The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1879-05-22
POETRY OF MOTION.
The Ltght Fantastic Toe Among the Ma
lions OF Antiquity.

mere gesticulation, cortege OF graceful
pantomimists, probably natural and
spontaneous exhibition of feeling, which
gradually became more polished and
refined until arriving at the dignity Of
an art. Religion seems to have given
dancing its first effective impetus, just as
hymns were evidently the first songs.
These were the germs of the two arts
People can dance before they can talk,
sometimes. A king of Pontus, in the
days of Nero, could not teach his bar
barous neighbors to speak his language
and theirs was gibberish barely COM
pretended by themselves. So the king
having seen q dancer entertain the
Emperor Nero with representation OF
the labors of Hercules, tracing in man.
ner so true all the different situations Of
this hero that, following the gestures OF
the actor, he could comprehend, with
utmost facility, every circumstance OF
the performance, he was so delighted
that he entreated the emperor, as great
favor, to let him take the dancer home
with him, that he might, through this
means, the better instruct his people.
As civilization advanced to scertain
Importance, and the ingenuity and ele-
CANT taste of the Greeks began to mani
fest itself, the art of dancing was reduced
to regular system. They oii'
ginated dances depicting all the
passion of which human nature is
capable, exciting the beholders to
such sympathy that the effect produced
seems almost incredible. The accounts
we read of these early dancers are so
overwhelmingly expressive, that to be
lieve them at all, one must acknowledge
that these people were possessed of not
only a powerful imagination, but an
inherent poetic and passionate nature as
well, exhibited in the Greeks by an en-
gaging grace and soitness OF manner, and
by the Romans in slaughter, blOodshed
and the horrid practices of war. Their
military dances are said to have been
practiced with offensive weapons; the
youth of the country were so trained in
the dreadful art of war, that it was thus
made part of their daily recreation.
The Spartan virgins, even, were psrtici-
pats in these manly exercises, so that,
according to the idea of Lycurgus, they
should not be inferior to the other eek
in point of strength and vigor, both of
mind and body. What. wonder that
they had a nation of Amszons, or that
the Sabine. women fought with the skill
of warriors The Spartans never danced
except with real arms; in process of
time, however, other nations used only
weapons of wood on such occasions, or,
as in the second century, instead of
arms, they carried only fasks, wands or
reeds and lighted torches, instead of
iavelins and swords. With these torches
they executed a dance called the Com
fsgration of the World" The number
and variety of the ancient dances are
they were used for all pur-
poses, representing fun and frolic, hope
and despair, youth and old age, love and
hate, innocence and RIGHTEOUSNESS,
birth and marriage, life and death,
paradise and he'll. The bacchana-
!ian dances arrived at such q
state of corruption that much of the
vice of the Etruscan cities has been
attributed to their excuses. Plato
reduces the dances of the ancients to
three classes: First, the dances which
tended to make the body robust, active
and well disposed for the exercises Of
war. Secondly, the domestic dances,
which had fol their object an innocent
and agreeable relaxation and amusement
the medistorial dances, which
we're in use in expiations and sacrifices.
Among the latter 1 suppose may be
slassed the strangest of all dances, the |
uneral dance, which in the time of the
ancient Athenians and Egyptians was
he accom- paniHent Of all funerals. A
double file OF dancing boys and girls
preceded the corpse, and then followed |
The dance Of the chief mimic. Imagine |
What direful and hesrtrending custom |
his must have been. An experienced |
mimic would be appointed to precede |
he nearse, dressed in the clothes and |
wearing a mask showing a perfect like
hess of the deceased. To the sound of |
crave and solemn symphonies would be
e presented in dances the most striking |
md noted actions by which the unfortu. |
nate dead man had during life distin,
yuished himself. This might be called a
mute funeral Grafton without exhausting |
he patience of the auditors, and proba-
ply, by the censure or praise of the dead,
,ften proved useful admonition to the !
living. In short, as historical writer
,ays, I" the dance of the arch mimic was
n morals what anatomy has now become |
n physic."
The dance. of innocence. So called |
maidens performed it before the
altar of Diana with grave and solemn |
steps and in modest attitudes, has fur
nished history with much OF its romance.
Helena was at this exercise when Theseus