THE KISS AND ITS HISTORY
THE KISS
And its History
BY
Dr CHRISTOPHER NYROP
Professor of Romance Philology at the University of Copenhagen
TRANSLATED BY
WILLIAM FREDERICK HARVEY
M.A., Hertford College, Oxford; Barrister-at-Law of the Inner
Temple; Lecturer in English at the University of Lund
(Sweden); sometime Professor of English Literature
at the University of Malta
LONDON
SANDS & CO.
12 BURLEIGH STREET, STRAND
1901
TO
WALTER BENSON, Esquire
I DEDICATE MY MODEST PART IN THIS BOOK
IN TOKEN OF A FRIENDSHIP WHICH
HAS GROWN STAUNCHER WITH
THE GROWTH OF
YEARS
ἦ μεγάλα χάρις
Δώρῳ ξὐν όλίγῳ· πάντα δἐ τιμᾶντα τἀ πἀρ ϕίλων
Theocritus, Idyl xxviii., 24, 25.
“Surely great grace goes with a little gift, and all the offerings of friends are precious.”
Je célèbre des jeux paisibles,
Qu’en vain on semble mépriser,
Les vrais biens des âmes sensibles,
Les doux mystères du baiser.
Dorat.
To gentle sports due praise I render,
At which some wits have vainly sneered:
The true delight of spirits tender,
The kiss’s mysteries endeared.
W. F. H.
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
The following treatise, which is the work of a Romance philologist of high European reputation, has not only gone through two editions in Denmark, but has also been translated into German, Swedish, and Russian. The popularity which this learned and at the same time charming little book rapidly acquired abroad, and the favourable criticisms passed on it by Continental scholars, have encouraged me to present it to my fellow-countrymen in an English dress. With regard to the numerous poetical quotations that form so striking a feature of this book, those which I have translated myself may be distinguished from such as I have borrowed from standard versions by the appended initials, W. F. H.
Inner Temple,
London, 2nd August 1901.
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
Wenn ich nur selber wüsste,
Was mir in die Seele zischt!
Die Worte und die Küsse
Sind wunderbar vermischt.
Oh, could I but decipher
What ’tis that fills my mind.
The words are with the kisses
So wond’rously combined.
Heine.
Dante, in the fifth canto of his Hell, has celebrated the power a kiss may have over human beings. In the course of his wanderings in the nether world, when he has reached the spot where abide those who have sinned through love, he sees two souls that “flutter so lightly in the wind.” These are Francesco da Rimini and her brother-in-law Paolo. He asks Francesco to tell him:
“In the time of your sweet sighs,
By what, and how love granted, that ye knew
Your yet uncertain wishes?”
Whereto she replies:
“One day
For our delight we read of Lancelot,
How him love thrall’d. Alone we were, and no
Suspicion near us. Ofttimes by that reading
Our eyes were drawn together, and the hue
Fled from our alter’d cheek. But at one point
Alone we fell. When of that smile we read,
The wished smile, so rapturously kissed
By one so deep in love, then he, who ne’er
From me shall separate, at once my lips
All trembling kiss’d. The book and writer both
Were love’s purveyors. In its leaves that day
We read no more.”[1]
I have had a special object in prefacing my studies on the history of kissing with these famous verses, for I regarded it in the light of a duty to caution my readers emphatically, and at the very outset, as to the danger of even reading about kisses; and I consider that, having done this, I have warned my readers against pursuing the subject, and “forewarned is forearmed,” or, “homme averti en vaut deux.”
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I
WHAT IS A KISS?
CHAPTER I
WHAT IS A KISS?
It may perhaps seem somewhat futile to begin with discussing what a kiss is: that every child of course knows. We are greeted with kisses directly we enter the world, and kisses follow us all our life long, as Hölty sings—
Giving kisses, snatching kisses,
Keeps the busy world employed.
W. F. H.
Nevertheless the question is not altogether superfluous. It seems to me even to offer certain points of interest, inasmuch as it is by no means so easy as people may imagine to define what a kiss is. If we turn to the poets we are often put off with the answer that a kiss is something that should be merely felt, and that people would do well to refrain from speculating as to what it actually is.
What says this glance? What meaning lurks in this
Squeezing of hands, embrace, and ling’ring kiss?
This only can your heart explain to you.
What have such matters with the brain to do?
W. F. H.
So, for instance, says Aarestrup; but he adds as a sort of explanation—
But when I see thee my fond kiss denying,
And straightway, nathless, mine embrace not spurning,
Then needs must I to tedious arts be turning,
And let crabb’d wisdom from my lips go flying.
Know then the voice alone interprets rightful
And with poetic fire from heart’s depth welleth,
And yet the sweetest of them all by no means!
Whereas the bosom, arms, and lips, and eye-sheens—
How shall I call it? for the total swelleth
Unto a language wordless as delightful.
W. F. H.
which has not brought us nearer to a solution of the question. Other poets give us an allegorical transcription, couched in vague poetical terms, which rather refer to the feelings of which the kiss may be an expression than attempt to define its physiology. Thus Paul Verlaine defines a kiss as “the fiery accompaniment on the keyboard of the teeth of the lovely songs which love sings in a burning heart.”
Baiser! rose trémière au jardin des caresses!
Vif accompagnement sur le clavier des dents,
Des doux refrains qu’Amour chante en les cœurs ardents
Avec sa voix d’archange aux langueurs charmeresses!
This definition, which seems to me to be as original as it is beautiful and apt, deals, however, exclusively with the kiss of love; but kisses, as we all know, are capable of expressing many other emotions, and it enlightens us not one whit as to the external side of the nature of a kiss. Let us, therefore, leave the poets, and seek refuge with the philologists.
In the Dictionary of the Danish Philological Society (Videnskabernes Selskabs Ordbog) a kiss is defined as “a pressure of the mouth against a body.” As every one at once perceives, this explanation is very unsatisfactory, for, from the above statements, we could hardly accept more than one, viz., the mouth. Now, of course, it is quite clear that one of the first requisites for a kiss is a mouth. “Einen Kuss an sich, ohne Mund, kann man nicht geben,” say the Germans, and it is also remarkable that in Finnish, antaa sunta, “to kiss,” means literally “to give mouth.”
How does the mouth produce a kiss?
A kiss is produced by a kind of sucking movement of the muscles of the lips, accompanied by a weaker or louder sound. Thus, from a purely phonetic point of view, a kiss may be defined as an inspiratory bilabial sound, which English phoneticians call the lip-click, i.e., the sound made by smacking the lip. This movement of the muscles, however, is not of itself sufficient to produce a kiss, it being, as you know, employed by coachmen when they want to start their horses; but it becomes a kiss only when it is used as an expression of a certain feeling, and when the lips are pressed against, or simply come into contact with, a living creature or object.
The sound which follows a kiss has been carefully investigated by the Austrian savant, W. von Kempelen, in his remarkable book entitled The Mechanism of Human Speech (Wien, 1791). He divides kisses into three sorts, according to their sound. First he treats of kisses proper, which he characterises as a freundschaftlich hellklatschender Herzenskuss (an affectionate, clear-ringing kiss coming from the heart); next he defines the more discreet, or, from an acoustic point of view, weaker kiss; and, lastly, speaks contemptuously of a third kind of kiss, which is designated an ekelhafter Schmatz (a loathsome smack).
Many other writers have, although in a less scientific manner, sought to define and elucidate the sound that arises from a kiss. Johannes Jørgensen says very delicately in his Stemninger that “the plash of the waves against the pebbles of the beach is like the sound of long kisses.”
