Our civilization--wise child!--knows its father in the superior
civilization whose colossal vestiges are found along the Nile. To those,
then, who see in the dance a civilizing art, it can not be wholly
unprofitable to glance at this polite accomplishment as it existed among
the ancient Egyptians, and was by them transmitted--with various
modifications, but preserving its essentials of identity--to other
nations and other times. And here we have first to note that, as in all
the nations of antiquity, the dance in Egypt was principally a religious
ceremony; the pious old boys that builded the pyramids executed their
jigs as an act of worship. Diodorus Siculus informs us that Osiris, in
his proselyting travels among the peoples surrounding Egypt--for Osiris
was what we would call a circuit preacher--was accompanied by dancers
male and dancers female. From the sculptures on some of the oldest tombs
of Thebes it is seen that the dances there depicted did not greatly
differ from those in present favor in the same region; although it seems
a fair inference from the higher culture and refinement of the elder
period that they were distinguished by graces correspondingly superior.
That dances having the character of religious rites were not always free
from an element that we would term indelicacy, but which their
performers and witnesses probably considered the commendable exuberance
of zeal and devotion, is manifest from the following passage of
Herodotus, in which reference is made to the festival of Bubastis:
Men and women come sailing all together, vast numbers in each boat,
many of the women with castanets, which they strike, while some of
the men pipe during the whole period of the voyage; the remainder of
the voyagers, male and female, sing the while, and make a clapping
with their hands. When they arrive opposite to any town on the banks
of the stream they approach the shore, and while some of the women
continue to play and sing, others call aloud to the females of the
place and load them with abuse, a certain number dancing and others
standing up, uncovering themselves. Proceeding in this way all along
the river course they reach Bubastis, where they celebrate the feast
with abundant sacrifice.
Of the mysteries of Isis and Osiris, in which dancing played an
important part, the character of the ceremonies is matter of dim
conjecture; but from the hints that have come down to us like
significant shrugs and whispers from a discreet past, which could say a
good deal more if it had a mind to, I hasten to infer that they were no
better than they should have been.
Naturally the dances for amusement of others were regulated in movement
and gesture to suit the taste of patrons: for the refined, decency and
moderation; for the wicked, _a soupçon_ of the other kind of excellence.
In the latter case the buffoon, an invariable adjunct, committed a
thousand extravagances, and was a dear, delightful, naughty ancient
Egyptian buffoon. These dances were performed by both men and women;
sometimes together, more frequently in separate parties. The men seem to
have confined themselves mostly to exercises requiring strength of leg
and arm. The figures on the tombs represent men in lively and vigorous
postures, some in attitude preliminary to leaping, others in the air.
This feature of agility would be a novelty in the oriental dances of
to-day; the indolent male spectator being satisfied with a slow,
voluptuous movement congenial to his disposition. When, on the contrary,
the performance of our prehistoric friends was governed and determined
by ideas of grace, there were not infrequently from six to eight musical
instruments, the harp, guitar, double-pipe, lyre, and tambourine of the
period being most popular, and these commonly accompanied by a clapping
of hands to mark the time.
As with the Greeks, dancers were had in at dinner to make merry; for
although the upper-class Egyptian was forbidden to practice the art,
either as an accomplishment or for the satisfaction of his emotional
nature, it was not considered indecorous to hire professionals to
perform before him and his female and young. The she dancer usually
habited herself in a loose, flowing robe, falling to the ankles and
bound at the waist, while about the hips was fastened a narrow, ornate
girdle. This costume--in point of opacity imperfectly superior to a
gentle breeze--is not always discernible in the sculptures; but it is
charitably believed that the pellucid garment, being merely painted over
the figures, has been ravished away by the hand of Time--the wretch!
One of the dances was a succession of pleasing attitudes, the hands and
arms rendering important assistance--the body bending backward and
forward and swaying laterally, the _figurante_ sometimes half-kneeling,
and in that position gracefully posturing, and again balanced on one
foot, the arms and hands waving slowly in time to the music. In another
dance, the _pirouette_ and other figures dear to the bald-headed beaux
of the modern play-house, were practiced in the familiar way. Four
thousand years ago, the senses of the young ancient Egyptian--wild,
heady lad!--were kicked into confusion by the dark-skinned belle of the
ballet, while senility, with dimmed eyes, rubbed its dry hands in
feverish approval at the self-same feat. Dear, dear, but it was a bad
world four thousand years ago!
Sometimes they danced in pairs, men with men and women with women,
indifferently, the latter arrangement seeming to us preferable by reason
of the women's conspicuously superior grace and almost equal agility;
for it is in evidence on the tombs that tumblers and acrobats were
commonly of the softer sex. Some of the attitudes were similar to those
which drew from Socrates the ungallant remark that women were capable of
learning anything which you will that they should know. The figures in
this _pas de deux_ appear frequently to have terminated in what
children, with their customary coarseness of speech, are pleased to call
"wringing the dish-clout"--clasping the hands, throwing the arms above
the head and turning rapidly, each as on a pivot, without loosing the
hands of the other, and resting again in position.
Sometimes, with no other music than the percussion of hands, a man would
execute a _pas seul_, which it is to be presumed he enjoyed. Again, with
a riper and better sense of musical methods, the performer accompanied
himself, or, as in this case it usually was, herself, on the
double-pipes, the guitar or the tambourine, while the familiar
hand-clapping was done by attendants. A step not unlike that of the
abominable clog dance of the "variety" stage and "music hall" of the
present day consisted in striking the heel of first one foot and then
the other, the hands and arms being employed to diminish the monotony of
the movement. For amusement and instruction of the vulgar, buffoons in
herds of ten or more in fested the streets, hopping and posing to the
sound of a drum.
As illustrating the versatility of the dance, its wide capacities of
adaptation to human emotional needs, I may mention here the procession
of women to the tomb of a friend or relative. Punishing the tambourine or
_dara booka_ drum, and bearing branches of palm or other symbolic
vegetables, these sprightly mourners passed through the streets with
songs and dances which, under the circumstances, can hardly have failed
eminently to gratify the person so fortunate as to have his memory
honored by so delicate and appropriate observance.