granted, inasmuch as the first of what he asked absolutely belonged to her husband, but, as she did not wish to be too hard on him, he was welcome to have the last:

Syllaba prima meo debetur tota marito,Sume tibi reliquas, non ero dura, duas.[19]

In modern times the ceremonious kiss of respect has gone clean out of fashion in the most civilised countries; it is only retained in the Church, but in all other domains it is practically unknown—so unknown, indeed, that in many cases the practice would be offensive or ridiculous.

Kissing the earth is another instance of such kisses that I shall quote. It plays a part in the old stories about Junius Brutus. Together with King Tarquin’s sons he journeyed to Delphi to consult the oracle. The answer they received was that the supreme power would fall to the lot of him who first kissed his mother. Brutus then made a pretence of stumbling, and as he fell he kissed the earth, our common mother. Afew years after this, the royal family were expelled from Rome, and Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius were elected consuls.

People also kissed the earth for joy on returning to their native land after a lengthened absence. When Agamemnon returned from the Trojan War:

Stepped he forth inwardly glad to the shore of his well-loved country,Kissing and kissing again his mother earth while the scaldingTears down his cheeks were coursing, though his heart was brimming with blitheness.

Even nowadays people feel glad at seeing their native country again after long absence, but they have another way of expressing their joy, and, without exaggeration, it would be safe to assert that if any one returning from a journey wished to emulate Agamemnon, that person would undoubtedly be put down as mad.

We find in Holberg (“Ulysses of Ithaca,” or “A German Comedy”) a parody of the old usage, where Ulysses says: “Let us fall down, after the old hero’s fashion, and kiss our mother earth.” They fall down and kiss the ground, but Chilian gets up hurriedlyand says: “The deuce! I don’t really understand the use of these ceremonies. Eugh, somebody has been here before—that I can plainly perceive.”

The old custom now only survives in certain sayings. Frenchmen use the expressionbaiser la terre(to kiss the earth), jeeringly, of a person falling; and the German,die Erde küssen(to kiss the earth), is a euphemistic way of saying “die.” I may add, for the sake of completeness, that kissing the earth still occurs sporadically nowadays in the sense of the profoundest humility mingled with regret. When Raskolnikow, in Dostojewski’s novel of that name, has confided to Sonja how he murdered the old usurer’s wife, he exclaims in his despair: “And what shall I do now?”—“What shall you do now,” exclaims Sonja, and her eyes flash: “Get up, go hence at once; station yourself at a crossway, kneel down and kiss the earth you have defiled, bow down thus before all the people, and say to them: ‘I have committed murder.’ Then God shall give you new life.” And, finally, when Raskolnikow has determined publicly to acknowledge his crime and denounce himself as a murderer, he falls prostrateon his knees in the middle of the market-place, bows down, and, amidst the laughter and derision of the bystanders, kisses the dirty ground with ecstasy and delight.

In Europe, at least, we no longer kiss the ground before the feet of the mighty, any more than we salute them by kissing their hands or feet; a bow more or less gracious, according to circumstances, serves the same purpose generally. Nevertheless, at certain courts, such as the Spanish, English, and Russian, kissing the hand is still customary as a sort of ceremonial salutation; but its practice is usually confined to certain solemn occasions.

Individuals of princely rank excepted, the kiss of respect to superiors is to be regarded as all but extinct; but even in the eighteenth century, kissing the hem of their garments is mentioned as a salutation befitting ladies of exalted rank, and in Holberg’sPolitiske Kandestøber(the Political Pewterer), we see how Madame Abrahamsen and Madame Sanderus even kissed Gedske on the apron.

Kissing, as expressive of admiration, still undoubtedly occurs, but can scarcely be saidto be particularly general; it becomes less and less common as we approach our own time.