It is generally, however, an exclusively humorous or satirical aspect that is most conspicuous. In the Seducer’s Diary (Forførerens dagbog) of Sören Kierkegaard, Johannes speaks of the engaged couples who used to assemble in numbers at his uncle’s house: “Without interruption, the whole evenings through, one hears a sound as if a person was going round with a fly-flap: that is the lovers’ kisses.” A still more drastic comparison is found in the German expression, “the kiss sounded just like when a cow drags her hind hoof out of a swamp.” This metaphor, which is used, you know, by Mark Twain, is as graphic as it is easy of comprehension; whereas, on the other hand, I am somewhat perplexed with regard to an old Danish expression that is to be found in the Ole Lade’s Phrases (Fraser): “He kissed her so that it rang just as it does when one strikes the horns off felled cows.” Another old author speaks of kissing that sounds as if one was pulling the horn out of an owl.
The emotions expressed by this more or less noisy lip-sound are manifold and varying: burning love and affectionate friendship, exultant joy and profound grief, etc., etc.; consequently there must be many different sorts of kisses.
The austere old Rabbis only recognised three kinds of kisses, viz.: those of greeting, farewell, and respect. The Romans had also three kinds, but their classification was essentially at variance with the Rabbis’: they distinguished between oscula,[2] friendly kisses, basia, kisses of love, and suavia, passionate kisses. The significance of these words is clearly expressed in the following lines:—
Basia coniugibus, sed et oscula dantur amicis,
Suavia lascivis miscantur grata labellis.
But the Romans’ division is by no means exhaustive; kisses are and have been actually employed to express many other feelings than those above-mentioned.
That kisses in this book are arranged in five groups, viz., kisses of passion, love, peace, respect, and friendship, is chiefly due to practical considerations; for, to be precise, these artificially-formed groups are inadequate, and, besides, often overlap one another.
A modern French writer reckons no less than twenty sorts of kisses, but I find in German dictionaries over thirty different designations: Abschiedskuss, Brautkuss, Bruderkuss, Dankkuss, Doppelkuss, Ehrenkuss, Erwiderungskuss, Feuerkuss, Flammenkuss, Frauenkuss, Freundschaftskuss, Friedenskuss, Gegenkuss, Geisterkuss, Handkuss, Honigkuss, Inbrunstkuss, Judaskuss, Lehenskuss, Liebeskuss, Mädchenkuss, Minnekuss, Morgenkuss, Mutterkuss, Nebenkuss, Pantoffelkuss, Segenskuss, Söhnungskuss, Undschuldskuss, Vermählungskuss, Versöhnungskuss, Wechselkuss, Weihekuss, Zuckerkuss, etc., etc. In German the verb itself, “to kiss,” is varied in many different ways, e.g., in Germany one may auküssen, aufküssen, ausküssen, beküssen, durchküssen, emporküssen, entküssen, erküssen, fortküssen, herküssen, nachküssen, verküssen, vorbeiküssen, wegküssen, widerküssen, zerküssen, zuküssen, and zurückküssen.
We must give the Germans the credit of being thorough, and in the highest degree methodical and exhaustive in their nomenclature, for can we conceive a more admirable word than, for instance, nachküssen, which is explained as “making up for kisses that have been omitted, or supplementing kisses”? However, on the other hand, it cannot be denied that they are at the same time awkward and tasteless in their expressions; a word such as ausküssen, which, for instance, is used in the refrain: Trink aus! Küss aus! seems to me to smack perilously of the ale-house.
We have now seen what a kiss is; but before proceeding to investigate the different kinds of kisses, their significance in the history of civilisation, and treatment in poetry, it still remains for us to reply to some of the ordinary queries regarding the nature and characteristics of the kiss.
In the first place we must investigate the kiss in its gustative aspect. I here confine myself to what Kierkegaard calls “the perfect kiss,” i.e., the kiss between man and woman; kisses between men are, according to that authority, insipid.
Küssen, wo smekt dat? see de maid. Yes, its taste naturally depends entirely on the circumstances, and experience is here a teacher that sets every theory at nought; but a few leading features may, however, be indicated.
When Lars Iversen, in Schandorph’s Skovfogedbørnene, has kissed Mette Splyd, he wipes his mouth and says, when he has got well outside the door, “That tasted like meat that has been kept too long.” When the old minnesinger, King Wenceslaus of Bohemia, had kissed his sweetheart he sang: “Just as a rose that opens its calix when it drinks the sweet dew, she offered me her sugar-sweet red mouth.”
Recht als ein rôse diu sich ûz ir klôsen lât,
Swenn si des süezen touwes gert,
Sus bòt si mir ir zuckersüezen ròten munt.
As we perceive from both these examples, there is a great distinction between kisses in their gustative aspect, but, for obvious reasons, I shall entirely exclude the variety represented by Mette Splyd.
The most frequently employed and, at the same time undoubtedly the most fitting epithet of a kiss, is that it is sweet. The shepherd in the French pastorals is fond of asking for a sweet kiss (un doux baiser), and poets innumerable, like Wenceslaus, have sung about the beloved’s sugar mouth. During the Renaissance such expressions as her bouche sucrine (sugary mouth) and bouche pleine de sucre et d’ambregris (mouth full of sugar and ambergris) were often employed.
We find this further borne out by two Latin epigrams. One asks:—“What is sweeter than mead?” and the answer runs: “The dew of heaven. And what is sweeter than dew?—Honey from Hybla? What is sweeter than honey?—Nectar. Than nectar?—A kiss.”
Quid mulso præstat? Ros cœli. Rore quid? Hyblæ Mel. Melle hoc? Nectar. Nectare? Suaviolum.
The second epigram goes through a similar string of comparisons, and arrives at the same result: “What is better than sugar?—Honey-cake. Than honey-cake?—The flavour of honey-combs. Than this flavour?—Dewy kisses”—
Saccharo quid superat? Libum. Quid libo? Favorum Gustus. At hunc gustum? Basia roscidula.
Kisses are sweet as woman’s gentle breath, which, according to a Roumanian folk-song, smells of “delicate young wine,” or, as the French poets say, of “thousands of flowers.”—
Laughing mouth, mouth to caress,
Kissing ere its lips you press;
Sweet for kissing, balmy breath
Like the perfume of fresh heath.
W. F. H.
A woman’s breath, which intoxicates man, is, as it were, the ethereal expression of her whole being. In the description of the youthful Blancheflor we are told that her breath is so delicious and refreshing that he who experiences it knows not pain, and needs no food for a whole week.
De sa bouche ist si douce haleine,
Vivre en peut-on une semaine;
Qui au lundi le sentiroit
En la semaine mal n’avroit.
Moreover, as the flavour of a kiss depends on the woman’s mouth, let us, therefore, investigate how a woman’s mouth ought to be fashioned in order to fulfil its purpose from a philematological point of view. When the mediæval French poets describe a beautiful and desirable woman they say of her mouth that it must be “well-formed and sweet to kiss” (bien faite et douce pour baiser). The troubadours likewise in their love poems praise the mouth that is ben faita ad obs de baisar.
If more detailed explanations are wanted they can easily be given. The lips must, in the first place, be bewitchingly soft; next, they must be as red as coral:
Los labios de la su boca
Como un fino coral,
or else red as roses:
La bocca piccioletta e colorita,
Vermiglia come rosa di giardino,
Piagente ed amorosa per baciare.[3]
This last simile is one of the most frequently employed. The beloved one’s mouth is likened to a rose; it has the scent and colour of a rose:
Hæc dulcis in amore
Est et plena decore,
Rosa rubet rubore,
Et lilium convallium
Tota vincit odore,
sang the wandering clerks in the Middle Ages, the jolly Goliards, and they extolled the youth who was lucky enough to kiss the mouth of such a woman:
Felix est qui osculis mellifluis
Ipsius potitur.
And, they went on to say, “on every maiden’s lips the kiss sits like a rose which only longs to be plucked”:
Sedit in ore
Rosa cum pudore.
The old German minnesingers use the expression Küssblümlein (kiss-floweret), and a bard of the Netherlands sings: “My beloved is my summer, my beloved is my joy, all the roses bloom every time she gives me a kiss”:
Mijn liefken is mijn somer,
Min liefken is mijn lust,
En al de rosen bloejen
So dicmael si mi cust.
But all this is only poetry, merely feeble imageries which only give an entirely weak idea of the reality. How accurate is Thomas Moore when, in one of his poems, he declares that roses are not so warm as his beloved’s mouth, nor can the dew approach it in sweetness.
Now if we turn to the other aspect of the case and see what women expect from a man’s kiss, then the question becomes somewhat more difficult to treat, inasmuch as so exceedingly few women have treated of kisses in poetry—a fact which is also in itself quite natural. Runeberg, who himself has so often sung the praises of kissing without, however, being versed in their nature:
For my part I’ve ne’er understood
Of kisses what can be the good;
But I should die if kept away
From thy red lips one single day.
W. F. H.
asks his beloved:
Now, dearest maiden, answer me,
What joy can kisses bring to thee?
W. F. H.
But she fails to answer him:
I ask thee now, as I asked this,
And all thy answer’s kiss on kiss.
W. F. H.
Besides, it seems very evident from the last line that the situation did not admit of the calmer and more sober observation which forms the necessary condition for a reliable answer to the question. I am, therefore, obliged to attempt to reply to the question myself; but I readily admit my deficiency in the essential qualification of being able to do so in a satisfactory manner. Moreover, the literary material at my disposal is exceedingly inadequate, and, for that reason, I cannot claim any universal application for my treatment of the subject.
In the first place it seems indisputable that a woman gives a decided preference to a man with a beard; at all events a heiduke sings in a Roumanian ballad: “I am still too young to marry; my beard has not yet sprouted. What married woman then will care about kissing me?”
Că simt voinic neinsorat;
Nici mustete nu m’a dat:
Cum simt bun de sărutat
La neveste cu bărbat?
To judge from the part the heidukes play in the ballad literature of the Roumanians and Serbs, they must be very experienced in everything that has to do with women and love, and their testimony must therefore be accepted as being sufficiently reliable. Besides, we find the same taste among women in Northern Europe. In Germany there is said to be nothing in a kiss without a beard: Ein Kuss ohne Bart ist eine Vesper ohne Magnificat (a kiss without a beard is like Vespers without the Magnificat); or, still more strongly, Ein Kuss ohne Bart ist ein Ei ohne Salz (a kiss without a beard is like an egg without salt). The young girls in Holland also incline to this point of view: Een kussje zonder baard, een eitje zonder zout (an egg without salt), and they have in the Frisian Islands some who share their taste: An Kleeb sanner Biard as äs en Brei sanner Salt (porridge without salt). Lastly, the Jutland lassies also take the same view of the matter—in fact they are, if I may say so, even more refined in their requirements; a kiss is not only to sound, but it must have some flavour about it—it ought to be strong and luscious: At kysse en karl uden skrå og skaeg er som at kysse en leret vaeg (kissing a fellow without a quid of tobacco and a beard is like kissing a clay wall), say those who express themselves in the most refined manner; but there are others who are not so particular in the choice of words, and these latter say straight out: Å kys jen, dæ hveken røger eller skråer, de æ som mæ ku kys æ spæ kal i r., (kissing one who neither smokes nor chews tobacco is like kissing a new-born calf on the rump). On the other hand, a person should not be too wet about the mouth—that they do not like; e.g., the scornful saying: “He is nice to kiss when one is thirsty,” or, as the German girls say: Einen Kuss mit Sauce bekommen (to get a kiss with sauce).
It apparently follows from this that women are not so simple in their tastes as men; a kiss by itself is not sufficient, it requires some condiment or other in addition—and, for the credit of women’s taste, let it be said—this need not always be tobacco. In a French folk-song the lover tells us that he has smeared his mouth with fresh butter so that it may taste better:
J’avais toujou dans ma pochette
Du bon bieur’ frais,
O qué je me gressais la goule,
Quand j’ l’embrassais.
I have already mentioned in my preface how dangerous the mere reading about kisses may be; but, apart from literature, a kiss is something which has to be dealt with most cautiously. Now hear what Socrates said to Xenophon one day: “Kritobulus is the most foolhardy and rash fellow in the world; he is rasher than if he meant to dance on naked sword-points or fling himself into the fire; he has had the audacity to kiss a pretty face.”—“But,” asked Xenophon, “is that such a deed of daring? I am certainly no desperado, but still I think I would venture to expose myself to the same risk.”—“Luckless wight,” replied Socrates, “you are not thinking what would betide you. If you kissed a pretty face, would you not that very instant lose your freedom and become a slave? Would you not have to spend much money on harmful amusements, and would you not do much which you would despise, if your understanding were not clouded? Hercules forbid what dreadful effects a poor kiss can have! And dost thou marvel at it, Xenophon? You know, I take it, those tiny spiders which are not half the size of an obol, and yet they can, through merely touching a person’s mouth, cause him the keenest pains; nay, even deprive him of his understanding. But, by Jupiter, anyhow this is quite another matter; for spiders poison the wound directly they inflict a sting. O, thou simple fellow, dost thou not know that lustful kisses are poisoned, even if thou failest to perceive the poison? Dost thou not know that she to whom the name of beautiful is given is a wild beast far more dangerous than scorpions; for the latter only poison us by their touch, whereas beauty destroys us without actual contact with us, and even ejects from a long distance a venom so dangerous that people are deprived thereby of their wits. This is the reason why I advise you, O Xenophon, to run away as fast as you can the very instant you see a beautiful woman, and with regard to yourself, O Kritobulus, I deem you will act most prudently in spending a whole year abroad; for that is the least time necessary for curing thy wound.”[4]
It may perhaps be thought that Socrates’ fear of kissing is a trifle exaggerated, his idea possibly arising from a certain prejudice derived from Mistress Xantippe; anyhow, nowadays, we regard the matter from a far more sober point of view. We ought, nevertheless, to be well on our guard against the frivolous opinion expressed in so many modern sayings, that a kiss is a thing of no consequence whatever. The Italians bluntly assert “that a mouth is none the worse for having been kissed” (bocca baciata non perde ventura), and a French writer of the present day even goes so far as to compare a kiss with those usually-harmless bullets which are exchanged in modern duels. Bah! deux baisers, qu’est que cela? On les échange comme des balles sans résultat, et l’honneur reste satisfait (Bah! two kisses. What of that? They are exchanged like bullets that miss the mark, and honour is satisfied).
This frivolous notion must not, however, be deemed peculiar to the Latin nations: it is to be met with even in the North. In Norway there is a song:
Jens Johannesen, the Goth so brave,
The maid on her chops a good buss gave.
He kissed her once, and once again,
But each time was she likewise fain,
But each time was she likewise fain.
W. F. H.
As you see, the last line of the verse is repeated as if for the purpose of duly impressing the moral of the song.
It is said in Als: Et kys er et stow, den der it vil ha et, ka vask et ow (a kiss is like a grain of dust, which any one who would be rid of it can wash away). We read as far back as Peder Syv[5]: Et kys kan afviskes (a kiss can be washed away), but he adds solemnly, and for our warning: “She who permits a kiss also permits more; and he who has access to kisses has also access to more.” Even the Germans say: Kuss kann man zwar abwischen, aber das Feuer im Herzen nich löschen (a kiss may indeed be washed away, but the fire in the heart cannot be quenched).
Thus hardly the shadow of a doubt ought to exist as to kisses being extraordinarily dangerous—or, in any case, capable of becoming so—far more dangerous, for instance, than dynamite or gun-cotton; in the first place, at any rate, inasmuch as people are not in the habit of walking about with such explosives in their pockets, whereas every one has kisses always at hand, or, more correctly speaking, in their mouths; secondly, we are rid of dynamite when once it has exploded, but, on the other hand, we can never actually be quit of a kiss—without at the same time returning it; for we take back the kisses we give, you know, and we give, too, those we take back—and, adds the proverb, “nobody is the loser.” Einen Kuss den man raubt giebt man wieder (One returns a stolen kiss), say the Germans; and the Spaniards have expressed the same thought in a neat little copla: “Dost thy mother chide thee for having given me a kiss? Then take back, dear girl, thy kiss, and bid her hold her tongue.”
