ALEX A. from England writes:

Here’s an item concerning a traditional interpretation of dancing that might interest you. My source is The Book of the Governor, a sixteenth century guidebook to the acquisition of social graces. It was written by Sir Thomas Elyot and first published in 1531. Elyot gives advice on how to become a cultivated, well mannered, and virtuous member of the ruling class. Here’s what he has to say about the emblematic significance of dancing:

“In every dance of a most ancient custom, there danceth together a man and a woman, holding each other by the hand or the arm, which betokeneth concord. Now it behoveth the dancers and also the beholders of them to know all the qualities incident to a man, and also all qualities to a woman likewise pertaining. 

A man in his natural perfection is fierce, hardy, strong in opinion, covetous of glory, desirous of knowledge, appetiting by generation to bring forth his semblable. The good nature of a woman is to be mild, timorous, tractable, benign, of sure remembrance, and shamefast. Divers other qualities of each of them may be found out, but these be most apparent and for this time sufficient.

Wherefore, when we behold a man and a woman dancing together, let us suppose there is a concord of all the said qualities, being joined together as I have set them in order. And the moving of the man would be more vehement, of the woman more delicate and with less advancing of the body, signifying the courage and strength that ought to be in a man, and the pleasant soberness that should be in a woman. And in this wise fierceness joined with mildness maketh severity; audacity with timorosity maketh magnanimity; wilful opinion and tractability maketh constancy a virtue; covetousness of glory adorned with benignity causeth honour; desire of knowledge with sure remembrance procureth sapience; shamefastness joined to appetite of generation maketh continence, which is a mean between chastity and inordinate lust.

These qualities in this wise being knit together and signified in the personages of man and woman dancing, do express or set out the figure of very nobility.”

It is interesting to compare this to the discord of modern dancing.

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