Her needle ’twas that pierced each flower;
Her’s the fillet that bound them in one.
Four strands of lehua make the lei—
The wreath bound on by this maid—
Maid who once basked in the calm down there:
Her heart harks back to Hilo-one;
Wreath and heart are for Hilo-one.
The wreath is placed, the song is sung, yet Hiiaka’s arm still clasps Lohiau’s neck. Her lithesome form inclines to him. With a sudden motion, Hiiaka throws her arms about Lohiau and draws him to herself. Face to face, lip touches lip, nose presses nose.
The women of Pele’s court, chokefull of curiosity and spilling over with suspicion, watchful as a cat of every move, on the instant raise their voices in one Mother-Grundy chorus: “Oh, look! Hiiaka kisses Lohiau! She kisses your lover, Lohiau!”
The excitement rises to fever heat. Pele is the coolest of the lot. At the first outcry—“they kiss”—Pele remarks with seeming indifference, “The nose was made for kissing.”[1] (The Hawaiian kiss was a flattening of nose against nose). But when Hiiaka and Lohiau sink to the earth wrapped in each other’s arms, and the women of Pele’s court raise the cry, “For shame! they kiss; they embrace!” At this announcement, the face of Pele hardens and her voice rings out with the command: “Ply him with fire.”