In another poem addressed to Lesbia (Carm. 7), Catullus says: “You ask how many kisses of yours, Lesbia, maybe enough for me; and more. As the numerous sands that lie on the spicy shores of Cyrene, between the oracle of sultry Jove and the sacred tomb of old Battus;[5] or as the many stars that in the silence of night behold men’s furtive amours; to kiss you with so many kisses is enough and more for madly fond Catullus; such a multitude as prying gossips can neither count, nor bewitch with their evil tongues.” Lamb’s translation is as follows: “Thy kisses dost thou bid me count, And tell thee, Lesbia, what amount My rage for love and thee could tire, And satisfy and cloy desire? Many as grains of Libyan sand Upon Cyrene’s spicy land, From prescient Ammon’s sultry dome To sacred Battus’ ancient tomb: Many as stars that silent ken At night the stolen loves of men. Yes, when the kisses thou shalt kiss Have reached a number vast as this, Then may desire at length be stayed, And e’en my madness be allayed, Then when infinity defies The calculations of the wise, Nor evil voice’s deadly charm Can work the unknown number harm.” Thomas Moore gives the following exceedingly free rendering of the answer to the question: “As many stellar eyes of light As through the silent waste of night, Gazing upon the world of shade, Witness some secret youth and maid, Who, fair as thou, and fond as I, In stolen joys enamored lie,— So many kisses, ere I slumber, Upon those dew-bright lips I’ll number; So many vermil, honeyed kisses, Envy can never count our blisses: No tongue shall tell the sum but mine; No lips shall fascinate but thine!” We cannot dismiss Catullus without one more specimen of his osculatory exuberance. In his lines “To My Love” (Carm. 48), he says: “Were I allowed to kiss your sweet eyes without stint, I would kiss on and on up to three hundred thousand times; nor even then should I ever have enough, not though our crop of kissing were thicker than the dry ears of the cornfield.” Or in Lamb’s metrical version: “If, all-complying, thou wouldst grant Thy lovely eyes to kiss, my fair, Long as I pleased, oh! I would plant Three hundred thousand kisses there. “Nor could I even then refrain, Nor satiate leave that fount of blisses, Though thicker than autumnal grain Should be our growing crop of kisses.” * * * * * Martial, in his “Epigrams,” bestows a variety of attentions upon the promiscuous custom of kissing in Rome, as he found it in his day. In an epigram addressed to his friend Flaccus (xii. 98), he complains in very strong and very amusing terms of the persistent salutes of a certain class, who paid no heed whatever to times and seasons, places and circumstances, but broke through all forms and guards and conventional restraints. On another occasion he pointed his invective in this manner (xii. 59):