¿Porque un beso me has dado
Riñe tu madre?
Toma, niña, tu beso;
Dile que calle.
Marot has treated the same subject in his epigram Le Baiser Volé, or the Stolen Kiss.
About my daring now you grieve,
To snatch a kiss without ado,
Nor even saying, “By your leave.”
Come, I will make my peace with you,
And now I want you to believe
I’m loth your soul again to grieve
By theft of kisses, since, alack,
My kiss has wrought such dole and teen;
Yet ’tis not lost; I’ll give it back,
And that right blithely, too, I ween.
W. F. H.
There is a French anecdote of the present day about a student who took the liberty of kissing a young girl. She got very angry, however, and called him an insolent puppy, whereupon he retorted with irrefutable logic: Pour Dieu! Mademoiselle ne vous fâchez pas, si ce baiser vous gêne, rendez-le-moi (For goodness’ sake, don’t be cross, young lady. If that kiss annoys you, give it back to me). It seems to have had a more amicable settlement in the case of a Danish couple who had resolved to break off their engagement: “It is best, I suppose, that we return each other’s letters?” said he. “I think so too,” replied she, “but shall we not at the same time give each other all our kisses back?” They did so, and thus agreed to renew their engagement.
This little story shows us that a kiss is something which cannot be so easily lost, and I hope, not least for the sake of my book, that we shall concur in the Italian proverb which says: Bacio dato non e mai perduto (a kiss once given is never lost).
II
LOVE KISSES
A long, long kiss, a kiss of youth and love
And beauty, all concentrating like rays
Into one focus, kindled from above;
Such kisses as belong to early days,
Where heart, and soul, and sense, in concert move,
And the blood’s lava, and the pulse a blaze,
Each kiss a heart-quake,—for a kiss’s strength
I think, it must be reckon’d by its length.
Byron.
CHAPTER II
LOVE KISSES
“At the time of the world’s creation kisses were created and cruel love.” Thus begins a Cypriot folk-song, and it is assuredly without the shadow of a doubt that among all nations which on the whole know kissing, it gets its sublimest meaning as the expression of love.
In the transport of love the lovers’ lips seek each other. When Byron’s Don Juan wanders one evening along the shore with his Haidee, they glance at the moonlit sea which lies outspread before them, and they listen to the lapping of the waves and the whispering murmur of the breeze, but suddenly they
Saw each other’s dark eyes darting light
Into each other—and, beholding this,
Their lips drew near, and clung into a kiss.
. . . . . . . . . .
They had not spoken, but they felt allured,
As if their souls and lips each other beckoned,
Which, being joined, like swarming bees they clung—
Their hearts the flowers from whence the honey sprung.
The kiss of love is the exultant message of the longing of love, love eternally young, the burning prayer of hot desire, which is born on the lovers’ lips, and “rises,” as Charles Fuster has said, “up to the blue sky from the green plains,” like a tender, trembling thank-offering.
Que tous les cœurs soient apaisés
Et toutes les lèvres ouvertes,
Qu’un frémissement de baisers
Monte au ciel bleu des plaines vertes!
The love kiss, rich in promise, bestows an intoxicating feeling of infinite happiness, courage, and youth, and therefore surpasses all other earthly joys in sublimity—at any rate all poets say so—and no one has expressed it in more exquisite and choicer words than Alfred de Musset in his celebrated sonnet on Tizianello:
Beatrix Donato was the soft sweet name
Of her whose earthly form was shaped so fair;
A faithful heart lay in her breast’s white frame,
Her spotless body held a mind most rare.
The son of Titian, for her deathless fame,
Painted this portrait, witness of love’s care,
And from that day renounced his art’s high claim,
Loth that another dame his skill should share.
Stranger, if in your heart love doth abide,
Gaze on my lady’s picture ere you chide.
Say if perchance your lady’s fair as this.
Then mark how poor a thing is fame on earth;
Grand as this portrait is, it is not worth—
Believe me on my oath—the model’s kiss.
W. F. H.
Thus even the highest work of art, yea, the loftiest reputation, is nothing in comparison with the passionate kiss of a woman one loves. This is what life has taught Musset, and a half melancholy sigh rings through his exultation over the omnipotence of love. In turning to the more naïve speech of popular poetry, we find in a German Schnaderhüpfel (Improvisation) a corresponding homage to the kiss as the noblest thing in the world:
My sweetheart’s poor,
But fair to behold.
What use were wealth?
I cannot kiss gold.
W. F. H.
And we all yearn for kisses and we all seek them; it is idle to struggle against this passion. No one can evade the omnipotence of the kiss, the best resolutions, the most solemn oaths, are of no avail. A pretty little Servian folk-song treats of a young girl who swore too hastily.
Yestreen swore a maiden fair,
Ne’er again I’ll wear a garland,
Ne’er again I’ll wear a garland,
Wine again I’ll never drink,
Never more I’ll kiss a laddie.
Yestreen swore the maiden fair,
Clean to-day her oath’s regretted:
If I decked myself with flow’rets,
Then the flow’rets made me fairer;
If I quaffed the wine that’s ruddy,
Then my heart grew all the blither;
If I kissed my heart’s beloved,
Life to me grew doubly dearer.[6]
W. F. H.
It is through kisses that a knowledge of life and happiness first comes to us. Runeberg says that the angels rejoice over the first kiss exchanged by lovers.
The evening star was sitting beside a silver cloud,
A maid from out a twilight grove addressed this star aloud,
“Come, tell me, star of evening, what angels think in heaven
When by a youth and maiden the first sweet kiss is given?”
And heaven’s bashful daughter was heard to deign reply:
“On earth the choir of angels bright look down from out the sky,
And see their own felicity then mirrored on the earth,
But death sheds tears, and turns his eyes away from such blest mirth.”
W. F. H.
Only death weeps over the brief duration of human happiness, weeps because the bliss of the kiss endures not for ever. And likewise, even after death, lovers kiss. Jannakos and Helena, his plighted bride, die before their wedding day. They die in a kiss and are buried together; but over their grave grew a cypress and an orange tree, and the latter stretched forth its branches on high and kissed the cypress.
The happiest man is the man who has the kiss. In the Greek romance of Babylonika, which was attributed to Jamblicus, who lived in the second century of the Christian era, three lovers contend for the favour of a young maid. To one she has given the cup out of which she was wont to drink; the second she has garlanded with flowers that she herself has worn; to the third she has given a kiss. Borokos is called on as judge to decide as to which has enjoyed the highest favour, and he unhesitatingly decides the dispute in favour of the last.
The same subject is often the theme of folk-poetry, and the verdict never alters; the joy bestowed by a kiss surpasses all other joys. A Hungarian ballad runs thus:
As the hart holds dear the fountain,
And the bee the honied flow’rets,
So the noble grape I cherish;
After this songs melting, tender,
Kisses, too, of lips of crimson,
As thine own, O Cenzi mine.
But the wine’s might fires my senses,
And songs wake within me blitheness,
And with love intoxicated,
With thy love, mine own beloved.
And my heart no more is longing
After purple, after gew-gaws,
After what the others long for.
Happy am I in the clinking
Of the goblet filled with rich wine;
Happier still amidst sweet singing;
But my happiness were greatest,
Dared I press my kisses on a
Mouth, and that mouth only thine.
W. F. H.
The same idea is still more delicately expressed in the following Servian ballad:
Proudly cried a golden orange
On the breezy shore:
“Certainly nowhere happiness
Is found to equal mine.”
Answered a green apple
From its apple tree:
“Fool to boast, golden orange,
On the breezy shore;
For happiness such as I’ve found,
Its like cannot be seen.”
Then said the breezy meadow,
As yet untouched by scythe:
“Too conceited, little apple,
That speech of thine, meseems,
For happiness such as I’ve found,
Its like cannot be seen.”
