KISS or rather, The Kiss (Der Kuss) – an artwork produced in 1908 by Austrian painter Gustav Klimt – was derided upon its unveiling as “pornographic”, further evidence of Klimt’s popular perception as an artist of “perverted excess”. Today such prudish reactions would, one hopes, appear far more shocking than the content of the painting itself which – for those few who have not seen it – depicts a couple, clad in a mosaic of gold, embraced against a field of glittering wildflowers. (Indeed, a more virtuous display of affection is hard to imagine!) So prevalent is this supposedly ‘pornographic’ kiss today, that the plot of an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (The Freshman, S4E1) – in which vampire’s collect posters of The Kiss stolen from the dorm-rooms of unfortunate students – can reliably revolve around it. Needless to say then, attitudes towards, and conceptualisations of, the humble kiss have shifted over the course of the 20th century and this is a story which continues the changes inherent within the terms broader historic development.

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Somewhat remarkably, the composition of the word kiss has changed very little in its journey from Old English and Proto-Germanic languages. Kussijaną or *kussaz – from the hypothesised Proto-Germanic – appears very similar in form to almost all its contemporary descendents: küssen (German), kussen (Dutch), kyssa (Icelandic and Swedish), kysse (Danish), këssen (Luxembourgish) and, of course, kiss (English). In Latin, on the other hand, it appears that both kisses (noun) and kissing (verb) took on a variety of terms for the various contexts in which they were used: most notably bāsium which denotes a kiss of the hand; suāvium, a kiss or a sweetheart; and, ōsculum, perhaps the most neutral kiss of the three. Somewhat unusually these Latin terms seem not to have influenced the English a great deal: while baiser – the French term for kiss, derived from bāsium – has produced the English buss (first attested in 1567), this is now rarely used; and likewise the term osculum, which appears from 1706 in some English texts, is most frequently reserved for specialised technical, scientific or liturgical contexts.

So kiss, it seems, is what we must make do with, or rather at this stage the ​​cosse (noun) and cyssan (verb) which enters Britain through Old English. These terms are evidenced in writing from around the turn of the first millennium (c1000 A.D.) within the Ælfric Homilies, as in this scene of maternal reunification in which Jesus is said to have resurrected a widow’s child:

Heo ða mid micelre blisse hit awrehte, and wepende cossode. Þa befrán heo þæt cild, betwux ðam cossum, hú hit macode on eallum ðam fyrste þæs geares ymbrynes? [She then with great joy awakened it, and weeping kissed it. Then she asked the child, between the kisses, how it had fared in all the time of the year's course?]

And elsewhere the relationship between Christ and coss is similarly well established. As in, for example, the ancient traditional Christian greeting known as the kiss of peace or pax (derived from the Latin term) which was common throughout English-speaking christendom up to the c16th Reformation. In Chaucer’s Parson's Tale – one of his Canterbury Tales, written in the late c14th – we can read of kissing the pax, in a discussion on the sin of Pride:

And yet is ther a privee spece of Pride, that waiteth first to be salewed er he wole salewe, [...] or kisse pax, [...] peraventure, but that he hath his herte and his entente in swich a proud desir to be magnified and honoured biforn the peple. [And yet is there a private species of Pride that waits first to be greeted before he will greet, [...] or kiss the pax, [...] indeed, but that he has his heart and his intent in such a proud desire to be made much of and honored before the people.]

Indeed, the kisses of mediaeval Europe were often quite formal or even political affairs, a sign of veneration, reconciliation or shifting dynamics of power. Alongside kissing the pax one might, for instance, kiss the ground – both as a ‘token of homage’ but also, in a figurative sense, to signify one's own undoing. We can see evidence of this treacherous double-meaning in the Returne of Pasquill, written in 1589:

…at the next pushe, Martin and his companions, might ouerthrow the state, and make the Emperiall crowne of her Maiestie kisse the ground.

And then further, as a sign of the utmost humiliation, one may be forced to kiss the rod (presumably that same rod which will be used to beat the humiliated party) as submissive acceptance of chastisement or ‘correction’. This phrase, likewise attested in the 1580’s, appears first in Sir Phillip Sydney’s The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia:

…though he knew this discourse was to entertain him from a more straight parley, yet he durst not but kiss his rod…

In like manner, and at a similar time (in the late c16th), one may have been asked to kiss the stocks, the clink or the counter, as a part of their imprisonment – as in William Stevenson’s comedy Gammer Gurtons Needle of 1575:

Cal me the knave hether, he shall sure kisse the stockes. I shall teach him a lesson for filching hens or cocks.

And so it is, somewhat surprisingly, that far from the symbol of passionate intent exemplified by Klimt’s oeuvre, the kisses of the c15–17th were as much a tool of humiliation as anything else (kissing the book, cup, dust, ground, post, rod or clink) – all perhaps, a precursor to today’s treasured rejoinder: ‘kiss my ass.’ This phrase attested from 1705, and used to expert effect in Henry Fielding’s The History of Tom Jones (1749):

Allusions to this part are likewise often made for the sake of the jest. And here, I believe, the wit is generally misunderstood. In reality, it lies in desiring another to kiss your a— for having just before threatened to kick his; for I have observed very accurately, that no one ever desires you to kick that which belongs to himself, nor offers to kiss this part in another.

Yet there is, of course, a whole history of the term which is obscured here – Klimt’s kiss – the kiss of friends or lovers. While this expression of romance is not nearly as universal as we are wont to believe (less than a half of the cultures across the world exhibit it), its use in the history of the English language is nonetheless profound and, to a certain extent, unchanging. The c14th Middle English love poem When the Nightingale Sings, for example, may as well have been written by a forlorn romantic of the c21st!

Suete lemmon, Y preye thee, Of love one speche; Whil Y lyve in world so wyde, Other nulle Y seche. With thy love, my suete leof, My blis thou mihtes eche; A suete cos of thy mouth, Mihte be my leche.

[Sweet loved-one, I pray thee,

For one loving speech; While I live in this wide world None other will I seek. With thy love, my sweet beloved, My bliss though mightest increase; A sweet kiss of thy mouth Might be my cure.]

Yes, some things never change – how tragic!

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So, fortunately it appears we have left the ignominious kisses of the middle ages behind, and alongside these, the prudish sentiments of the Victorians towards public displays of affection. Far from those kisses through which religions and empires were made, we are now left with the minor laments of unrequited lovers and the everyday kisses of texting teens:

Why’d she leave? Why’d she return? Send me all the deets. And who am I? That’s the secret I’ll never tell. The only one. —X O X O. Gossip Girl.

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This article was written for a monthly column – The Remainder – in the Sticky Fingers monthly mailout