(Χείλων,—a proper name, also means _of the lips_,—and λείχων,—licking,—have the like letters; now what does this point to? Chilon licks lips, whether lips like his own, or whether unlike). In explanation of this Epigram _Forbiger_ says (loco citato p. 326.): “Lusus in Chilonem cunnilingum. Hunc ait iure quodam suo lingere, qui vel nomine iisdem literis constante prae se fert lingentem et lingentem quidem tum labra oris, ut labris ligentis similia, tum cunni, ut dissimilia.” (Pun on the name of Chilon, a _cunnilingue_. The poet says he (Chilon) licks by a sort of inherent right of his own, who even in his name, made up of the same letters, proclaims himself as licking, and licking now the lips of the mouth, which are like the lips of the licker, now those of the female organ, which are unlike). Χεῖλος was in fact used also of the lips of a woman’s organ, the _nymphae_; the Scholiast on τὰς ἐσχάρας (the _nymphae_) in the passage from Aristophanes given a little above, interprets this word by τὰ χείλη τῶν γυναικείων αἰδοίων (the lips of the female privates). According to _Schneider_ in his Lexicon χείλων (adj.) signifies _thick-lipped_. Perhaps it was this very Epigram that led _Lambert Bosius_ to make the statement that χείλων arose by a mere transposition of the letters from λείχον. Now if λείχην,—for we consider it should be thus accented,—is derived from λείχω (I lick), we cannot but regard it as meaning: something _produced by licking, a complaint brought on by licking_, and particularly _by the licking of the cunnilingue_! Surely the Greeks could hardly have expressed themselves more clearly. Then the fact that the name came from the mouth of the common people is the very best reason for its not having been understood by the educated. Yet all the while an entirely similar form of expression has grown up in the mouth of the German common people, the real meaning of which very few have fathomed, but which most certainly arose in the same way as the Greek λείχην. No doubt many of my readers have again and again heard it said of some one with an eruption round the mouth, that is, someone suffering from _Herpes labialis_ (Creeping eruption of the lips): “Well! you _have_ been licking!”—for which educated people substitute the obviously insufficient, “You _have_ been picking!” Very commonly again one may hear: “You _have_ been licking _greben_, or picking _greben_; and this word _greben_ is understood as being identical with _grieben_,—_greaves_ in English, i. e. the remnants of lard that has been cut up into pieces and fried, because the separate pustules of the _herpes labialis_ resemble in appearance the _greaves_. So people sometimes also say still more explicitly, “You _have_ been licking, or picking, _greaves_; and one of them has been left sticking to your mouth, to prove your greediness!”