Then spake a lovely maiden,
Unsullied by a kiss:
“Thou pratest folly, grass-plot,
Instead of sooth, I ween,
For happiness such as I’ve found
Its like cannot be seen.”
But a handsome lad made answer
To every speech they made;
“You’re mad, all mad, to utter
Such words as I’ve just heard,
For no one in the universe
Can be so blest as I.”
“Golden orange by the breezy
Shore I pluck thee now.
Apple, from thy apple tree
To-day I’ll shake thee down.
Grass-plot, I’ll mow thee level
With my scythe-strokes to-day.
Maiden, as yet unsullied
To-day I’ll kiss thy lips.”
W. F. H.
In another Servian lay, the lover sings that he would rather kiss his sweetheart than be the Sultan’s guest. In Spain the lover wishes he were the water-cooler so that he might kiss his darling’s lips when she is drinking:
Arcarrasa de tu casa,
Chiquiya, quisiera ser,
Para besarte los labios
Quando fueras á beber.
The Greeks say that the kiss is “the key to Paradise”; yea, it is Paradise itself, declares Wergeland:
Nay, bride, thine embrace more than heav’n I prize;
Oh, kiss me once more that to heav’n I rise.
W. F. H.
The kiss is a preservation against every ill. “No ill-luck can betide me when she bestows on me a kiss,” sings the old trouvère, Colin Muset:
Se de li ai un douz baisier
Ne me porroit nus mals venir.
It gives health and strength, adds Heine:
Yet could I kiss thee, O my soul,
Then straightway I should be made whole.
W. F. H.
It carries life with it; it even bestows the gift of eternal youth—if one can believe the words of the Duke of Anhalt the minnesinger:
Your mouth is crimson; over its sweet portal
A kindly Genius seems for ever flowing.
If on that mouth a kiss I were bestowing,
Methinks I should in sooth become immortal.
W. F. H.
The Persians, too, had the same idea. The jovial Hafiz laments that “sour wisdom added to old age and virtue” has laid waste his strength, but a remedy is to be found for these:
“Come and drink,” the maiden whispered,
“Sin and sweetness, youthful folly,
Lovingly from lips of crimson,
From my bosom’s lily chalice,
And live on with strength redoubled.”
W. F. H.
And if a kiss is no good, then nought avails. In another passage the same bard says, that were he suddenly on some occasion to feel himself tormented by agony and unrest, no one is to give him bitter medicine—for such he detests—but:
Hand me the foaming juice of the vine,
Jest and sing from your heart to mine,
And if these prove not a remedy sure,
Then a pair of red lips you must straight procure.
But if these latter avail not to save,
May I be laid deep down in the grave.
W. F. H.
In the case of lovers a kiss is everything; that is the reason why a man stakes his all for a kiss. In Enthousiasme Aarestrup says:
Ha, you’re blushing! What red roses
Deck your lips! A man were fain to,
If a chasm yawned before him,
Straightway peril life to gain you.
W. F. H.
And man craves for it as his noblest reward:
From beyond the high green mountains
Lamentations fraught with sadness
Issue, soft as from a girl’s voice.
Then a youth the sound pursueth,
And he sees a maiden shackled
Fast in fetters thick of roses.
Then the fair maid called unto him:
“Doughty youth, come here and help me;
I’ll be to you as a sister.”
But the youth straightway made answer:
“In my home I have a sister.”
“Doughty youth, come here and help me,
For a brother-in-law I’ll choose thee.”
Then the lad again made answer:
“In my home I have that title.”
“Come, young hero, and assist me,
And I’ll be thy heart’s belovèd.”
Quickly kissed he then the maiden
Ere he loosed her from her fetters,
Then went homeward with his bride.
W. F. H.
Thus runs a Servian ballad, and innumerable analogues to it are to be found in the folk-lore of other countries, in ballads as well as tales. It is, you know, for a kiss from the princess’s lovely mouth that the swine-herd sells his wonderful pan.
But women are aware, too, of the witchery that dwells on their lips, and the power that lies in their kiss. According to a remarkable saga which forms the subject of one of Heine’s poems, King Harald Hårfager sits at the bottom of the sea in captivity to a mermaid. The king’s head is reposing on her bosom; but, suddenly, a violent tremor thrills him, he hears the Viking shouts which reach him from above, he starts from his dream of love and groans and sighs:
And then the King from the depth of his heart
Begins sobbing, and wailing, and sighing,
When quickly the water-fay over him bends,
With loving kisses replying.
Man is the slave of the kiss; by a kiss woman tames the fiercest man; by means of a kiss man’s will becomes as wax. Our peasant girls in Denmark know this, too, right well. When they want one of the lads to do them a service they promise him “seven sweet kisses and a bit of white sugar on Whitsunday morning.” “But he will get neither,” they say to themselves.
Now, as we have discussed the kiss and its importance as the direct expression of love and erotic emotions, we will pass over to certain more special aspects of its nature.
In the very first place, then, we have the quantitative conditions.
It is a matter of common knowledge that lovers are liberal in the extreme in the question of kisses, which are given and taken to infinity, and these have likewise continually the same intoxicating freshness as at the first meeting. Everything in love is, you know, a reiteration, and yet love is a perpetual renewing. How inspiriting are the words of Tove to King Waldemar, as J. P. Jacobsen gives them:
And now I say for the first time:
“King Volmer, I love thee,”
And kiss thee now for the first time,
And fling mine arms round thee;
But should you say I’ve said this before,
And you to kisses are fain,
Then say I: “King, he’s but a fool
Who minds such trifles vain.”
W. F. H.
What has a love kiss to do with the law of renewal? That one does not arrive at anything by one kiss is expressed with sufficient plainness in an Istro-Roumanian proverb: Cu un trat busni nu se afla muliere (with a single kiss no woman is caught).
This maxim holds good besides in the case of both men and women. But how many kisses are necessary then?
There is a little Greek folk-song called “All good things are three.” It runs as follows:
Your first kiss brought me near to the grave,
Your second kiss came my life to save;
But if a third kiss you’ll bestow,
Not even death can bring me woe.
W. F. H.
But, nevertheless, we may assume without a shadow of a doubt that he was not satisfied with these three kisses—lovers are not wont to be so easily contented. The Spaniards and many other nations besides say of lovers that “they eat each other up with kisses;” but more than three are certainly required for that purpose:
Take this kiss and a thousand more, my darling,
W. F. H.
sings Aarestrup, but Catullus outbids him, however, in one of his songs to Lesbia:
A thousand kisses; add five score:
Another thousand kisses more;
Then best forget them all,
Lest any wight with evil eye
Our too close counting might espy,
And dire mishap befall.[7]
W. F. H.
As we see, Catullus’ love has no trifling start over Aarestrup’s, and so a later poet seems likewise to think that even his demands are quite ridiculously small. “Nay,” says Joachim du Bellay to his Columbelle, “give me as many kisses as there are flowers on the mead, seeds on the field, and grapes in the vineyards, and so that you shall not deem me ungrateful, I will immediately give you as many again.”
Du Bellay, moreover, bitterly upbraids the poet of Verona for asking for so few kisses that they can, when taken together, be counted:
In truth Catullus’ wants are small,
And little can they really mean,
Since he could even count them all.
W. F. H.
I must, however, take Catullus’ part to a certain extent; he is not so precise in his demands of Lesbia as Du Bellay makes out; in another poem he asks her:
Thy kisses dost thou bid me count,
And tell thee, Lesbia, what amount
My rage for love and thee could tire,
And satisfy and cloy desire?
And the answer runs:
Many as grains of Libyan sand
Upon Cyrene’s spicy land
From prescient Ammon’s sultry dome
To sacred Battus’ ancient tomb;
Many as stars that silent ken
At night the stolen loves of men.
Yes, when the kisses thou shall kiss
Have reached a number vast as this,
Then may desire at length be stayed,
And e’en my madness be allayed:
Then when infinity defies
The calculations of the wise;
Nor evil voice’s deadly charm,
Can work the unknown number harm.
