Thy kisses dost thou bid me count,
And tell thee, Lesbia, what amount
My rage for love and thee could tire,
And satisfy and cloy desire?
And the answer runs:
Many as grains of Libyan sand
Upon Cyrene’s spicy land
From prescient Ammon’s sultry dome
To sacred Battus’ ancient tomb;
Many as stars that silent ken
At night the stolen loves of men.
Yes, when the kisses thou shall kiss
Have reached a number vast as this,
Then may desire at length be stayed,
And e’en my madness be allayed:
Then when infinity defies
The calculations of the wise;
Nor evil voice’s deadly charm,
Can work the unknown number harm.
This being the case, it is a divine blessing that, according to the Finnish saying, “the mouth is not torn by being kissed, nor the hand by being squeezed”:
Suu ei kulu suudellessa,
Kāsi kāttā annellessa.
But even if the mouth is not exactly torn, yet much kissing may be almost harmful; but there is only one remedy to be found for this—“you must heal the hurts by fresh kisses.”
Dorat, who may be regarded as a high authority on philematology, expressly says:
A second kiss can physic
The evil the first has wrought.
W. F. H.
And Heine, whose authority in these questions should hardly be inferior, holds quite the same theory: