This pretty conceit, which the moderns have often copied from Ovid, occurs in the epistle of Paris to Helen:
“If you your young Hermione but kiss,
Straight from her lips I snatch the envied bliss.”
In his “Art of Love” (Book I.) Ovid thus pursues his course of instruction:
“Tears, too, are of utility: by tears you will move adamant. Make her, if you can, to see your moistened cheeks. If tears shall fail you, for indeed they do not always come in time, touch your eyes with your wet hand. What discreet person will not mingle kisses with tender words? Though she should not grant them, still take them ungranted. Perhaps she will struggle at first, and will say, ‘You naughty man!’ Still, in her struggling she will wish to be overcome. Only, let them not, rudely snatched, hurt her tender lips, and take care that she may not be able to complain that they have proved a cause of pain. He who has gained kisses, if he cannot gain the rest as well, will deserve to lose even that which has been granted him. How much is there wanting for unlimited enjoyment after a kiss! Oh, shocking! ’twere clownishness, not modesty. Call it violence, if you like; such violence is pleasing to the fair; they often wish, through compulsion, to grant what they are delighted to grant.”
Turning from Ovid to the Greek Anthology, we find this epigram:
“The kiss that she left on my lip
Like a dew-drop shall lingering lie: