THE KISS IMPRIMIS.
Milton tells us in “Paradise Lost,” Book IV., how the pioneer lover saluted the mother of the human race in the bowers of Eden:
SIGNIFICANCE AMONG THE HEBREWS.
Originally, in Oriental life, the act of kissing had a symbolical character whose import was, in many respects, of greater breadth than that of the custom in our day. Acts, as Dr. Beard, the German theologian, remarks, speak no less—sometimes far more—forcibly than words. In the early period of society, when the foundation was laid of most even of our Western customs, action constituted a large portion of what we may term human language, or the means of intercommunication between man and man; because then words were less numerous, books unknown, the entire machinery of speaking being in its rudimental and elementary state, less developed and called into play; to say nothing of that peculiarity of the Oriental character (if, indeed, it be not a characteristic of all nations in primitive ages) which inclined men to general taciturnity, with occasional outbreaks of fervid, abrupt, or copious eloquence. In this language of action, a kiss, inasmuch as it was a bringing into contact of parts of the body of two persons, was naturally the expression and the symbol of affection, regard, respect, and reverence; and if deeper source of its origin were sought for, it would, doubtless, be found in the fondling and caresses with which the mother expresses her tenderness for her babe. That the custom is of very early date, and very varied in its form among the Hebrews, may be seen in numerous familiar citations from Holy Writ.
DIVERSITIES IN THE BIBLE.
SALUTATION.
David ... fell on his face to the ground, and bowed himself three times; and they [David and Jonathan] kissed one another, and wept one with another, until David exceeded.—1 Samuel xx. 41.
Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss.—1 Thess. v. 26.
Salute one another with a holy kiss.—Romans xvi. 16.
[See also Exod. xviii. 7; 1 Cor. xvi. 20; 1 Pet. v. 14.]
VALEDICTION.
The Lord grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband [Naomi to her daughters-in-law]. Then she kissed them; and they lifted up their voice, and wept.—Ruth i. 9.
RECONCILIATION.
So Joab came to the king, and told him: and when he had called for Absalom, he came to the king, and bowed himself on his face to the ground before the king: and the king kissed Absalom.—2 Samuel xiv. 33.
SUBJECTION.
Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little.—Psalm ii. 12.
APPROBATION.
Every man shall kiss his lips that giveth a right answer.—Prov. xxiv. 26.
ADORATION.
——All the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.—1 Kings xix. 18.
[See also Hosea xiii. 2.]
And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.—Luke vii. 38.
TREACHERY.
Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast.
And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, Master; and kissed him.—Matt. xxvi. 48, 49.
The kisses of an enemy are deceitful.—Prov. xxvii. 6.
[See also Prov. vii. 13.]
AFFECTION.
When Laban heard the tidings of Jacob his sister’s son, he ran to meet him, and embraced him, and kissed him, and brought him to his house.—Gen. xxix. 13.
Moreover he [Joseph] kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them.—Gen. xlv. 15.
And Joseph fell upon his father’s face, and wept upon him, and kissed him.—Gen. l. 1.
[See also Gen. xxxi. 55, xxxiii. 4, xlviii. 10; Exod. iv. 27; Luke xv. 20; Acts xx. 37.]
A Hebrew commentator on Genesis xxix. 11 says that the Rabbins did not permit more than three kinds of kisses, the kiss of reverence, of reception, and of dismissal.
With reference to the expression of reverence or worship in the foregoing quotations, it should be noted that to adore idols and to kiss idols mean the same thing. Indeed, the word adore signifies simply to carry the hand to the mouth, that is, to kiss it to the idol. We still kiss the hand in salutation. Various parts of the body are kissed to distinguish the character of the adoration paid. Thus, to kiss the lips is to adore the living breath of the person saluted; to kiss the feet or ground is to humble one’s self in adoration; to kiss the garments is to express veneration for whatever belongs to or touches the person who wears them. Pharaoh tells Joseph, “Thou shalt be over my house, and upon thy mouth shall all my people kiss,” meaning that they would reverence the commands of Joseph by kissing the roll on which they were written. “Samuel poured oil on Saul, and kissed him,” to acknowledge subjection to God’s anointed. In the Hebrew state, this mode of expressing reverence arose from the peculiar form of government under the patriarchal figure.
SYMBOLICAL EXPRESSION AMONG THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.
ANCIENT HISTORY AND POETRY COMMINGLED.
