To kiss the bride at the church stile.
When ladies’ lips were at the service of all it became usual to have fragrant scented comfits or sweets, of which we find frequent mention. In Massinger’s “Very Woman” occurs the following:
Faith! Search our pockets, and if you find there
Comfits of amber grease to help our kisses,
Conclude us faulty.
Pliny describes the introduction of the custom to the degeneracy of the Roman ladies who, in violation of the hereditary delicacy of the females of Rome, descended to the indulgence of wine. Kissing was resorted to by husbands as the most courteous process to ascertain the quality of their wives’ libations; and Cato, the elder, recommends the plan to the serious attention of all careful heads of families.
III.
The significance of kisses—The kissing of hands in religious ceremony and social life, in ancient Rome, Mexico and Austria—The politic achievement of a kiss—An indignant cardinal—A kiss within the cup—Something about lips, the sweet petitioners for kisses—Dancing and kissing—An Irish kissing festival—Electric kissing parties—Kissing under the mistletoe—New year’s kissing in old New York—A Western kissing bee.
There is much significance in kisses. To kiss the lips is to adore the living breath of the person saluted; to kiss the feet or the ground is to express humiliation; to kiss the garments to express veneration. The kissing of hands is of great antiquity, and seems to have been equally employed in religion and in social life. It was thus that the sun and moon were worshipped from the remotest ages. Job alludes to this custom when he says: “If I have looked upon the sun when he was shining forth, or at the moon advancing bright, and my heart have been secretly enticed, and my hand have kissed my mouth, this also were an iniquity,” etc. Lucian relates of Demosthenes that, having fallen into the hands of Antipater and obtained permission to enter a temple in the neighborhood, he carried his hand to his mouth on entering, which his guards took for an act of religion, but, when too late, found he had swallowed poison. Among the Romans, persons were treated as atheists who would not kiss their hands when they entered a temple. In the early days of Christianity, it was the custom of the primeval bishops to give their hands to be kissed by the ministers who served at the altar. This custom, however, as a religious rite, declined with paganism.
In society, the kissing of hands has always been regarded as a mute form of compliment, and used in asking favors, in thanking those from whom they have been received, and in showing veneration for superiors. Priam, in Homer, kissed the hands and embraced the knees of Achilles in conjuring him to restore the body of Hector. This custom prevailed in ancient Rome, but it varied. In the first ages of the Republic it seems to have been only practiced by inferiors to their superiors; equals gave their hands and embraced. In the progress of time, even the soldiers refused to show this mark of respect to their generals; and their kissing the hand of Cato when he was obliged to quit them was regarded as an extraordinary circumstance, at a period of such refinement. Under the emperors, kissing hands became an essential duty, even for the great themselves; inferior courtiers were obliged to be content to adore the purple by kneeling, touching the robe of the emperor by the right hand, and carrying it to the mouth. Even this was thought too free; and at length they saluted the emperor at a distance by kissing their hands, in the same manner as when they adored the gods. Solomon says of the flatterers and suppliants of his time, that they ceased not to kiss the hands of their patrons till they had obtained the favors which they had solicited. Cortez found the custom in Mexico, where upwards of a thousand of the nobility saluted him by touching the earth with their hands, which they carried afterwards to their mouths.