“Come, sisters, cheer we up his sprites,
And show the best of our delights.
I’ll charm the air to give a sound,
While you perform your antic round.”
To quote another instance, Armado, in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 1), says:
“We will have, if this fadge not, an antique.”
Bergomask Dance. According to Sir Thomas Hanmer, this was a dance after the manner of the peasants of Bergomasco, a county in Italy belonging to the Venetians. All the buffoons in Italy affected to imitate the ridiculous jargon of that people, and from thence it became customary to mimic also their manner of dancing. In “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (v. 1), Bottom asks Theseus whether he would like “to hear a Bergomask dance,” between two of their company.
Brawl. This was a kind of dance. It appears that several persons united hands in a circle, and gave one another continual shakes, the steps changing with the tune. With this dance balls were usually opened.[824] Kissing was occasionally introduced. In “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (iii. 1), Moth asks his master: “Will you win your love with a French brawl.”
Canary. This was the name of a sprightly dance, the music to which consisted of two strains with eight bars in each; an allusion to which is made by Moth in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (iii. 1), who speaks of jigging off a tune at the tongue’s end, and canarying to it with the feet. And in “All’s Well that End’s Well” (ii. 1), Lafeu tells the king that he has seen a medicine
“that’s able to breathe life into a stone,
Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary
With spritely fire and motion.”
This dance is said to have originated in the Canary Islands, an opinion, however, which has, says Dyce, been disputed.[825]
Cinque-pace. This was so named from its steps being regulated by the number five:
“Five was the number of the music’s feet,
Which still the dance did with five paces meet.”[826]