Effugere non est, Basse, basiatores. Instant, morantur, persequuntur, occurrunt Et hinc et illinc, usquequaque, quacunque. _Non ulcus acre pustulaeve lucentes_, _Nec triste mentum sordidique lichenes_, Nec labra pingui delibuta ceroto, Nec congelati gutta proderit nasi. Et aestuantem basiant et algentem, Et nuptiale basium reservantem. Non te cucullis asseret caput tectum, Lectica nec te tuta pelle veloque, Nec vindicabit sella saepius clausa. Rimas per omnes basiator intrabit. Non consulatus ipse, non tribunatus, Saevique fasces, nec superba clamosi Lictoris abiget virga basiatorem. Sedeas in alto tu licet tribunali, Et e curuli iura gentibus reddas: Ascendet illa basiator atque illa: Febricitantem basiabit et flentem: Dabit oscitanti basium natantique, Dabit et cacanti. Remedium mali solum est Facias amicum, basiare quem nolis.
(_To Bassus_: Escape the kissers, no! it is not to be done, Bassus. They set upon you, wait for you, pursue you, meet you, here, there, and everywhere, in every street, at every corner. _Neither acrid ulcer nor shiny pustules, neither disfigured chin_ nor foul scabs, nor lips anointed with pink salve, nor the drop at the tip of a frozen nose will save you. They kiss a man sweating with heat and starving with cold, nay! even a man keeping his lips pure for the nuptial kiss. A head muffled in hoods will not exempt you, nor a litter guarded with rug and curtain, nor the sedan kept closed most of the time get you off. The kisser will in by every chink. Not the very consulship, not the tribuneship, not the stern fasces and threatening rod of the shouting lictor will keep away the kisser. Though you sit exalted on the high tribunal, or give laws to the people from the curule seat, both to one and the other the kisser will climb up. He will kiss a man shaking with fever, and drivelling with cold. He will give a kiss to a man gaping, to a man swimming, even to a man shitting! The one and only cure for the plague is to make a real friend, whom you will not need to kiss).
Now we shall be in a position to explain to our satisfaction what _Martial_ meant by _basia lasciva_ (wanton kisses),—XI. 24.—_basia maligna_ (pestilent kisses),—XII. 55.—and _Petronius_ (ch. 23.) by his _conspuere aliquem basio immundissimo_ (to beslobber anyone with a most filthy kiss); and we shall be in no way surprised at the fact that _mentagra_ not only attacked the Roman nobles as a virtual epidemic, but that the _velox transitus osculi_ (the swift transmission of a kiss) was alleged by Pliny as a reason of its communication.