Sweet as my revenge.”—Shakspere.
“A long, long kiss, a kiss of youth and love.”
“For a kiss’s strength
I think it must be measured by its length.”—Byron.
“A kiss now that will hang upon my lip
As sweet as morning dew upon a rose,
And full as long.”—Thomas Middleton.
Perhaps the longest kiss on record is that which Siegfried gives Brünnhilde in the drama of Siegfried. But this is not an ordinary kiss, for the hero has to wake with it the Valkyrie from the twenty years’ sleep into which old Wotan had plunged her for disobeying his orders. Thanks to Wagner’s art, the thrill of this Love-kiss, magically transmuted into tones, is felt by a thousand spectators simultaneously with the lover.
Love-kisses are innumerable. Thus sings the Italian poet, Cecco Angiolieri, in the thirteenth century—
“Because the stars are fewer in heaven’s span