“Come now, a roundel and a fairy song.”
Ben Jonson, in the “Tale of a Tub,”[835] seems to call the rings, which such fairy dances are supposed to make, roundels.
“I’ll have no roundels, I, in the queen’s paths.”
Satyrs’ Dance. A dance of satyrs was a not uncommon entertainment in Shakespeare’s day, or even at an earlier period.[836] It was not confined to England, and has been rendered memorable by the fearful accident with which it was accompanied at the Court of France in 1392, a graphic description of which has been recorded by Froissart. In the “Winter’s Tale” (iv. 4), the satyrs’ dance is alluded to by the Servant, who says: “Master, there is three carters, three shepherds, three neat-herds, three swine-herds, that have made themselves all men of hair; they call themselves Saltiers: and they have a dance which the wenches say is a gallimaufry of gambols, because they are not in’t.” In a book of songs composed by Thomas Ravenscroft and others, in the time of Shakespeare, we find one[837] called the “Satyres’ daunce.” It is for four voices, and is as follows:
“Round a round, a rounda, keepe your ring
To the glorious sunne we sing.
Hoe, hoe!
He that weares the flaming rayes,
And the imperiall crowne of bayes,
Him with shoutes and songs we praise.
Hoe, hoe!
That in his bountee would vouchsafe to grace
The humble sylvanes and their shaggy race.”
Sword-dance. In olden times there were several kinds of sword-dances, most of which afforded opportunities for the display of skill. In “Antony and Cleopatra” (iii. 11), there seems to be an allusion to this custom, where Antony, speaking of Cæsar, says:[838]
“he, at Philippi, kept
His sword e’en like a dancer.”
And in “All’s Well that Ends Well” (ii. 1), where Bertram, lamenting that he is kept from the wars, adds: