QUESTION XV.

That There are Three Parts in Dancing: [Greek omitted], Motion, [Greek omitted], Gesture, and [Greek omitted], Representation.

What Each of Those is and What is Common to Both Poetry and Dancing.

AMMONIUS and THRASYBULUS.

After this, a match of dancing was proposed, and a cake was the prize. The judges were Meniscus the dancing-master, and my brother Lamprias; for he danced the Pyrrhic very well, and in the Palaestra none could match him for the graceful motion of his hands and arms in dancing. Now a great many dancing with more heat than art, some desired two of the company who seemed to be best skilled and took most care to observe their steps, to dance in the kind called [Greek omitted]. Upon this Thrasybulus, the son of Ammonius, demanded what [Greek omitted] signified, and gave Ammonius occasion to run over most of the parts of dancing.

He said they were three - [Greek omitted], [Greek omitted] and [Greek omitted]. For dancing is made up of motion and manner [Greek omitted] as a song of sounds and stops; stops are the ends of motion. Now the motions they call [Greek omitted], and the gestures and likeness to which the motions tend, and in which they end, they call [Greek omitted]: as, for instance, when by their own motions they represent the figure of Apollo, Pan, or any of the raging Bacchae. The third is [Greek omitted]; which is not an imitation, but a plain downright indication of the things represented. For as the poets, when they would speak of Achilles, Ulysses, the earth, or heaven, use their proper names, and such as the vulgar usually understand. But for the more lively representation, they use such words as by their very sound express some eminent quality in the thing, or metaphors; as when they say that streams do "babble and flash"; that arrows fly "desirous the flesh to wound"; or when they describe an equal battle by saying "the fight had equal heads." They have likewise a great many significative compositions in their verses. Thus Euripides of Perseus,

He that Medusa slew, and flies in air;

and Pindar of a horse,

When by the smooth Alpheus's banks He ran the race, and never felt the spur;

and Homer of a race,

The chariots, overlaid with tin and brass, By fiery horses drawn ran swiftly on. (Euripedes, Frag. 975; Pindar, "Olympian," i. 31; "Iliad," xxiii. 503.)

So in dancing, the [Greek omitted] represents the shape and figure, the [Greek omitted] shows some action, passion, or power; but by the [Greek omitted] are properly and significatively shown the things themselves, for instance, the heaven, earth, or the company. Which, being done in a certain order and method, resembles the proper names used in poetry, decently clothed and attended with suitable epithets. As in these lines,

Themis the venerable and admired, And Venus beauteous with her bending brows, Fair Dione, and June crowned with gold. (Hesiod, "Theogony," 16.)

And in these,

From Hellen kings renowned for giving laws, Great Dorus and the mighty Xuthus sprang, And Aeolus, whose chief delight was horse.

For if poets did not take this liberty, how mean, how grovelling and flat, would be their verse! As suppose they wrote thus,

From this sprung Hercules, from the other Iphitus. Her father, husband, and her son were kings, Her brother and forefathers were the same; And she in Greece Olympias was called.

The same faults may be committed in that sort of dancing called [Greek omitted] unless the representation be lively and graceful, decent and unaffected. And, in short, we may aptly transfer what Simonides said of painting to dancing, and call dancing mute poetry, and poetry speaking dancing; for poesy doth not properly belong to painting, nor painting to poesy, neither do they any way make use of one another. But poesy and dancing share much in common especially in that type of song called Hyporchema, in which is the most lively representation imaginable, dancing doing it by gesture, and poesy by words. So that poesy may bear some resemblance to the colors in painting, while dancing is like the lines which mark out the features. And therefore he who was the most famous writer of Hyporchemes, who here even surpassed himself, sufficiently proveth that these two arts stand in need of one another he shows what tendency poetry hath to dancing; whilst the sound excites the hands and feet, or rather as it were by some cords distends and raiseth every member of the whole body; so that, whilst such songs are recited or sung, they cannot be quiet. But nowadays no sort of exercise hath such bad depraved music applied to it as dancing; and so it suffers that which Ibyeus as to his own concerns was fearful of, as appears by these lines,

I fear lest, losing fame amongst the gods, I shall receive respect from men alone.

For having associated to itself a mean paltry sort of music, and falling from that divine sort of poetry with which it was formerly acquainted, it rules now and domineers amongst foolish and inconsiderate spectators, like a tyrant, it hath subjected nearly all music, but hath lost all its honor with excellent and wise men.

These, my Sossius Senecio, were almost the last discourses which we had at Ammonius's house during the festival of the Muses.