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: