bells with incredible swiftness, she would recall the dancing girls of Herculaneum, and present before the eye of the painter or artist one idea after another in swift succession. It was not French dancing, so remarkable for the elegance and difficulty of its steps; it was a talent much more closely related to imagination and feeling. The mood was expressed alternately by exactness or softness of movement. Corinne, dancing, made the onlookers share her feelings, just as if she were improvising, playing the lyre, or designing figures; every motion was to her as expressive as spoken language.”
The similarity between the words Tarantella, and “tarantula,” a large and poisonous spider, causes endless speculation to the end of establishing a more than etymological relation between the two. One author seriously affirms that the dance is a standard rural remedy for the bite of the insect, the energetic movement starting a perspiration that relieves the system of poison. Various German physicians have written reports on the subject, generally ending with a statement that the said antidote for poison is of doubtful efficacy! Approaching the subject from another angle, the word tarantismos is discovered: a species of hysteria common in Calabria and Apulia, and (by etymology) attributed to the bites of tarantulas to be found in those parts. But along comes another learned person who finds that tarantismos is not due to tarantula bites, but to certain molluscs that Calabrians and Apulians customarily include in their food régime! He harks back to a certain dancing mania that was more or less epidemic in Europe during a period of the Middle Ages, a hysterical condition found curable by violent dancing. Whence he induces that the Tarantella derives its name from tarantismos, and that it originated as a cure for neurasthenia. Still another finds that the ailment causes hysterical movements, “similar to dancing!” and flatters the Tarantella with this spasmodic origin. Again, a grave experimenter finds that tarantulas, placed on floats in water so that they will be disinclined to run away, will move their feet in time to music. He does not ask us to infer from this that the steps of the dance were so originated and composed, but in the cause of general joyousness he might have, and that without much damage to the accumulated erudition on the subject.
All the Latin countries, no less than Scotland and Ireland, have their Jig. In Italy, as elsewhere, it is a composition of rapid clog and shuffle steps. More than most Occidental countries Italy has a lingering fondness for pantomime; doubtless as a heritage from the theatre of Rome, and increased through centuries of political intrigue that sometimes made the spoken word inadvisable. Like the Forlana, la Ciociara of Romagna is an example of choreographic pantomime carried to a high pitch of narrative quality. It represents a heavy-footed shepherd and his wife, and their unpaid efforts to collect coins for music and dancing during their visit to the village.