I kiss the feet of my Goddess. I keep crawling before you.
(Akkadian prayer)
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It was Herodotus the Greek who first drew our attention to the customs of the Persians around 400 BCE.
He told us of how Persian men, while out and about in the city, would kiss each other on the lips in greeting instead of saying ‘hello’.
He noted that this was, however, only the case when the men held equal status.
He went on to say that, if one of the men held lower status, this man was not allowed to kiss the other man’s lips any more and this lower-status-man would have to move his kiss down the body of the higher-status-man towards :
A cheek.
A hand.
A foot.
Sometimes this lower-status-man would lie down on the floor and kiss the other man’s foot.
Persian foot kissing had nothing to do with sex, which might strike you as strange, for everyone knows how pretty feet are. Nevertheless, it caught on in Greece and then Rome and before very long, the Pope himself was doing it (both having his feet kissed and foot kissing) and he was definitely celibate which confirms that men like kissing feet, even if they don’t get to have sex afterwards.
But when Herodotus first saw it, he thought it odd.
He didn’t like it.
None of the Greeks liked it at first.
Sometimes the Persian man lying down on the floor in front of the other man would not even kiss the foot. He’d just kiss the floor. We don’t know why that was. Maybe people in ancient Persia were short-sighted or maybe they liked the floor a lot.
We do not know why they kissed the floor.
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I am overwhelmed. I can not see.
I kiss the feet of my Goddess. I keep crawling before you.
(Akkadian prayer)
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History complicates things further by telling us that some men do like to have sex after kissing feet. Further to the East in Japan, where feet are famously delicate, we understand that men liked to kiss women’s feet and then have sex. In China, on the other hand, men liked to give women’s feet a really tight squeeze and then have sex. In fact, we understand that the feet of many Chinese women were squeezed so tightly that they didn’t work as feet any more and the women started falling over. This reminds us of what happened with waists in Victorian England which were squeezed so tightly that women stopped being able to breathe and started falling over that way. It was the job of the Victorian men to catch the women, which was fair because it was in many ways down to them that the women were falling over in the first place. But in the very ancient world, when there were more goddesses, women were able to stay standing up for ages.
This is my understanding.
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SONG
O History!
I crawl before you
So close I see only a huge toe
O give me eyes to see your toes together all ten
Let me see them all together two whole feet
Let me look up to see your body loom above me
Let me watch as you turn gently and run from me across the open plain
Let me see your full shape sharp against the sunset
What big wings you have
Then let me run towards you and tackle you to the ground
Let me seem to take you down because you are older than me and wiser
Let me wrestle you in the old dust as though we are well matched because you are older than me and wiser
My lips reaching towards yours but never reaching yours
O LET ME NOT BE PROUD
Then let me feel your roll atop me
Let me know the full weight of your body your exact weight please like a bag of beans
But I never will
O History!
I fondle a single stone toe in the desert sand
It is yours I think
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If you actually really want to kiss someone’s lips, if you feel like you are the equal of another person and you want to kiss their lips, then not being equal can be really annoying. What are we supposed to do? Go round kissing the floor? It’s a joke.
The ancient Persians came up with an answer to this problem. They developed a practice for kissing without touching that did not require lying on the floor.
Herodotus called it :
Pros-kynesis προσκύνησις (definition) : to kiss - towards
Frankly, he found it all a bit weird, but let’s give it a go.
First of all, look for a thing to kiss - ideally something that makes you feel a little small. This could be a parent, perhaps, or a picture of a parent, or a statuette of a household god, or a screenshot of your boss, or a huge oak tree. Or a mug will do just fine for the purposes of this exercise. Once you have chosen the object of your kiss, do not run and kiss it. Instead, cup your hand up to your mouth and kiss the air right in front of your lips. Good. Now, let the kiss rest on your hand for a moment. Finally, you blow the kiss towards your chosen thing, using your hand to guide it.
I’ll give you a moment to complete this task. Don’t be shy.
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Perhaps you found this experience rather more familiar than you might have expected?
I would not be surprised. For this Persian custom (as with the foot kissing and the hand kissing) caught on in the West, despite being a bit weird, and we practice it to this day.
In fact, from this perspective, we are all ancient Persians.
Even the Americans.
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The man who made Persian custom our own was called Alexander the Great.
Yes, it may be true that Alexander was first entranced by erotic kisses among the Elephants of India, but it’s undeniable that he learned proskynesis in Persia and, crucially, introduced it into his own court in the long, hot summer of 327 BCE.
History tells us that, in 327 BCE, Alexander the Great demanded all his generals blow him kisses across the room at dinner time. In return for this obeisance, he would give them a kiss on the lips. Let us call this ‘pudding’. The Greeks, as we have noted, found proskynesis a bit strange at first, but they went along with it because every week about fourteen people were executed in the court of Alexander, so everyone was terrified even though they were big male soldiers. Callisthenes of Olynthus was the only one to voice his objection, saying ‘it makes me feel inferior - I won’t do it’, which put Alexander in a filthy mood and so he refused to give Callisthenes his pudding kiss. History tells us that Callisthenes walked out on Alexander, saying, ‘Well then, I’ll leave one kiss the poorer.’
Callisthenes of Olynthus ended his life in prison or perhaps he was crucified.
History is not entirely clear on this detail which is so frustrating.
I’d love to know the truth.
I’d love to be able to share the truth with you like a proper teacher.
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But - What was in it for Alexander himself? Because we don’t need History to tell us that a man like Alexander the Great does nothing for nothing. What was he up to? Was he styling himself into a god? Perhaps. But maybe his motives were more pragmatic. For, by setting up a complex system of kisses and kisses-towards at different moments in the day, Alexander managed to forge what we now call a social nightmare : a new power structure which did not rely on birthright. It no longer mattered - say - that you could trace your lineage back to the victors of the Trojan War (as Alexander himself traced his own line to Achilles). You just had to know how to kiss properly. So the kisses of Alexander the Great ushered in a new world and this is the same world in which we now O dear.
O dear.
Schoolboy error.
I have just realised that we have fallen into the trap of considering the Persian kiss solely through the eyes of European historians like Herodotus and me…
We must, instead, try to look with the eyes of the ancient Persians themselves.
Let’s have a go.
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Take your time.
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An ancient Persian person might have enjoyed this picture.
It shows the practice of proskynesis as depicted on a wall in the palace of the ancient Persian city of Persepolis.
It’s nice isn’t it.
It’s a nice picture of one man giving another man a kiss without having sex afterwards. Because we have literally no reason to believe that King Darius the Great and this unnamed supplicant had sex, though it’s true we cannot say for certain they did not. Somebody must have had sex sometimes in Persia. It’s all very confusing. Anyway, the Palace of Persepolis and indeed the whole city was sacked and ripped apart by Alexander the Accursed in 330 BCE.
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The Persian empire fell as so many empires had fallen before and so many would fall after and as we too are falling. We are falling at the feet of History, crawling at her feet, grasping at her heels as she strides away from us, towards those who are to come. One day she will be out of sight and we too will lie on the dark side of an untold story.
I know everyone in the future is going to be copying me and they won’t even know what I had for breakfast.
It’s so annoying.
But what can you do?
What can you do but fall?
And fall.
And fall.
And crawl.
And fall.
And fall again.
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I am overwhelmed. I can not see.
I kiss the feet of my Goddess. I keep crawling before you.
Man is dumb. He knows nothing.
Mankind, everyone that exists - what does he know?
Whether he is committing sin or doing good, he does not even know.
How long, O my Goddess -
whom I know or do not know -
How long until you turn your face towards me?
(Akkadian prayer)
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(ruins of Persepolis)
THE LESSON ENDS HERE
EXERCISE LESSON FOURTEEN
Today we practised blowing kisses during the lesson. I would like you now to try taking it out in the streets, like the ancient Persians. When you meet a person or animal or statue, take a moment. Then practice kissing towards them, while keeping your distance. If you want, you can try prostrating yourself on the floor at their feet, for it is not impossible that they are gods.
MUSIC : Covertly - Ali Bahramifard & Hadi Azarpira
Queen of the Night Relief / Burney relief - British museum
View of the ruins of Persepolis - Attributed to Antoine Sevruguin
Date of publication : 14.04.2021