This being the case, it is a divine blessing that, according to the Finnish saying, “the mouth is not torn by being kissed, nor the hand by being squeezed”:
Suu ei kulu suudellessa,
Kāsi kāttā annellessa.
But even if the mouth is not exactly torn, yet much kissing may be almost harmful; but there is only one remedy to be found for this—“you must heal the hurts by fresh kisses.”
Dorat, who may be regarded as a high authority on philematology, expressly says:
A second kiss can physic
The evil the first has wrought.
W. F. H.
And Heine, whose authority in these questions should hardly be inferior, holds quite the same theory:
If you have kissed my lips quite sore,
Then kiss them whole again;
If we till evening meet no more,
Then hurry will be vain.
You have still yet the whole, whole night,
My dearest heart, know this:
One can in such a long, long night,
Kiss much and taste much bliss.
I make use of the last of the verses quoted as a transition to the next question we have to investigate, viz., the qualitative aspect of kissing, as I regard it apart from its merely gustative qualities, which have already been considered.
The love kiss gleams like a cut diamond with a thousand hues; it is eternally changing as the sun’s shimmer on the waves, and expresses the most diverse states and moods, ranging from humble affection to burning desire.
The love kiss “quenches the fire of the lips,” quells and stills longing and desire, but it also burns and arouses regret. Margaret sits at her spinning-wheel, and, in tremulous longing, calls to mind Faust’s ardent kiss:
My peace is gone,
My heart is sore:
’Tis gone for ever
And evermore.
And the magic flow
Of his talk, the bliss
In the clasp of his hand,
And, oh, his kiss!
My bosom yearns
For him alone;
Ah, dared I clasp him,
And hold, and own!
And kiss his mouth,
To heart’s desire,
And on his kisses
At last expire!
Numberless poets have varied the theme of the quenching yet burning kisses of love.
O’er me flows in streams delicious
Kisses’ rosy and glowing rain,
W. F. H.
sings Waldemar at his meeting with Tove, and Aarestrup laments:
In vain I’m seeking
In ev’ry land,
Thy sweetness burning
Of mouth and hand.
W. F. H.
This “burning sweetness” seems to be an indubitable characteristic of a genuine love kiss; we even find it again in Heine:
The world’s an ass, the world can’t see,
Thy character not knowing,
It knows not how sweet thy kisses be,
How rapturously glowing.
The emotions consequent on the first kiss have been described in the old naïve, but, nevertheless, exceedingly delicate love-story, of Daphnis and Chloe. As a reward Chloe has bestowed a kiss on Daphnis—an innocent young-maid’s kiss, but it has on him the effect of an electrical shock:
“Ye gods, what are my feelings. Her lips are softer than the rose’s leaf, her mouth is sweet as honey, and her kiss inflicts on me more pain than a bee’s sting. I have often kissed my kids, I have often kissed my lambs, but never have I known aught like this. My pulse is beating fast, my heart throbs, it is as if I were about to suffocate, yet, nevertheless, I want to have another kiss. Strange, never-suspected pain! Has Chloe, I wonder, drunk some poisonous draught ere she kissed me? How comes it that she herself has not died of it?”
Impelled, as it were, by some irresistible force, Daphnis wanders back to Chloe; he finds her asleep, but dares not awake her: “See how her eyes slumber and her mouth breathes. The scent of apple-blossoms is not so delicious as her breath. But I dare not kiss her. Her kiss stings me to the heart, and drives me as mad as if I had eaten fresh honey.” Daphnis’ fear of kisses disappears, however, later on, directly his simplicity has made room for greater selfconsciousness. That a kiss is like the sting of a bee, or pains like a wound, is a metaphor which many poets have used, and the metaphor comes undoubtedly near the truth. With growing passion, kisses become mad and violent:
Thy ruby lips, they kissed so wild,
So madly, so soul-disturbing;
W. F. H.
and such kisses leave marks behind them. Aarestrup’s mistress has beautiful plump shoulders:
They curve, as of a goddess,
So naked and so bold.
I’ll brand your comely shoulders,
Such guerdon have they earned!
Look where my lips enfevered
Have scars of crimson burned.
W. F. H.
Hafiz’ mistress is afraid that “his too hot kisses will char her delicate lips.” With continually increasing desire kisses grow more and more voluptuous, and assume forms which have been celebrated by poets of antiquity and the Renaissance. Many burning, erotic verses have been composed on the subject columbatim labra conserere, or kissing as doves kiss.
Kisses at last grow into bites. Mirabeau, in a love-letter to Sophie, writes: “I am kissing you and biting you all over, et jaloux de la blancheur je te couvre de suçons”; and the classic poets often speak of the tiny red marks on cheeks or lips, neck or shoulders, which the lovers’ morsiunculæ have left behind.
Arethusa writes to Lycas: “What keeps you till now so long away from me? Oh, suffer no young girl to print the mark of her teeth on your neck.” The Italians use the expression baciare co’ denti (kiss with the teeth) to signify “to love.” We can only treat these kisses as a sort of transitional link, of shorter or longer duration, according to circumstances. They are, as it were, “a sea fraught with perils,” which in Mlle. de Scudéry’s celebrated letter (la carte de tendre), carries one to strange countries (les terres inconnues); but, as these countries lie outside the regions of pure philematology, I shall not pursue my investigations further. I will, however, first quote what old Ovid has written, although I am not at all prepared to assert that his opinion is entitled to have any special weight, more especially as it is far from being unimpeachable from a moral point of view:
Oscula qui sumpsit, si non et cetera sumet,
Hæc quoque quæ data sunt perdere dignus erit.
Quantum defuerat pleno post oscula voto?
Heu mihi rusticitas, non pudor ille fuit.[8]
After the foregoing it would seem superfluous to enter into a closer investigation of—if the term be allowed—the topographical aspects of kissing. The love kiss is, as you are aware, properly directed towards the mouth—a fact sufficiently known, and in testimony of which I have, moreover, brought forward a number of passages from respectable and trustworthy writers. I shall only add a German “Sinngedicht” of Friedrich von Logau:
If you will kiss, then kiss the mouth,
All other sorts are but half blisses,
The face—ah, no—nor hand, neck, breast,
The mouth alone can give back kisses.
W. F. H.
Von Logau’s vindication of the mouth as the only place that ought to be kissed is extremely logical, and, I take it, from a purely theoretical point of view, unobjectionable; but, practically, the case is quite the contrary. The royal trouvère, Thibaut de Champagne, treats in a lengthy poem—one of the so-called jeux-partis—the question whether one should kiss one’s mistress’s mouth or feet. Baudouin’s opinion is in favour of kissing her on the mouth, and he gives his reasons for it at some length; but Thibaut replies, that he who kisses his darling on the mouth has no love for her, because that is the way one kisses any little shepherdess one comes across; it is only by kissing her feet that a lover shows his affection, and it is by such means alone that her favour is to be won.
The question of feet or mouth is threshed out minutely by the two contending parties, who at last agree in the opinion that one ought to kiss both parts, beginning with the feet and ending with the mouth.
It cannot be denied that Thibaut de Champagne has a far better insight into the matter than Von Logau, and yet even the old French poet’s point of view must be characterised as being somewhat narrow.
All the other poets, you must know, teach us that not only the mouth, but every part of our sweetheart’s body says, “Kiss me.”
Friends, if it only were my fate!
If fate would will it so,
I’d kiss her beauties small and great
From bosom down to toe.
W. F. H.
So sings Aarestrup, and he returns again and again to the same idea in his ritorneller:
When scarce the mouth can longer feel such fooling,
Because thy lips are all too hotly burning,
Press them to bosom’s Alpine snows for cooling.
The arms so white and tender woo caresses;
A lovely pleasance, too, those plump white shoulders!
But through the soul a bosom-kiss straight presses.
Her snow-white shoulders! All what may be said on
Such beauty I have uttered. For my guerdon
Grant me one now to rest my weary head on.
