A Treatise on the Art of Dancing

by Giovanni-Andrea Gallini

are, who, in their fright, attempt to fly from him: but he is already so near them, that they do not know how to avoid him. Adonis runs hastily to pierce the boar with his javelin; but the boar gets him himself down. The hunters arrive at that instant, and kill the boar; but Adonis is nevertheless mortally wounded, and expires.

Here it is that the music and the dance are to display their respective powers: the one by the most plaintive mournful sounds; the other by gestures and steps in which grief and despair are strongly characterised, ought to express the profound affection into which Venus is plunged, and the share the Graces, the nimphs, and the hunters take in it.

Venus appears to implore the aid of all the gods, to restore her lover to her. She bathes him with her tears, and those precious tears have such a virtue, that Adonis appears all of a sudden transformed into an anemony or wind-flower.

The Graces and the nimphs express their surprise; but the astonishment of the hunters should be yet more strongly marked.

Venus herself is not the more comforted by this metamorphosis. A flower cannot well supply the place of her lover. She turns then her eyes towards the earth, and seems to invoke the power of some deity inhabitant of its bowels.

The flower disappears; the earth opens, and Proserpine rises out of it, sitting on a chariot drawn by black horses, and having at her side Adonis restored to life.

It is natural to imagine the joy that is at this to be expressed, by the simphony, by the gestures, and steps of Venus, of the Graces, the nimphs, and hunters.

Proserpine, getting out of her chariot, holding Adonis by the hand, presents him to Venus. A pas-de-trois or trio-dance follows, in which the joy of the two lovers at seeing one another again is to be characterised by all the expression, and all the graces of the most pleasing dance, while Proserpine testifies her satisfaction at having produced the re-union: after which, she

gets into her chariot, and re-descends into the earth.

The Graces, the nimphs, and hunters, express how highly they are charmed at seeing Adonis again; Venus and Adonis form a pas-de-deux, or duet-dance, in which the Goddess takes off her girdle or cestus, and puts it upon Adonis, in the way of a shoulder-belt, or as now the ribbons of most orders of knight-hood are worn, which is to him a simbol of immortality.