His panting bosom shall be prest to thine,
And his dear lips thy breathless lips shall join;
With active tongue he’ll dart the humid kiss,
And on thy neck indent his eager bliss.
Ovid, Amores, III, xiv, 34, asks his mistress:
Cur plus, quam somno, turbatos esse capillos;
Collaque conspicui dentis habere notam?
which is rendered by the translator in Dryden’s Ovid, “by many hands”:
Why do your locks and rumpled head-clothes show
’Tis more than usual sleep that made them so?
Why are the kisses which he gave betray’d,
By the impression which his teeth has made?
Many further passages from the older Latin poets might be quoted, and amongst the moderns, Joannes Secundus[86] and Jean Bonnefons[87] have not neglected to celebrate the love-bite in their verses. From the latter it will suffice to cite the elegant Basium IV, Execratur dentes, quibus inter osculandum papillas Dominae laeserat, which commences:
O dens improbe, dire, ter sceleste,
Dens sacerrime, dens inauspicate,
Tun’ tantum scelus ausus, ut papillas,
Illas Pancharidis meae papillas,
Quas Uenus ueneratur et Cupido,
Feris morsibus ipse uulnerares?
Of Joannes Secundus the Basium VII in the Basiorum Liber is very celebrated:
Quis te furor, Neaera,
Mepta quis iubebat,
Sic inuolare nostram
Sic uellicare linguam,
Ferociente morsu?
An, quas tot unus abs te
Pectus per omne gesto
Penetrabileis sagittas,
Parum uidentur? istis.
Ni dentibus proteruis
Exerceas nefandum
Membrum nefas in illud,
Quo saepe solo primo,
Quo saepe solo sero,
Quo per dieisque longas
Nocteisque amarulentas
Laudes tuas canebam?