At kisses pressed upon your neck’s fair closes
You thrilled and threw your head back, and I straightway
Planted upon your throat my kisses’ roses.
About my darling I am wheeling, flying,
Like to a gadfly round a lily’s chalice,
Buzzing until in nectar-cup mute dying.
W. F. H.
Allow me also to call your attention to a pretty little myth which Dorat composed about a “kiss in the bosom’s Alpine snow.” The kiss is a fair rose, and roses bloom everywhere in these tracks; through witchcraft two vigorous rosebuds sprouted forth on woman’s white bosom:
Le bouton d’un beau sein est éclos du baiser;
Une rose y fleurit pour y marquer sa trace;
Fier de l’avoir fait naître, il aime à s’y fixer.
But if the object of one’s affection is not within reach, and oscula corporalia are, for that reason, practically impossible, her image may be kissed, as a French song naïvely says:
I will make a portrait gay,
Like to thee, set in a locket;
Kiss it five score times a day
Guard it safely in my pocket.
W. F. H.
But if one is not fortunate enough to possess an image of the object of one’s affection, then anything that has in any way been associated with, or is reminiscent of, him or her may be kissed. Tovelille exults to King Volmer:
For all my roses I’ve kissed to death
Whilst thinking, dear love, of thee.
W. F. H.
But F. Rückert sings with pain and mockery:
With fervour the hard stone I’m kissing,
For your heart is as hard as a stone.
W. F. H.
Such oscula impropria are often mentioned by ancient as well as modern poets. Propertius (I. 16) says:
Ah, oft I’ve hither sped with verse to greet
Thee, leaning on thy steps with kisses pressed.
How often, traitress, turning towards the street,
I’ve laid in secret garlands on thy crest.
W. F. H.
Eighteen hundred years afterwards Dorat writes:
I kiss the kindly blades of grass
Because they have approached your charms:
The sands o’er which your footsteps pass,
And leafy boughs that stretched their arms
To hide our happiness, dear lass.
W. F. H.
Lovers often send each other kisses through the air, as in Béranger’s well-known song on the detestable Spring:
We loved before we ever met;
Our kisses crossed athwart the air.
W. F. H.
But should the distance be too great for such a platonic interchange of kisses, certain small, obliging postillons d’amour are employed Heine uses his poems for that purpose:
O would that all my verses
Were kisses light and sweet:
I’d send them all in secret
My sweetheart’s cheeks to greet.
While the young girl in Runeberg has recourse to a rose that has just blossomed:
Through the grove amidst the blooming flow’rets
Walked the bonnie maiden unattended,
And she plucked a new-born rose, exclaiming:
‘Lovely flow’ret, if you’d only wings on,
I would send you to my well-belovèd
When I’d fastened just two tiny greetings
Lightly on your right wing and your left wing;
One should bid him cover you with kisses,
And the other send you back to me soon.’
W. F. H.
But however much poets may clothe with grace such kisses sent and received by post—and it cannot be denied that many of them are extraordinarily charming from a poetical point of view—they are, and must be, nevertheless, in reality only certain mean substitutes with which lovers in the long run cannot feel fully satisfied. “The kiss,” says the practical Frenchmen, “is a fruit which one ought to pluck from the tree itself” (Le baiser est un fruit qu’il faut cueiller sur l’arbre). Kisses ought to be given, as they should be taken, in secret; only in such case have they their full freshness, their intoxicating power. Heine says of such:
Kisses that one steals in darkness,
And in darkness then returns—
How such kisses fire the spirit,
If with ardent love it burns!
No profane eyes should see them: they only concern the pair of lovers—none other in the whole world. Secrecy and silence must rest over these kisses, as over all else that regards the soul of love, so that the butterfly’s wings may not lose their delicate down.
The strait-laced Cato degraded a senator of the name of Manilius for having kissed his wife in broad daylight and in his daughter’s presence. Plutarch, however, considers the punishment excessive, but adds: “How disgusting it is in any case to kiss in the presence of third parties.” Clement of Alexandria, one of the Fathers of the Church, endorses this opinion, and exhorts all married people to refrain from kissing one another before their servants.
All delicate-minded persons must undoubtedly sympathise with the ancient ascetic conception in proportion as they unconsciously follow it in practice. A kiss to or from a woman we love is a far too delicate pledge of affection to bear the gaze of strangers.
How many engaged couples would, do you suppose, find favour in Cato’s eyes? How often do they not by their behaviour offend the commonest notions of decency? Their kisses and caresses, which ought to be their secret possession, they expose quite unconcernedly to the sight of all. One evening at a large party I saw a young girl ostentatiously kiss on the mouth the gentleman to whom she was engaged. Cato would certainly turn in his grave if he knew that such immodest behaviour was actually tolerated by people of refinement and position; and how disgusted and indignant he would be—unless, indeed, he preferred to smile—at the sight of the duty-kisses after dinner, which are often exchanged between man and wife at dinner-parties. Ah, yes, when the belly’s full ...! How warranted is Kierkegaard’s satire on the conjugal domestic kiss with which husband and wife, in lack of a napkin, wipe each other’s mouth after meals. On the lips of youth alone you reap the sweetest harvests:
Sur les lèvres de la jeunesse
Tu fais les plus douces moissons.
(Dorat).
The young maiden will only give her love-kiss to her sweetheart, the stalwart swain; an old suitor is spurned with scorn. The lovely Mara, white and red, walked by the spring and tended her sheep:
See an old, old suitor comes riding up on horseback,
Shouting: “God’s peace be thine, fair Mara, white and red.
Tell me, canst thou offer me a draught of cold clear water;
Tell me, can the basil ever verdant here be gathered,
And may I snatch a kiss from thee, fair Mara, white and red?”
W. F. H.
But straightway comes the answer from fair Mara, white and red:
“I charge thee, old, old suitor, to horse and ride hence quickly,
No drink is here thy portion from the fountain cold and clear,
And the ever-verdant basil by thee shall not be gathered,
Nor durst thou snatch a kiss from me, fair Mara, white and red.”
W. F. H.
Again, fair Mara, white and red, walked by the spring and tended her sheep:
See a young and handsome suitor comes riding up on horseback,
Shouting: “God’s peace be thine, fair Mara, white and red.
Tell me, canst thou offer me a draught of cold clear water;
Tell me, can the basil ever verdant here be gathered,
And may I snatch a kiss from thee, fair Mara, white and red?”
W. F. H.
But straightway comes the answer from fair Mara, white and red:
“I charge thee, handsome laddie, to horse and ride hence quickly,
Wouldst thou drink of this cool fountain, thou must hither come some morning,
For cold and clear’s the water in the hours of early dawn.
Wouldst thou gather from the bushes, thou must hither come at mid-day,
For the flower-trees smell the sweetest about the noon-tide hour.
Wouldst thou kiss the beauteous Mara, then hither come at evening,
At evening sighs each maiden who finds herself alone.”
W. F. H.
In another Servian ballad we find the same glorification of the stalwart young lover, the same contempt for, and detestation of, old men who go a-wooing.
High upon a mountain’s slope once stood a maiden,
Mirroring her lovely image in the stream,
And her image in these words addressing:
‘Image fraught to me with so much sadness
Had I known a time was ever coming
When thou shouldst be kissed by agèd lover,
Then amidst the green hills I had wandered,
Gath’ring with my hands their bitter herbage,
Squeezing out of it its acrid juices,
Washed thee then therewith that thou should’st savour
Bitterly wheresoe’r the old man kissed thee.’
‘O my lovely image, had I known that
Thou wert fated for a young man’s kisses,
I had hurried to the verdant meadows,
Gathered all the roses in the meadows,
Squeezing from the roses their sweet juices,
Laved thee with them, O mine image, that thou
Savoured of fragrance wheresoe’r he kissed thee.’
