Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics)

by Ambrose Bierce

  It would be an unfortunate thing, indeed, if the “prurient prudes” of the meeting houses were permitted to make the laws by which society should be governed. The same unhappy psychological condition which makes the dance an unclean thing in their jaundiced eyes renders it impossible for them to enjoy art or literature when the subject is natural, the treatment free and joyous. The ingenuity that can discover an indelicate provocative in the waltz will have no difficulty in snouting out all manner of uncleanlmess in Shakspeare, Chaucer, Boccacio — nay, even in the New Testament. It would detect an unpleasant suggestiveness in the Medicean Venus, and two in the Dancing Faun. To all such the ordinary functions of life are impure, the natural man and woman things to blush at, all the economies of nature full of shocking improprieties.

  In the Primitive Church dancing was a religious rite, no less than it was under the older dispensation among the Jews. On the eve of sacred festivals, the young people were accustomed to assemble, sometimes before the church door, sometimes in the choir or nave of the church, and dance and sing hymns in honor of the saint whose festival it was. Easter Sunday, especially, was so celebrated; and rituals of a comparatively modern date contain the order in which it is appointed that the dances are to be performed, and the words of the hymns to the music of which the youthful devotees flung up their pious heels But I digress.

  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,1 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

  Junctæque Nymphis Gratiæ decentes

  Alterno terram quatiunt pede, etc

  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 promtæ modus amphoræ

  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.

  1 It may be noted here that the popular conception of this poet as a frivolous sensualist is unsustained by evidence and repudiated by all having knowledge of the matter. Although
love and wine were his constant themes, there is good ground for the belief that he wrote of them with greater abandon than he indulged in them — a not uncommon practice of the poet-folk, by the way, and one to which those who sing of deeds of arms are perhaps especially addicted. The great age which Anacreon attained points to a temperate life; and he more than once denounces intoxication with as great zeal as a modern reformer who has eschewed the flagon for the trencher. According to Anacreon, drunkenness is “the vice of barbarians;” though, for the matter of that, it is difficult to say what achievable vice is not. In Ode LXII, he sings:

  Fill me, boy, as deep a draught

  As e’er was filled, as e’er was quaffed;

  But let the water amply flow

  To cool the grape’s intemperate glow.

  . . . . . . . .

  For though the bowl’s the grave of sadness

  Ne’er let it be the birth of madness

  No! banish from our board to night

  The revelries of rude delight

  To Scythians leave these wild excesses

  Ours be the joy that soothes and blesses!

  And while the temperate bowl we wreathe

  In concert let our voices breathe

  Beguiling every hour along

  With harmony of soul and song

  Maximus of Tyre speaking of Polycrates the Tyrant (tyrant, be it remembered, meant only usurper, not oppressor) considered the happiness of that potentate, secure because he had a powerful navy and such a friend as Anacreon — the word navy naturally suggesting cold water, and cold water, Anacreon.

  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.

  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 friends. The dinner-served on the floor — having been impatiently tucked away, and the candies, cakes, hot saki and other necessary addenda of a Japanese dinner brought in, the “Chon Nookee” is demanded, and with a modest demeanor, worn as becomingly as if it were their every day habit, the performers glide in, seating themselves coyly on the floor, in two rows. Each dancing girl is appareled in such captivating bravery as her purse can buy or her charms exact. The folds of her varicolored gowns crossing her bosom makes combinations of rich, warm hues, which it were folly not to admire and peril to admire too much. The faces of these girls are in many instances exceedingly pretty, but with that natural — and, be it humbly submitted, not very creditable — tendency of the sex to revision and correction of nature’s handiwork, they plaster them with pigments dear to the sign painter and temper the red glory of their lips with a bronze preparation which the flattered brass founder would no doubt deem kissable utterly. The music is made by beating a drum and twanging a kind of guitar, the musician chanting the while to an exceedingly simple air words which, in deference to the possible prejudices of those readers who may be on terms of familarity with the Japanese language, I have deemed it proper to omit — with an apology to the Prudes for the absence of an appendix in which they might be given without offense. (I had it in mind to insert the music here, but am told by credible authority that in Japan music is moral or immoral without
reference to the words that may be sung with it. So I omit — with reluctance — the score, as well as the words.)

  The chanting having proceeded for a few minutes the girls take up the song and enter spiritedly into the dance. One challenges another and at a certain stage of the lively song with the sharp cry “Hoi!” makes a motion with her hand. Failure on the part of the other instantaneously and exactly to copy this gesture entails the forfeiture of a garment, which is at once frankly removed. Cold and mechanical at the outset, the music grows spirited as the girls grow nude, and the dancers themselves become strangely excited as they warm to the work, taking, the while, generous potations of saki to assist their enthusiasm.

  Let it not be supposed that in all this there is anything of passion, it is with these women nothing more that the mere mental exaltation produced by music, exercise and drink. With the spectators (I have heard) it fares somewhat otherwise.

  When modesty’s last rag has been discarded, the girls as if suddenly abashed at their own audacity, fly like startled fawns from the room, leaving their patrons to make a settlement with conscience and arrange the terms upon which that monitor will consent to the performance of the rest of the dance. For the dance proper — or improper — is now about to begin. If the first part seemed somewhat tropical, comparison with what follows will acquit it of that demerit. The combinations of the dance are infinitely varied, and so long as willing witnesses remain — which, in simple justice to manly fortitude it should be added, is a good while — so long will the “Chon Nookee” present a new and unexpected phase, but it is thought expedient that no more of them be presented here, and if the reader has done me the honor to have enough of it, we will pass to the consideration of another class of dances.