De saltatione

To sum it up, he will not be ignorant of anything that is told by Homer and Hesiod and the best poets, and above all by tragedy.

These are a very few themes that I have selected out of many, or rather out of an infinite number, and set down as the more important, leaving the rest for the poets to sing of, for the dancers themselves to present, and for you to add, finding them by their likeness to those already mentioned, all of which must lie ready, provided and stored by the dancer in advance to meet every occasion.

Since he is imitative and undertakes to present by means of movements all that is being sung, it is essential for him, as for the orators, to cultivate clearness, so that everything which he presents will be intelligible, requiring no interpreter. No, in the words of the Delphic oracle,[*](That given to Croesus, Herod., I, 47; there was, of course, no reference to dancing in it. The maid of Pytho vaunted her knowledge of the number of the sands and the measure of the sea and her ability to understand the mute and hear the silent, before demonstrating her power by replying to the testquestion “What is Croesus now doing” with the answer that she could smell turtle and lamb boiling in a bronze pot with a lid of bronze. That response, we are told, hit the mark. ) whosoever beholds dancing must be able “to understand the mute and hear the silent” dancer.

That is just what happened, they say, in the case of Demetrius the Cynic. He too was denouncing the dance just as you do, saying that the dancer was a mere adjunct to the flute and the pipes and the stamping, himself contributing nothing to the presentation but making absolutely meaningless, idle movements with no sense in them at all; but that people were duped by the accessories of the business—the silk vestments, the beautiful mask, the flute and its quavers, and the sweet voices of the singers, by all of which the dancer’s business, itself amounting to nothing at all, was embellished. Thereupon the dancer at that time, under Nero,

Since we are under Nero in fancy, I wish to tell the remark of a barbarian concerning the same dancer, which may be considered a very great tribute to his art. One of the barbarians from Pontus, a man of royal blood, came to Nero on some business or other, and among other entertainments saw that dancer perform so vividly that although he could not follow what was being sung—he was but half Hellenised, as it happened—he understood every-

The chief occupation and the aim of dancing, as I have said, is impersonating, which is cultivated in the same way by the rhetoricians, particularly those who recite these pieces that they call “exercises”; for in their case also there is nothing which we commend more highly than their accommodating themselves to the roles which they assume, so that what they say is not inappropriate to the princes or tyrant-slayers or poor people or farmers whom they introduce, but in each of these what is individual and distinctive is presented.

In that connection I should like to tell you something that was said by another barbarian. Noticing that the dancer had five masks ready—the drama had that number of acts—since he saw but the one dancer, he enquired who were to dance and act the other roles, and when he learned that the dancer himself was to act and dance them all, he said; “I did not realise, my friend, that though you have only this one body, you have many souls.”

Well, that is the way the barbarian viewed it. And the Greeks of Italy quite appropriately call the dancer a pantomime, precisely in consequence of what he does.[*](The name signifies one who mimics everything. ) That poetical precept,[*](Pindar, Fr. 43 (173) Schroeder; the reference is to the cuttle, which was supposed to take protective colouring to match its background. Cf. Theognis, 215-218. ) “My son, in your converse with all cities keep the way of the sea-creature that haunts the rocks,” is excellent, and for the dancer essential; he must cleave close to his matters and conform himself to each detail of his plots.

In general, the dancer undertakes to present and enact characters and emotions, introducing now a lover and now an angry person, one man afflicted with madness, another with grief, and all this within fixed bounds. Indeed, the most surprising part of it is that within the selfsame day at one moment we are shown Athamas in a frenzy, at another Ino in terror; presently the same person is Atreus, and after a little, Thyestes; then Aegisthus, or Aerope; yet they all are but a single man.

Moreover, the other performances that appeal to eye and ear contain, each of them, the display of a single activity; there is either flute or lyre or vocal music or tragedy’s mummery or comedy’s buffoonery. The dancer, however, has everything at once, and that equipment of his, we may see, is varied and comprehensive—the flute, the pipes, the tapping of feet, the clash of cymbals, the melodious voice of the actor,[*](The actor (there seems to have been but one) supported the dancer by assuming secondary roles like the “Odysseus” mentioned below (p. 285). Cf. also p. 394, n. 1, and p. 402, n. l. ) the concord of the singers.

