We have now seen what a kiss is; but before proceeding to investigate the different kinds of kisses, their significance in the history of civilisation, and treatment in poetry, it still remains for us to reply to some of the ordinary queries regarding the nature and characteristics of the kiss.
In the first place we must investigate the kiss in its gustative aspect. I here confine myself to what Kierkegaard calls “the perfect kiss,” i.e., the kiss between man and woman; kisses between men are, according to that authority, insipid.
Küssen, wo smekt dat? see de maid. Yes, its taste naturally depends entirely on the circumstances, and experience is here a teacher that sets every theory at nought; but a few leading features may, however, be indicated.
When Lars Iversen, in Schandorph’s Skovfogedbørnene, has kissed Mette Splyd, he wipes his mouth and says, when he has got well outside the door, “That tasted like meat that has been kept too long.” When the old minnesinger, King Wenceslaus of Bohemia, had kissed his sweetheart he sang: “Just as a rose that opens its calix when it drinks the sweet dew, she offered me her sugar-sweet red mouth.”
Recht als ein rôse diu sich ûz ir klôsen lât,
Swenn si des süezen touwes gert,
Sus bòt si mir ir zuckersüezen ròten munt.
As we perceive from both these examples, there is a great distinction between kisses in their gustative aspect, but, for obvious reasons, I shall entirely exclude the variety represented by Mette Splyd.
The most frequently employed and, at the same time undoubtedly the most fitting epithet of a kiss, is that it is sweet. The shepherd in the French pastorals is fond of asking for a sweet kiss (un doux baiser), and poets innumerable, like Wenceslaus, have sung about the beloved’s sugar mouth. During the Renaissance such expressions as her bouche sucrine (sugary mouth) and bouche pleine de sucre et d’ambregris (mouth full of sugar and ambergris) were often employed.
We find this further borne out by two Latin epigrams. One asks:—“What is sweeter than mead?” and the answer runs: “The dew of heaven. And what is sweeter than dew?—Honey from Hybla? What is sweeter than honey?—Nectar. Than nectar?—A kiss.”
Quid mulso præstat? Ros cœli. Rore quid? Hyblæ Mel. Melle hoc? Nectar. Nectare? Suaviolum.