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

At moonrise, Venus and her joyous band
Of Nymphs and Graces leg it o'er the land

In Ode XXXVI, Book I (supposed to have been written when Numida returned from the war in Spain, with Augustus, and referring to which an old commentator says 'We may judge with how much tenderness Horace loved his friends, when he celebrates their return with sacrifices, songs, and dances') Horace writes

Cressa ne careat pulchra dies nota
Neu promt? modus amphor?
Neu morem in Salium sit requies pedum etc.

Let not the day forego its mark
Nor lack the wine jug's honest bark
Like Salian priests we'll toss our toes—
Choose partners for the dance—here goes!

It has been hastily inferred that, in the time of Cicero, dancing was not held in good repute among the Romans, but I prefer to consider his ungracious dictum (in De Ami citia, I think,) 'Nemo sobrius saltat'—no sober man dances—as merely the spiteful and envious fling of a man who could not himself dance, and am disposed to congratulate the golden youth of the Eternal City on the absence of the solemn consequential and egotistic orator from their festivals and merry makings whence his shining talents would have been so many several justifications for his forcible extrusion. No doubt his eminence procured him many invitations to balls of the period, and some of these he probably felt constrained to accept, but it is highly unlikely that he was often solicited to dance, he probably wiled away the tedious hours of inaction by instructing the fibrous virgins and gouty bucks in the principles of juris prudence. Cicero as a wall flower is an interesting object, and, turning to another branch of our subject, in this picturesque attitude we leave him. Left talking.

VI CAIRO REVISITED

Having glanced, briefly, and as through a glass darkly, at the dance as it existed in the earliest times of which we have knowledge in the country whence, through devious and partly obliterated channels, we derived much of our civilization, let us hastily survey some of its modern methods in the same region—supplying thereby some small means of comparison to the reader who may care to note the changes undergone and the features preserved.

We find the most notable, if not the only, purely Egyptian dancer of our time in the Alme or Ghowazee. The former name is derived from the original calling of this class—that of reciting poetry to the inmates of the harem, the latter they acquired by dancing at the festivals of the Ghors, or Memlooks. Reasonably modest at first, the dancing of the Alme became, in the course of time, so conspicuously indelicate that great numbers of the softer sex persuaded themselves to its acquirement and practice, and a certain viceregal Prude once contracted the powers of the whole Cairo contingent of Awalim into the pent up Utica of the town of Esuch, some five hundred miles removed from the viceregal dissenting eye. For a brief season the order was enforced, then the sprightly sinners danced out of bounds, and their successors can now be found by the foreign student of Egyptian morals without the fatigue and expense of a long journey up the Nile.

The professional dress of the Alme consists of a short embroidered jacket, fitting closely to the arms and back, but frankly unreserved in front, long loose trousers of silk sufficiently opaque somewhat to soften the severity of the lower limbs, a Cashmere shawl bound about the waist and a light turban of muslin embroidered with gold. The long black hair, starred with small coins, falls abundantly over the shoulders. The eyelids are sabled with kohl, and such other paints, oils, varnishes and dyestuffs are used as the fair one—who is a trifle dark, by the way—may have proved for herself, or accepted on the superior judgment of her European sisters. Altogether, the girl's outer and visible aspect is not unattractive to the eye of the traveler, however faulty to the eye of the traveler's wife. When about to dance, the Alme puts on a lighter and more diaphanous dress, eschews her slippers, and with a slow and measured step advances to the centre of the room—her lithe figure undulating with a grace peculiarly serpentile. The music is that of a reed pipe or a tambourine—a number of attendants assisting with castanets. Perhaps the 'argument' of her dance will be a love-passage with an imaginary young Arab. The coyness of a first meeting by chance her gradual warming into passion their separation, followed by her tears and dejection the hope of meeting soon again and, finally, the intoxication of being held once more in his arms—all are delineated with a fidelity and detail surprising to whatever of judgment the masculine spectator may have the good fortune to retain.

One of the prime favorites is the 'wasp dance,' allied to the Tarantella. Although less pleasing in motive than that described, the wasp dance gives opportunity for movements of even superior significance—or, as one may say, suggestures. The girl stands in a pensive posture, her hands demurely clasped in front, her head poised a little on one side. Suddenly a wasp is heard to approach, and by her gestures is seen to have stung her on the breast. She then darts hither and thither in pursuit of that audacious insect, assuming all manner of provoking attitudes, until, finally, the wasp having been caught and miserably exterminated, the girl resumes her innocent smile and modest pose.

VII JAPAN WEAR AND BOMBAY DUCKS

Throughout Asia, dancing is marked by certain characteristics which do not greatly differ, save in degree, among the various peoples who practice it. With few exceptions, it is confined to the superior sex, and these ladies, I am sorry to confess, have not derived as great moral advantage from the monopoly as an advocate of dancing would prefer to record.

Dancing—the rhythmical movement of the limbs and body to music—is, as I have endeavored to point out, instinctive, hardly a people, savage or refined, but has certain forms of it. When, from any cause, the men abstain from its execution it has commonly not the character of grace and agility as its dominant feature, but is distinguished by soft, voluptuous movements, suggestive posturing, and all the wiles by which the performer knows she can best please the other sex, the most forthright and effective means to that commendable end being evocation of man's baser nature. The Japanese men are anti-dancers from necessity of costume, if nothing else, and the effect is much the same as elsewhere under the same conditions the women dance, the men gloat and the gods grieve.

There are two kinds of dances in Japan, the one not only lewd, but—to speak with accurate adjustment of word to fact—beastly, in the other grace is the dominating element, and decency as cold as a snow storm. Of the former class, the 'Chon Nookee' is the most popular. It is, however, less a dance than an exhibition, and its patrons are the wicked, the dissolute and the European. It is commonly given at some entertainment to which respectable women have not the condescension to be invited—such as a dinner party of some wealthy gentleman's gentlemen