ought to be sufficiently well known. The Romans ere now spoke about lingere culum or lambere nates; the Germans more decently say: Küss mich da ich sitz' (Kiss me where I sit), or Er kan mich küssen da wo ich keine Nase habe (He can kiss me where I have no nose). Frenchmen even use the last mentioned paraphrastic expression. It is told in an old poem about Theodore de Beza, whose youth was, as you are aware, a very dissipated one, that, on one occasion, he said of a lady that he would like to kiss her, but he did not know how he could manage to do so as her nose was far too long. When the lady learnt this she wittily replied:
...Pour si peu ne tenez,
Car si cela seulement vous en garde!
J'ai bien pour vous un visage sans nez.[1]
We have no knowledge if this offer tempted the rigid Calvinist that was to be; but the lady was undoubtedly young, and even if he had not found her face so remarkably beautiful, yet it would have been very different had the invitation come from an old
- ↑
...Well, if you chose
With less to be content, don't stick at this.
I have for you a face without a nose.W. F. H.