A half-ironical instance occurs in Molière; inLes Femmes SavantesArmande and Philaminte fall into raptures over Vadius’ great learning.Du grec! O ciel! du grec! Il sait du grec, ma sœur!(Greek! good heavens! Greek! He knows Greek, sister), says the one, and the other answers:Du grec! quelle douceur!(Greek! how sweet!). In their boundless enthusiasm they ask Vadius to let them kiss him as a mark of their admiration. He accepts this salutation very politely, if not with any particularly great joy; but when he turns to young Henriette, from whose lips he is especially desirous of receiving so tender an expression of admiration, she rejects him quite abruptly with the remark:Excusez-moi, monsieur, je n’entends pas le Grec(Excuse me, sir, I don’t understand Greek).

The pedantic Vadius got just what he deserved—a kiss as dry as dust from two middle-aged, sexless blue-stockings, which nobody begrudges him. On the other hand, many, perhaps, will read with envy of thehomage received by Benjamin Franklin at the French Court. Mme. de Campan, in herMémoires, says: “At one of the splendid entertainments given in Franklin’s honour, I saw how the most beautiful of the three hundred ladies present was chosen to place a laurel crown on the white locks of the American philosopher and imprint a kiss on each of the old man’s cheeks.”

The kiss of admiration and respect has, I suppose, been the longest to survive in the form of kissing ladies’ hands. Formerly, in many countries, it constituted a friendly greeting on meeting a lady or saying good-bye to her; but nowadays this custom has grown obsolete in most places; nevertheless we have certain literary reminiscences of it. In Austria people sayKüss die Hand, gnädige Frau, andSârut mânain Roumania, but still it is comparatively rare that this expression is followed by actual kisses, as was formerly the case.Je vous baise les mainsis now only used in an ironical sense in France. Ceremonial kisses, however, still flourish in Spain to a marked degree, not only in the language of the Court, but also in general conversation. When I was first presentedto a Spanish lady I expressed my gladness at making her acquaintance by kissing her hand—only, however, by figure of speech—but her husband at once pointed out to me in a laughing way, that I had failed to show her proper respect. One can only kiss a Spanish lady’s feet:Beso à usted los piesorà los pies de usted(I kiss your feet), as they say.

Before leaving the subject of the kiss reverential I will mention two different ways in which it has been used. Formerly it was the custom, at least at the French Court, for pages to first kiss the articles they were to hand to distinguished personages. Henri Estienne tells an anecdote about a page who had to carry a letter to the Princess of Naples. It was expressly enjoined on him to kiss it (baisez-la), but the page pretended he had misunderstood the words, so when he had to leave the letter he first kissed the unsuspecting princess.

We find another peculiar form of the kiss reverential in the cases when a person kisses his own hand before offering it to the guest he would especially honour, or before accepting a present for which he wishes to showhis gratitude in an extraordinarily polite manner.[A]

In an old comedy of Marivaux, “Harlequin poli par l’Amour,” a fairy falls in love with a rustic lout. She carries him off, entertains him in her castle, and tries in every possible way to gain his love; but he remains utterly callous to all her blandishments, and behaves all the time in a most foolish manner. He takes a fancy to a valuable ring the fairy is wearing; she removes it from her finger and gives it to him, but when he scarcely says “Thank you” for it, she says to chide him:Mon cher Arlequin, un beau garçon comme vous, quand une dame lui présente quelque chose, doit baiser la main en la reçevant.[20]Arlequin takes hold of the fairy’s hand and kisses it; but she corrects him again, and says: “He does not understand me once, but I like his mistake. It is your own hand, you know, that you should kiss.”[21]

This usage still prevails amongst old peasants in Jutland, and is termed receiving something with “kissed hand,” or “kisshand.” The expressionKusshandis also employed in German, and is explained thus: “Gruss, wobei man die eigne Hand küsst und dann nach der zu grüssenden Person hin bewegt oder sie reicht.” The same sort of greeting is found both in England and France. Voltaire tells us that children in certain countries are taught to kiss their right hand when anybody gives them something good. Even at the present day, in certain places on the Alps, peasants express their thanks by kissing their hand before taking what is given to them.

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