Then, too, all the rest are activities of one or the other of the two elements in man, some of them activities of the soul, some of the body; but in dancing both are combined. For there is display of mind in the performance as well as expression of bodily development, and the most important part of it is the wisdom that controls the action, and the fact that nothing is irrational. Indeed, Lesbonax of Mytilene, a man of excellent parts, called dancers “handiwise,”[*](Because of their extensive use of gestures. For the word see also Rhet. Praec.,17 (Vol. IV, p. 157), where it is recommended by the sophist, and Lexiph., 14 (p. 312 of this volume), where it is used by Lexiphanes. ) and used to go to see them with the expectation of returning from the theatre a better man. Timocrates, too, his teacher, one day, for the sole and only time, came in by chance, saw a dancer ply his trade and said: “What a treat for the eyes my reverence for philosophy has deprived me of!”

If what Plato[*](Republic, IV, 436-441. ) says about the soul is true, the three parts of it are excellently set forth by the dancer —the orgillous part when he exhibits a man in a rage, the covetous part when he enacts lovers, and the reasoning part when he bridles and governs each of the different passions; this last, to be sure, is disseminated through every portion of the dance just as touch is disseminated through the other senses.[*](Touch was considered not only a separate faculty, but an element in the activity of the other four senses, each of which was regarded as based in some sort upon physical contact; for the method of explanation see Lucretius, IV, 324-721. ) And in planning for beauty and for symmetry in the figures of the dance, what else does he do but confirm the words of Aristotle, who praised beauty and considered it to be one of the three parts of the chief good?[*](Aristotle, Eth. Nicom., I, 8. ) Moreover, I have heard a man express an excessively venturesome opinion

Again, some of the other pursuits promise to give pleasure and others profit, but only the dance has both; and indeed the profit in it is far more beneficial for being associated with pleasure. How much more delightful it is to see than young men boxing, astream with blood, and other young men wrestling in the dust! Why, the dance often presents them in a way that is less risky and at the same time more beautiful and pleasurable. As to the energetic movement of the dance, its twists and turns and leaps and back-flung poses, they are really not only pleasurable to the spectators, but highly healthful for the performers themselves. I should call it the most excellent and best balanced of gymnastic exercises, since besides making the body soft, supple and light, and teaching it to be adroit in shifting, it also contributes no little strength.

Then why is not dancing a thing of utter harmony, putting a fine edge upon the soul, disciplining the body, delighting the beholders and teaching them much that happened of old, to the accompaniment of flute and cymbals and cadenced song and magic that works its spell through eye and ear alike? If it is felicity of the human voice that you seek, where else can you find it or what can you hear that is more richly vocal or more melodious? If it is the high-pitched music of the flute or of the syrinx,

But let me tell you in conclusion what is particularly to be commended in our dancers: that they cultivate equally both strength and suppleness of limb seems to me as amazing as if the might of Heracles and the daintiness of Aphrodite were to be manifested in the same person.

I wish now to depict for you in words what a good dancer should be like in mind and in body. To be sure, I have already mentioned most of his mental qualities. I hold, you know, that he should be retentive of memory, gifted, intelligent, keenly inventive, and above all successful in doing the right thing at the right time; besides, he should be able to judge poetry, to select the best songs and melodies, and to reject worthless compositions.

What I propose to unveil now is his body, which will conform to the canon of Polyclitus. It must be neither very tall and inordinately lanky, nor short and dwarfish in build, but exactly the right measure, without being either fat, which would be fatal to any illusion, or excessively thin; for that would suggest skeletons and corpses.

To illustrate, I should like to tell you about the cat-calls of a certain populace that is not slow to mark such points. The people of Antioch, a very talented city which especially honours the dance, keep such an eye upon everything that is done and said that nothing ever escapes a man of them. When

In the next place, the dancer must by all means be agile and at once loose-jointed and well-knit, so as to bend like a withe as occasion arises and to be stubbornly firm if that should be requisite.

That dancing does not differ widely from the use of the hands which figures in the public games—that it has something in common with the noble sport of Hermes and Pollux and Heracles, you may note by observing each of its mimic portrayals.

Herodotus says that what is apprehended through the eyes is more trustworthy than hearing ;[*](Herodotus, I, 8. ) but dancing possesses what appeals to ear and eye alike.

Its spell, too, is so potent that if a lover enters the theatre, he is restored to his right mind by seeing all the evil consequences of love; and one who is in the clutch of grief Jeaves the theatre in brighter mood,

1. surcease from sorrow and anger

Now that I have spoken of the strong points of dancers, let me tell you also of their defects. Those of the body, to be sure, I have already set forth; those of the mind I think you will be able to note with this explanation. Many of them, through ignorance—for it is impossible that they should all be clever—exhibit dreadful solecisms, so to speak, in their dancing. Some of them make senseless movements that have nothing to do with the harpstring, as the saying goes; for the foot says one thing and the music another. Others suit their movements to the music, but bring in their themes too late or too soon, as in a case which I remember to have seen one time. A dancer who was presenting the birth of Zeus, with Cronus eating his children,