"The moist-handed Madonna Imperia, a most rare and
divine creature," remarks Lazarillo in Middleton's comedy _Blurt,
Master-Constable_, to quote one of many allusions to this point in the
Elizabethan drama.
The lips are sometimes noted as red and everted, perhaps thick[158];
Tardieu remarked that the typically erotic woman has thick red lips. This
corresponds with the characteristic type of the satyr in classic statues
as in later paintings; his lips are always thick and everted. Fullness,
redness, and eversion of the lips are correlated with good breathing, the
absence of anaemia, laughter, a well-fleshed face.
This kind of mouth indicates, perhaps, not so much a congenitally
erotic temperament, as an abandonment to impulse. The opposite
type of mouth--with inverted, thin, and retracted lips--would
appear to be found with especial frequency in persons who
habitually repress their impulses on moral grounds. Any kind of
effort to restrain involuntary muscular action may lead to
retraction of the lips: the effort to overcome anger or fear, or
even the resistance to a strong desire to urinate or defecate. In
religious young men, however, it becomes habitual and fixed.
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