In Homer’s beautiful description of the parting of Hector from his wife and child upon returning to the field of battle, occurs a touching recital of paternal affection and solicitude (Iliad, vi.). The passage is so beautiful that we quote it at length:
The grief of the venerable Priam upon learning of the death of his favorite son, Hector, at the hands of Achilles, and his journey to the Grecian camp to beg of Achilles the body of Hector for burial, are portrayed with equal force (Iliad, xxiv.). The Trojan monarch, prostrating himself before the warrior,
In the course of his entreaty, which completely softens Achilles, the suppliant says:
Virgil gives us a picture similar to that of Hector when bidding farewell to his child. Æneas, having recovered from a dangerous wound, returns to the combat with Turnus, first bestowing his blessing upon his son Ascanius (Æneid, xii.):
Turning from the camp to the sweets of domestic life, we find in the same charming poet (Georg. ii. 523) these lines:
Xenophon says, in “Agesilaus” (v. 4), that it was a national custom with the Persians to kiss whomsoever they honored. And Herodotus (i. 134), in speaking of their manners and customs, says, “If Persians meet at any time by accident, the rank of each party is easily discovered: if they are of equal dignity, they salute each other on the mouth; if one is an inferior, they only kiss the cheek; if there be a great difference in situation, the inferior falls prostrate on the ground.” Respecting the mode of salutation between relatives, the following passage from the “Cyropædia” of Xenophon (i. 4) is worth transcribing:
“If I may be allowed to relate a sportive affair, it is said that when Cyrus went away, and he and his relations parted, they took their leave, and dismissed him with a kiss, according to the Persian custom,—for the Persians practise it to this day,—and that a certain Mede, a very excellent person, had been long struck with the beauty of Cyrus, and when he saw Cyrus’s relations kiss him, he stayed behind, and, when the rest were gone, accosted Cyrus, and said to him, ‘And am I, Cyrus, the only one of all your relations that you do not know?’ ‘What!’ said Cyrus, ‘are you a relation?’ ‘Yes,’ said he. ‘This was the reason, then,’ said Cyrus, ‘that you used to gaze at me; for I think I recollect that you frequently did so.’ ‘I was very desirous,’ said he, ‘to salute you, but I was always ashamed to do it.’ ‘But,’ said Cyrus, ‘you that are a relation ought not to have been so.’ So, coming up to him, he kissed him. The Mede, having received the kiss, is said to have, asked this question: ‘And is it a custom among the Persians to kiss relations?’ ‘It is so,’ said Cyrus, ‘when they see one another at some distance of time, or when they part.’ ‘Then,’ said the Mede, ‘it seems now to be time for you to kiss me again; for, as you see, I am just going away.’ So Cyrus, kissing him again, dismissed him, and went his way. They had not gone very far before the Mede came up with him again, with his horse all over in a sweat; and Cyrus, getting sight of him, said, ‘What! have you forgotten anything that you had a mind to say to me?’ ‘No, by Jove,’ said he, ‘but I am come again at a distance of time.’ ‘Dear relation,’ said he, ‘it is a very short time.’ ‘How a short one?’ said the Mede: ‘do you not know, Cyrus, that the very twinkling of my eyes is a long time to be without seeing you, you who are so lovely?’ Here Cyrus, from being in tears, broke out into laughter, bid him go his way and take courage, adding that in a little time he would be with him again, and that then he would be at liberty to look at him, if he pleased, with steady eyes and without twinkling.”
The kiss among the ancients was an essential implement in the armory of love. Virgil, for instance, uses it in the device by which Queen Dido was to be inspired with a passion for Æneas. Venus, in the course of her instructions to Cupid, says:
Horace, in the ode to Lydia, in which he gives such free expression to his jealousy (Ode XIII.), refers with considerable point and feeling to the osculatory attentions of his rival. The following translation is by Bulwer-Lytton:
The closing lines of an ode to Mæcenas (Lib. II. Ode XII.) are worth noting:
Literally, “when she turns to meet the ardent kisses, or with a gentle cruelty denies what she would more delight to have ravished by the petitioner; sometimes she is eager to snatch them herself.”
In the Latin Anthology is an ode to another Lydia, by an unknown poet, but probably Gallus, which breathes throughout the rapturous idolatry of the enamored writer. We have only space for these lines:
Ovid appropriates the kiss most effectively in his passages descriptive of the endearments, the fascinations, the yearnings, and the transports of love. Briseis in her letter to Achilles, begging him to return to the Grecian camp, is made to say:
In the letter of Sappho to her lover, Phaon, when he had forsaken her, and she had resolved upon suicide, we have a picture of that “sorrow’s crown of sorrow,” the remembrance in adversity of happier days:
A wife’s affection is shown in the letter of Laodanna to her husband at Aulis with the Grecian fleet:
This pretty conceit, which the moderns have often copied from Ovid, occurs in the epistle of Paris to Helen:
In his “Art of Love” (Book I.) Ovid thus pursues his course of instruction:
“Tears, too, are of utility: by tears you will move adamant. Make her, if you can, to see your moistened cheeks. If tears shall fail you, for indeed they do not always come in time, touch your eyes with your wet hand. What discreet person will not mingle kisses with tender words? Though she should not grant them, still take them ungranted. Perhaps she will struggle at first, and will say, ‘You naughty man!’ Still, in her struggling she will wish to be overcome. Only, let them not, rudely snatched, hurt her tender lips, and take care that she may not be able to complain that they have proved a cause of pain. He who has gained kisses, if he cannot gain the rest as well, will deserve to lose even that which has been granted him. How much is there wanting for unlimited enjoyment after a kiss! Oh, shocking! ’twere clownishness, not modesty. Call it violence, if you like; such violence is pleasing to the fair; they often wish, through compulsion, to grant what they are delighted to grant.”
