In “Much Ado About Nothing” (ii. 1), Shakespeare makes Beatrice make a quibble upon the term; for after comparing wooing, wedding, and repenting to a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace, she says: “then comes repentance, and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.” A further reference occurs in “Twelfth Night” (i. 3), by Sir Toby Belch, who calls it a “sink-a-pace.”
Coranto. An allusion to this dance, which appears to have been of a very lively and rapid character, is made in “Henry V.” (iii. 5), where the Duke of Bourbon describes it as the “swift coranto;” and in “All’s Well that Ends Well” (ii. 3) Lafeu refers to it. A further notice of it occurs in “Twelfth Night” (i. 3), in the passage where Sir Toby Belch speaks of “coming home in a coranto.”
Fading. Malone quotes a passage from “Sportive Wit,” 1666, which implies that this was a rustic dance:
“The courtiers scorn us country clowns,
We country clowns do scorn the court;
We can be as merry upon the downs
As you at midnight with all your sport,
With a fading, with a fading.”
It would appear, also, from a letter appended to Boswell’s edition of Malone, that it was an Irish dance, and that it was practised, upon rejoicing occasions, as recently as 1803, the date of the letter:
“This dance is still practised on rejoicing occasions in many parts of Ireland; a king and queen are chosen from amongst the young persons who are the best dancers; the queen carries a garland composed of two hoops placed at right angles, and fastened to a handle; the hoops are covered with flowers and ribbons; you have seen it, I dare say, with the May-maids. Frequently in the course of the dance the king and queen lift up their joined hands as high as they can, she still holding the garland in the other. The most remote couple from the king and queen first pass under; all the rest of the line linked together follow in succession. When the last has passed, the king and queen suddenly face about and front their companions; this is often repeated during the dance, and the various undulations are pretty enough, resembling the movements of a serpent. The dancers on the first of May visit such newly wedded pairs of a certain rank as have been married since last May-day in the neighborhood, who commonly bestow on them a stuffed ball richly decked with gold and silver lace, and accompanied with a present in money, to regale themselves after the dance. This dance is practised when the bonfires are lighted up, the queen hailing the return of summer in a popular Irish song beginning:
‘We lead on summer—see! she follows in our train.’”
In the “Winter’s Tale” (iv. 4), Shakespeare seems to allude to this dance where he makes the servant, speaking of the pedler, say: “he has the prettiest love songs for maids; so without bawdry, which is strange; with such delicate burdens of ‘dildos’ and ‘fadings.’” Some commentators,[827] however, consider that only the song is meant.
Hay. Douce[828] says this dance was borrowed by us from the French, and is classed among the “brawls” in Thoinot Arbeau’s “Orchesographie” (1588). In “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 1), Dull says: “I will play on tabor to the Worthies, and let them dance their hay.”
Jig. Besides meaning a merry, sprightly dance, a jig also implied a coarse sort of comic entertainment, in which sense it is probably used by Hamlet (ii. 2): “He’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry.” “It seems,” says Mr. Collier,[829] “to have been a ludicrous composition in rhyme, sung, or said, by the clown, and accompanied by dancing and playing upon the pipe and tabor.”[830] an instance of which perhaps occurs in the Clown’s song at the close of “Twelfth Night:”