Yes, I’m sure the the title has you wondering, but let me assure you, neither nor the pub here at dVerse is handing out kisses for the crowd. At least, not our own, and probably not the sort you’re thinking of. Rather, this week, we’re kicking things off with a delicate literary touch from one of the Netherlands’ finest: Johannes Secundus.
Secundus was a poet of the 16th century, one of many of the time that wrote his works in Latin rather than his own native tongue–a fact stemming from the reality that, in those days, “New Latin” was the language of all things scientific and scholarly. Though his work ran from elegies to epistles, his most prominent contribution to the literary is today known as the collection of Johannes’s kisses (Yes, you see how this is all tying in now, don’t you? Clever devils, you are…). The Kisses–19 poems in all–are all joined in that they explore various matters through the theme of the kiss itself. Fertility, death, healing…the poems run the gamut, just as the emotions they follow.
But we won’t be offering up all 19 today. Rather, Pretzels and Bullfights has settled for the translation of Kiss XII. It should give a fair taste of Secundus’s classic skill:
Kiss XII
Modest Matrons, Maidens, say,
Why thus turn your looks away?
Frolic feats of lawless love,
Of the lustful pow’rs above;
Forms obscene, that shock the sight,
In my verse I ne’er recite;
Verse! where nought indecent reigns;
Guiltless are my tender strains;
Such as pedagogues austere
Might with strict decorum hear,
Might, with no licentious speech,
To their youth reproachless teach.
I, chaste vot’ry of the Nine!
Kisses sing of chaste design:
Maids and Matrons yet, with rage,
Frown upon my blameless page;
Frown, because some wanton word
Here and there by chance occurr’d,
Or the cheated fancy caught
Some obscure, tho’ harmless thought
Hence, ye prudish Matrons! hence,
Squeamish Maids devoid of sense!
And shall these in virtue dare
With my virtuous maid compare?
She! who in the bard will prize
What she’ll in his lays despise;
Wantonness with love agrees,
But reserve in verse must please.
~Johannes Secundus
dVerse 
smiles…nothing better than some kisses in the pub on a monday night..nice, intriguing verse…and i feel strangely related to him as i’m not writing poetry in my native tongue as well…smiles
Hi Chris, I’ve never heard of Secundus. I like the idea of “reserve in verse” actually. Confession is good too–but sometimes people (including myself) seem to think that’s all that’s required! Anyway, fun poem. K.
Hi Chris,
Thank you for this nice post.
Happy Monday!
Thank you for posting this, but I do have reservations about the poem. Mainly because I don’t think (although I am not certain) that the translation of the Latin does this poem justice. It feels to me as though the translator went way too far to make the poem rhyme instead of revealing to the English reader the true heart of the poem.
I would be interested in reading a more precise translation of the work that does not feel obligated to rhyme.
Great post, and I love the theme!
Have often thought, in translation much is lost…
Tis true, and it is the great woe in sifting through so many literary greats from other languages, other countries, and other cultures: their words, and you, are put at the mercy of the translator.
Thanks for this totally new poet and a very entertaining introduction as well. I’d love to think that my collected poems could be called numbered Kisses–a lovely conceit, and the example here was both amusing and spot on.