Xenophon of Ephesus, An Ephesian Tale 1.9.6 · 1.9.6
A kiss from soul to soul
Read the full text in our reader
Εἰποῦσα ἅπαν μὲν αὐτοῦ τὸ πρόσωπον ἠσπάζετο, ἅπασαν δὲ τὴν κόμην τοῖς αὑτῆς ὀφθαλμοῖς προσετίθει καὶ τοὺς στεφάνους ἀνελάμβανε καὶ τὰ χείλη τοῖς χείλεσι φιλοῦσα συνηρμόκει, καὶ ὅσα ἐνενόουν, ⟦διὰ τῶν χειλέων⟧ ἐκ ψυχῆς εἰς τὴν θατέρου ψυχὴν διὰ τοῦ φιλήματος παρεπέμπετο.
When she had said this, she kissed his whole face, put all his hair to her own eyes, took up the garlands, and kissing, fitted her lips to his; and whatever they were thinking passed from one soul into the other through the kiss.
Word by word
The setting
Book 1, chapter 9. Anthia finishes speaking.
A note on this passage
Hercher prints διὰ τῶν χειλέων, "through the lips," but marks the words for deletion, probably because they repeat διὰ τοῦ φιλήματος, "through the kiss"; our prose reads around them. The idea that a kiss lets the soul pass from one person to another is old: an epigram ascribed to Plato says that in a kiss the poet's soul came up to his lips "as if to cross over" (Greek Anthology 5.78). Here what crosses is ὅσα ἐνενόουν, everything the two were thinking.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Xenophon of Ephesus, An Ephesian Tale 1.9.6 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
From the Great Library
You are reading a page of the Xenophon of Ephesus, An Ephesian Tale — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Xenophon of Ephesus, An Ephesian Tale 1.9.6 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/ephesiantale/1.9.6/