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.