W. F. H.
A kiss must be given and taken in frank, joyous affection. To have recourse to violence is unknightly, unlovely, and despicable in the highest degree. This is a sphere wherein the brutal axiom regarding the right of the stronger can never hold good. An Albanian folk-song tells us of a young man who is in search of a young maiden with whom he is in love; he finds her at a brook, and, against her will, kisses her mouth and cheeks. Filled with shame, the young maiden tries to wash away the kisses in the brook, but its water is dyed red, and “when the women in the neighbouring village come thither to wash their clothes, the latter turn red instead of white. And, in the gardens watered with water from the brook, scarlet flowers sprout up; and the birds which drank of the water thereof lost their power of song.”
This ballad shows us, in burning words, how deeply a man outrages a woman when he kisses her against the dictates of her heart. A Southern imagination alone can find an expression so sublime and poetical: in French it runs simply and frankly: Un baiser n’est rien, quand le cœur est muet. In Teutonic countries it is expressed somewhat more awkwardly. In Denmark people say: Kys med gevalt er æg uden salt (a kiss snatched by force is as an egg without salt); and in Germany still less elegantly: Ein aufgezwungener Kuss ist wie ein Hühneraug’ am Fuss (like a corn on one’s foot).
The question of kissing by main force can be treated not only from an ethical, but also from a juristic point of view. Holberg relates that in Naples the individual who kissed in the street a woman against her will was punished by not being allowed to approach within thirty miles distance of the spot where the outrage had taken place; and a German jurist wrote in the end of the eighteenth century, a minute and extremely solid treatise on the remedy that a woman has against a man who kisses her against her will (Von dem Rechte des Frauenzimmers gegen eine Mannperson, die es wider seinen Willen küsset). The author begins by classifying kisses; he distinguishes between lawful and unlawful kisses, and frames the following classification:—
Kisses are either
- I.—Lawful,
- A. As spiritual kisses.
- B. As kisses of reconciliation and kisses of peace.
-
C. As customary kisses; partly,
-
a. By way of salutation.
- 1. At meeting.
- 2. On arrival.
- 3. At departure; partly,
- b. As mark of courtesy.
- c. In jest.
-
a. By way of salutation.
- D. As kisses of respect.
- E. As kisses on festive occasions.
- F. As kisses of love:
- II.—Unlawful, when they are given—
- A. Out of treachery or malice.
- B. Out of lust.
After this particularly happy attempt to reduce kissing to a system, our jurist maintains the view that all depends on the person who kisses and the person who is kissed.
If, for instance, a peasant or a vulgar citizen takes such a liberty as to kiss a noble and high-born lady against her will, her claim against the aggressor ought to be far greater than it would be in the case of one of less ignoble descent; but, on the other hand, if Hans steals from his Greta “an informal, hearty, rustic kiss,” and she complains to the authorities about it, there will scarcely be any grounds for litigation.
On the whole, says he, a kiss between individuals of the same position in society is not to be regarded as a tort, and he more closely defines how he arrives at this conception. It can only be actionable in the case of a party having some consciously unchaste intention when he kissed, or in the case of an osculum luxuriosum or libidinosum—in such cases only can a verdict be brought in of what, according to Roman law, is termed crimen osculationis, and in no other case can the wrong-doer be punished by fine or imprisonment, propter voluntatem perniciosæ libidinis. The punishment, however, should be proportioned in severity according to the rank of the injured party. In the case of a nun or a married woman it ought to be most severe; less severe if the lady be unmarried but betrothed, and mildest when she is neither married nor betrothed.
But if the unchaste intention cannot be distinctly proved, the woman has no grounds for complaining of any sort, and, in accordance with the procedure of the German courts, the kiss is to be considered innocent till the contrary is proved.
Our jurist thus takes a really liberal view in the case of a “kiss taken by force”; he may almost be said to regard it as eine grosse Kleinigkeit (an unimportant trifle).
With regard to the question of a woman’s right to defend herself in such cases, he is of opinion that she is justified in repulsing the insulter by a box on the ears, but only if the offence amounts to crimen osculationis, and this box on the ears may not be inflicted with “the fist of an Amazon,” as, by such requital, she easily loses her right to take legal action in the matter. She must, above all, be careful that the box on the ears be not excessive (die Ohrfeige proportionirlich einzukleiden), as otherwise the man can bring an action against her; consequently the woman ought to use her right of self-defence with great caution.
Our jurist concludes with considerations of cases when the woman who has been kissed forfeits all claims, viz., when, for instance, by look or gestures she says, “I should like to see the man who would dare to kiss me,” and, by such conduct, obviously exposes herself to the danger.
Holberg has also occupied himself with this question, and tells the following story in one of his epistles (No. 199):—
“Last week I was at a party where a curious incident happened. A person stole up to a lady and gave her a kiss unexpectedly. The Vestal virgin took this douceur in such ill part that, in her wrath, she gave him a sound box on the ears. He gave a start, and every one expected he was going to pay her back in the same coin; but, to show his respect for the fair sex, he made a low bow, and kissed the very hand that had but lately struck him. All present praised this act of courtesy, on his part.” Holberg, on the contrary, does not commend the man’s politeness; like the German jurist, he sees nothing wrong about a kiss—indeed, he even goes so far as to say that the young man ought to have given the maiden a box on the ears in return. This coarse way of looking at the subject from a bachelor’s point of view is wittily defended in the following rather startling way:
“I candidly confess that if anything of the kind had happened to me I should have returned the good lady’s salutation in the same way, and that not out of anger or desire of being revenged, but for the purpose of showing the courtesy with which one ought to treat a woman; for kissing the lady on the hand which has boxed his ears is equivalent to saying: ‘As you are a feeble creature of no importance, and cannot hurt me, your act deserves ridicule rather than revenge or rage.’ No sensible woman can be pleased with such a compliment, as there is nothing worse than being treated like a puppet; and I hope no maid or matron will take this opinion of mine in ill part, but will rather regard it as a proof of the justice I have always shown to women by always taking them seriously. A kiss is nothing but a salutation, and cannot be looked on as anything else. We are no longer living in the golden age, when a young lady almost fainted at hearing the word pronounced.”
English ladies regard the matter from quite another point of view. In 1837 Mr Thomas Saverland brought an action against Miss Caroline Newton, who had bitten a piece out of his nose for his having tried to kiss her by way of a joke. The defendant was acquitted, and the judge laid it down that “when a man kisses a woman against her will she is fully entitled to bite his nose, if she so pleases.”—“And eat it up, if she has a fancy that way,” added a jocular barrister half aloud.
Let us next consider how the thing stands when it is apparently only a question of a kiss snatched by force—for it is, you know, a matter of general knowledge that a woman’s “No” is not always to be taken seriously. The refusal may, you know, be merely feigned. The maiden’s “No” is the swain’s “Yes,” Peder Syv teaches us, and Runeberg, who also understood women, says:—
Ev’ry girl is fond of kisses,
Though she may pretend to scorn them.
W. F. H.
If one is now convinced that the German proverb which says: Auf ein Weibes Zunge ist Nein nicht Nein (On a woman’s tongue “no” is not “no”), what then? Well, but how the point is to be finally settled is not satisfactorily explained by the authorities within my reach; and this is the reason why I dare not pronounce an opinion on the question at issue. But I am convinced that the momentary difficulty will afford the man the necessary diplomatic qualities as well as the requisite tact. There is only one thing I can lay down for certain, viz., that if a man follows his natural simplicity and reserve, and takes the girl’s feigned “No” seriously, she will only laugh at him afterwards—such, again, is woman’s nature.
A well-known French chanson deals with a hunter who meets a young girl out in the forest. Struck by her beauty, he wants to kiss her:
And takes her by her white hand,
Intending to caress her;
W. F. H.
but she begins to cry, and, moved by her tears, he releases her; but he has hardly got clear of the wood before she begins to laugh at him heartily, and in derision shouts after him: “When you’ve got hold of a quail you ought to pluck it, and when you’ve got hold of a girl you ought to embrace her”: