The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 / Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales

In Plato's time the Greeks held that dancing awakened and preserved in the soul—as I do not doubt that it does—the sentiment of harmony and proportion; and in accordance with this idea Simonides, with a happy knack at epigram, defined dances as 'poems in dumb show.'

In his Republic Plato classifies the Grecian dances as domestic, designed for relaxation and amusement, military, to promote strength and activity in battle; and religious, to accompany the sacred songs at pious festivals. To the last class belongs the dance which Theseus is said to have instituted on his return from Crete, after having abated the Minotaur nuisance. At the head of a noble band of youth, this public spirited reformer of abuses himself executed his dance. Theseus as a dancing-master does not much fire the imagination, it is true, but the incident has its value and purpose in this dissertation. Theseus called his dance Geranos, or the 'Crane,' because its figures resembled those described by that fowl aflight; and Plutarch fancied he discovered in it a meaning which one does not so readily discover in Plutarch's explanation.

It is certain that, in the time of Anacreon,[A] the Greeks loved the dance. That poet, with frequent repetition, felicitates himself that age has not deprived him of his skill in it. In Ode LIII, he declares that in the dance he renews his youth

When I behold the festive train
Of dancing youth, I'm young again
And let me, while the wild and young
Trip the mazy dance along
Fling my heap of years away
And be as wild, as young as they

—Moore

And so in Ode LIX, which seems to be a vintage hymn.

When he whose verging years decline
As deep into the vale as mine
When he inhales the vintage cup
His feet new winged from earth spring up
And as he dances the fresh air
Plays whispering through his silvery hair

—Id

In Ode XLVII, he boasts that age has not impaired his relish for, nor his power of indulgence in, the feast and dance.

Tis true my fading years decline
Yet I can quaff the brimming wine
As deep as any stripling fair
Whose cheeks the flush of morning wear,
And if amidst the wanton crew
I'm called to wind the dance's clew
Then shalt thou see this vigorous hand
Not faltering on the Bacchant's wand
For though my fading years decay—
Though manhood's prime hath passed away,
Like old Silenus sire divine
With blushes borrowed from the wine
I'll wanton mid the dancing tram
And live my follies o'er again

—Id

Cornelius Nepos, I think, mentions among the admirable qualities of the great Epaminondas that he had an extraordinary talent for music and dancing. Epaminondas accomplishing his jig must be accepted as a pleasing and instructive figure in the history of the dance.

Lucian says that a dancer must have some skill as an actor, and some acquaintance with mythology—the reason being that the dances at the festivals of the gods partook of the character of pantomime, and represented the most picturesque events and passages in the popular religion. Religious knowledge is happily no longer regarded as a necessary qualification for the dance, and, in point of fact no thing is commonly more foreign to the minds of those who excel in it.

It is related of Aristides the Just that he danced at an entertainment given by Dionysius the Tyrant, and Plato, who was also a guest, probably confronted him in the set.

The 'dance of the wine press,' described by Longinus, was originally modest and proper, but seems to have become in the process of time—and probably by the stealthy participation of disguised prudes—a kind of can can.

In the high noon of human civilization— in the time of Pericles at Athens—dancing seems to have been regarded as a civilizing and refining amusement in which the gravest dignitaries and most renowned worthies joined with indubitable alacrity, if problematic advantage. Socrates himself—at an advanced age, too—was persuaded by the virtuous Aspasia to cut his caper with the rest of them.

Horace (Ode IX, Book I,) exhorts the youth not to despise the dance:

Nec dulcis amores
Sperne puer, neque tu choreas.

Which may be freely translated thus:

Boy, in Love's game don't miss a trick,
Nor be in the dance a walking stick.

In Ode IV, Book I, he says:

Jam Cytherea choros ducit, inminente Luna
Junct?que Nymphis Grati? decentes
Alterno terram quatiunt pede, etc