The Dance in Jest Author(s): Lillian B. Lawler Source: The Classical Journal , Oct., 1963, Vol. 59, No. 1 (Oct., 1963), pp. 1-7 Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Inc. (CAMWS) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/3294234 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Inc. (CAMWS) is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Classical Journal This content downloaded from 199.111.227.97 on Mon, 27 Jul 2020 17:38:42 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms THE DANCE IN JEST MANY WRITERS HAVE called attention west rather than any conceivable re- to the fact that the Greeks derived ligious ritual! Similar astounding spec- a great deal of enjoyment, and indeed tacles, from the modern point of view, just plain fun, from some of their reli- would be the hilarious animal dances gious rituals. This was certainly the of various sorts performed with much case with many of the rituals which gusto by masked and costumed involved dancing. The very Muse who votaries in honor of divinities - e.g., presided over choral dancing was called the "bear dances" of small girls in Terpsichore - "she who joys in the honor of Artemis Brauronia at her dance"; and even the austere and shrine near Athens'; the "flirt the tail" learned (pdnsophos) Polyhymnia, or "lizard" who dances offered to Artemis according to one account, at least at Ephesus; and the rapid and obvious- (Anth. Pal. 9.504), actually "invented" ly spirited mummery of the "dancing the art, is described as the discoverer beasts" (women with animal masks) of "the joy of the dance" - tirpsias portrayed on a piece of marble dra- orche-thmoio. We may recall that Plato pery found in the shrine of Despoina (Laws 2.653-4, 672-3) saw the dance as at Lycosura.2 And, of course, pre- originating in the natural desire of all eminent among such rituals would be human beings, and even of animals, the famous "goat songs" and dances to express joy by movement of their in honor of Dionysus, if that is what bodies, and he (erroneously) sought the they were.3 The ancient Greek was blessed with origin of the word chor6s, "dance," in an excellent sense of humor. Not only the word chard, "joy." We are not surprised, then, to find did he enjoy dancing, but he frequent- certain very jovial dances among those ly made jokes about dancing and danc- offered to the gods at Greek festivals. ers; and Greek literature, from earliest times down to the very threshold of For example, the asko-liasm6s was a dance in honor of Dionysus, in which the Middle Ages, is happily rich in such "orchestic jests." the participants jumped or hopped up and down on greased wineskins-an Performers in Dionysiac dances, for activity which suggests to the mind of instance, sometimes joke about their the modern American the logrolling own convivial condition. Archilochus contests of the lumbermen of the North- confesses (Frag. 77 Diehl) that it is This content downloaded from 199.111.227.97 on Mon, 27 Jul 2020 17:38:42 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 2 LILLIAN B. LAWLER when he is "smitten with wine" that he the chorus of farmers to stop their knows how to act as leader of the vigorous and lively dancing, and to dithyrambic dance; similarly a char- get down to the work of rescuing Peace acter in the Philoctetes of Epicharmus from the deep pit into which she has remarks that "when you drink water, been cast. The farmers, however, in- it isn't a dithyramb." 4 Even apart sist that they are trying very hard to from the Dionysiac rituals, there is cease dancing, but that their legs, over- jesting about the dance inspired by joyed at the prospect of an end of the wine. An old Greek proverb5 warns war, are dancing entirely of their own that wine makes even old men dance accord. First the right leg goes up, against their will. As early as the they say, and then the left leg must Odyssey (14.463-6) there is a reference have its turn; both legs are, indeed, to "crazing wine, which stirs even a entirely out of control! wise man to song and silly laughter, Of a somewhat similar tone is the and makes him jump up and dance." famous conclusion (1474-1537) of the The comic poet Alexis, in his Taren- Wasps of Aristophanes, in which there tines,6 says that the Athenians "all is a detailed description of a spirited dance immediately if they only per- dance contest participated in by Philo- ceive the smell of wine." He goes on cleon and the three sons of Carcinus, to describe a wine-inspired dance of a tragic poet of Aristophanes' day. We guests at a dinner party: You would shall not here enter into the long con- say you were gazing upon the effects troversy whether these dances are of some terrible accident (sumphordn), meant to represent the emmeleia of he declares, if you suddenly came tragedy, the kordax of comedy, the upon these ugly fellows writhing, and sikinnis of the satyr play, or dances rolling the whites of their eyes; and he characteristic of courtesans. Suffice it personally would be happy, he de- to say that the lines of verse give us clares, to execute them all - presum- a vivid picture of the dances--and ably to put them out of their misery! also a choice melange of imprecations, The opposite side of the coin, so to threats, puns, and name-calling. Phi- speak, is to be found among the Ro- locleon, for instance, threatens to "eat mans, in Cicero's bitterly ironic jest:7 up" one of his rivals, and to "destroy "Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi him with an emmeleia of the knuckles" forte insanit ...." (1503), for, as he says, "in rhythm he The idea of a compulsive dance, in is nothing." which the dancer cannot stop even if Although the dance was actually held he wishes to do so, is often found in in high regard in Greece, there are Greek literature. Sometimes it is dis- many passages in Greek literature in cussed seriously, as in stories of which "dancer" is used as a term of "dance mania" of the mythological reproach. There are two in the Iliad - period,8 and in Plutarch's reference the one (16.617-8) in which Aeneas con- (Quaest. conv. 9.15) to dancers so temptuouslyaf- calls Meriones a "dancer" fected by certain types of music and for his skill in evading blows in single song that they dance in spite of them- combat, and the other (24.261) in which selves, in the manner of puppets pulled by strings. Occasionally, however, we Priam, rebuking his surviving sons, find a jesting treatment of the theme - calls them liars, thieves, and, ironi- as, e.g., in the Peace of Aristophanes cally, "dancers, very good at striking (321-34). There Trygaeus keeps urging the floor in a dance." At the other end This content downloaded from 199.111.227.97 on Mon, 27 Jul 2020 17:38:42 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms THE DANCE IN JEST 3 of the span of Greek literature - in the Pyrrhic dance of Cinesias" (Frogs Greek anthology (11.11) - we find danc- 153).12 Other writers of the day, too, ing treated in scornful terms: Epicrates use the word kcimpto*, "twist," and its must be a tragic poet or a flute-player derivatives in speaking of Cinesias' or something of the sort, says the writ- dances. They, like Aristophanes, de- er, for when he is asked out to dinner plore the effect of his dances upon the he always has a "chorus" of hangers-on morals of the day. May we perhaps see who come "dancing" along with him, in his performances the prototype of and who must be fed, too. Among the the current "twist"? Romans, of course, we find the dance In the same period we find a begin- regarded as omnium vitiorum postre- ning of the lament that the dance as a mum, and saltator as a term of in- whole is declining from its earlier vective. 9 standards of "orderly beauty," har- A famous dancer in Greek literature monious grace, and disciplined auster- who meets not only with scorn, but ity. Plato Comicus is quoted as saying even with disaster, for his dancing, is that if people danced in former days, Hippocleides.10 The favored suitor for it was "a wonderful thing" to see; but the hand of the daughter of Cleisthenes, that now the dancers "do nothing, but, tyrant of Sicyon, he celebrated pre- like men who have suffered a stroke, maturely his victory over the other they stand motionless, and howl!" 13 suitors by dancing on a table, at a A little later Menander excoriates in feast given by the ruler. Then, warm- similar fashion the choral singers and ing up to the occasion, he "rested his dancers of his day.