Turning from Ovid to the Greek Anthology, we find this epigram:
Anacreon, in one of his odes, speaks of the heart flying to the lips; and Plato, in a distich quoted by Aulus Gellius, tells us of the effect of a kiss upon his susceptibility:
Plato also wrote:
Anacreon uses this figurative expression:
By the ancient expression “cups of kisses,” reference is most probably made to a favorite gallantry among the Greeks and Romans of drinking when the lips of their mistresses had touched the brim. Ben Jonson’s oft-quoted verses to Celia, in which occur the lines—
are translated from Philostratus, a Greek poet of the second century.
Lucian has a conceit upon the same idea: “that you may at once both drink and kiss.” And Meleager says:
Agathias also says:
Longepierre, to give an idea of the luxurious estimation in which garlands were held by the ancients, relates an anecdote of a frail beauty, who, in order to gratify three lovers without leaving cause for jealousy with any of them, gave a kiss to one, let the other drink after her, and put a garland on the brow of the third; so that each was satisfied with his favor, and flattered himself with the preference.
In one of Anacreon’s odes we find the strong and beautiful phrase, “a lip provoking kisses.”
Tatius speaks of “lips soft and delicate for kissing;” and that grave old commentator, Lambinus, in his notes upon Lucretius, tells us, with all the authority of experience, that girls who have large lips kiss infinitely sweeter than others!
Æneas Sylvius, in his story of the loves of Euryalus and Lucretia, where he particularizes the beauties of the heroine, describes her lips as exquisitely adapted for biting.[3] And Catullus, in his poems (viii.), asks, “Whom will you love now? Whose will you be called? Whom will you kiss? Whose lips will you bite? But you, Catullus, be stubbornly obdurate.” As Lamb has it:
Or, as Elton renders it:
Plautus alludes to this biting;[4] and Horace says (Ode XIII.), as already quoted:
Plutarch tells us that Flora, the mistress of Cn. Pompey, used to say, in commendation of her lover, that she could never quit his arms without giving him a bite. And Tibullus, in his confession of his illicit love for Delia, the wife of another, and of his devices for covering his tracks, says, among other things, “I gave her juices and herbs for removing the livid marks which mutual Venus makes by the impress of the teeth.”
Anacreon finds in the brevity of life arguments for the voluptuary as well as for the moralist:
Of the amatory writers who exhaust rhetoric to express the infinity of kisses which they require from the lips of their mistresses, Catullus takes the lead. In his famous verses to Lesbia (Carm. 5), he says:
“Let us live and love, my Lesbia, and a farthing for all the talk of morose old sages! Suns may set and rise again; but we, when once our brief light has set, must sleep through a perpetual night. Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then another thousand, then a second hundred, then still another thousand, then a hundred. Then, when we shall have made up many thousands, we will confuse the reckoning, so that we ourselves may not know their amount, nor any spiteful person have it in his power to envy us when he knows that our kisses were so many.”
Roman superstition recognized an occult and mischievous potency in the sentiment of envy. Moreover, there was a prevalent notion that it excited the envy of the gods to count what gave one pleasure.
The following metrical versions of the foregoing are worth a place here. The first is by George Lamb (1821):
The second is by C. A. Elton, whose translations of the classic poets were first published in 1814:
In another poem addressed to Lesbia (Carm. 7), Catullus says:
“You ask how many kisses of yours, Lesbia, maybe enough for me; and more. As the numerous sands that lie on the spicy shores of Cyrene, between the oracle of sultry Jove and the sacred tomb of old Battus;[5] or as the many stars that in the silence of night behold men’s furtive amours; to kiss you with so many kisses is enough and more for madly fond Catullus; such a multitude as prying gossips can neither count, nor bewitch with their evil tongues.”
Lamb’s translation is as follows:
Thomas Moore gives the following exceedingly free rendering of the answer to the question:
We cannot dismiss Catullus without one more specimen of his osculatory exuberance. In his lines “To My Love” (Carm. 48), he says:
“Were I allowed to kiss your sweet eyes without stint, I would kiss on and on up to three hundred thousand times; nor even then should I ever have enough, not though our crop of kissing were thicker than the dry ears of the cornfield.”
Or in Lamb’s metrical version: