ORCHESTRA OR A Poem of Dancing.  
judicially proving the true observation of time and measure, in the Authentical and laudable use of Dancing.  
ovid. Art. Aman. lib. t. Si vox est, canta: si mollia brachia, salta: Et quacunque potes dote placere, place.  
At London, Printed by I. robart's for N. Ling. 1596.   

To his very Friend, Ma. Rich: Martin.  

TO whom shall I this dancing Poem send,  
This sudden, rash, halfe-capreol of my wit?  
To you, first mover and sole cause of it  
Mine-owne-selues better half, my dearest friend.  
O would you yet my Muse some Honey lend  
From your mellifluous tongue, whereon doth sit  
Suada in majesty, that I may fit  
These harsh beginnings with a sweeter end.  
You know, the modest Sun full fifteen times  
Blushing did rise, and blushing did descend,  
While I in making of these ill made rhymes,  
My golden hours unthriftily did spend.  
Yet if in friendship you these numbers praise,  
I will misspend another fifteen days.    

ORCHESTRA. OR A Poem of Dancing.  

1  
WHere lives the man that never yet did hear  
Of chaste Penelope, Ulysses Queen?  
Who kept her faith unspotted twenty year  
Till he returned that far away had been,  
And many men, and many towns had seen:  
Ten year at siege of Troy he lingering lay,  
And ten year in the Midland-sea did stray.   

2  
Homer, to whom the Muses did carouse  
A great deep cup with heavenly Nectar filled,  
The greatest, deepest cup in Ioues great house,  
(For jove himself had so expressly willed)  
He drank of all, ne let one drop be spilld;  
Since when, his brain that had before been dry,  
Became the wellspring of all Poetry.   

3  
Homer doth tell in his abundant verse,  
The long laborious travails of the man,  
And of his Lady too he doth rehearse,  
How she illudes with all the Art she can,  
Th'ungrateful love which other Lords began;  
For of her Lord false Fame long since had sworn,  
That Neptune's Monsters had his carcase torn.   

4  
All this he tells, but one thing he forgot,  
One thing most worthy his eternal song,  
But he was old, and blind, and saw it not,  
Or else he thought he should Ulysses wrong,  
To mingle it, his Tragic acts among.  
Yet was there not in all the world of things,  
A sweeter burden for his Muse's wings.   

5  
The Courtly love Antinous did make,  
Antinous that fresh and jolly Knight,  
Which of the gallants that did undertake  
To win the Widow, had most wealth and might,  
Wit to persuade, and beauty to delight.  
The Courtly love he made unto the Queen,  
Homer forgot as if it had not been,   

6  
Sing then Terpsichore, my light Muse sing  
His gentle Art and cunning courtesy:  
You Lady can remember every thing  
For you are daughter of Queen Memory,  
But sing a plain and easy Melody:  
For the soft mean that warbleth but the ground,  
To my rude care doth yield the sweetest sound.   

7  
One only night's discourse I can report,  
When the great Torchbearer of heaven was gone  
Down in a mask unto the Ocean's Court,  
To revel it with Tethis all alone;  
Antinous disguised and unknown  
Like to the spring in gaudy Ornament  
Unto the Castle of the Princess went.   

8  
The sovereign Castle of the rocky Isle  
Wherein Penelope the Princess lay,  
Shone with a thousand Lamps, which did exile  
The dim dark shades, & turned the night to day,  
Not Ioues blue Tent what time the Sunny ray  
Behind the bulwark of the earth retires  
Is seen to sparkle with more twinkling fires.   

9  
That night the Queen came forth from far within,  
And in the presence of her Court was seen,  
For the sweet singer Phemius did begin  
To praise the Worthies that at Troy had been;  
Somewhat of her Ulysses she did ween  
In his grave Hymn the heavenly man would sing,  
Or of his wars, or of his wandering.   

10  
Pallas that hour with her sweet breath divine  
Inspired immortal beauty in her eyes,  
That with celestial glory she did shine,  
Brighter than Venus when she doth arise  
Out of the waters to adorn the skies;  
The wooers all amazed do admire,  
And check their own presumptuous desire.   

11  
Only Antinous when at first he viewed  
Her st●● bright eyes that with new honour shined,  
Was not dismayed, but therewithal renewed  
The noblesse and the splendour of his mind;  
And as he did sit circumstances sinned,  
Unto the Throne he boldly 'gan advance,  
And with fair manners, wooed that Queen to dance.   

12  
Goddess of women, sith your heau'nlinesse  
Hath now vouchsafed itself to represent  
To our dim eyes, which though they see the less  
Yet are they blest in their astonishment,  
Imitate heaven, whose beauties excellent  
Are in continual motion day and night,  
And move thereby more wonder and delight.   

13  
Let me the mover be, to turn about  
Those glorious ornaments that Youth and Love  
Have fixed in you, every part throughout,  
Which if you will in timely measure move,  
Not all those precious jemms in heaven above  
Shall yield a sight more pleasing to behold,  
With all their turns and tracings manifold.   

14  
WIth this, the modest Princess blushed and smiled,  
Like to a clear and rosy eventide;  
And softly did return this answer mild,  
Fair Sir; you needs must fairly be denied  
Where your demand cannot be satisfied.  
My feet, which only nature taught to go,  
Did never yet the Art of footing know.   

15  
But why persuade you me to this new rage?  
(For all disorder and misrule is new,)  
For such misgovernment in former age  
Our old divine Forefathers never knew,  
Who if they lived and did the follies view  
Which their fond Nephews make their chief affairs,  
Would hate themselves that had begot such heirs.   

16  
Sole heir of Virtue, and of Beauty both,  
Whence cometh it (Antinous replies)  
That your imperious virtue is so loath.  
To grant your beauty her chief exercise?  
Or from what spring doth your opinion rise  
That Dancing is a frenzy and a rage,  
First known and ysed in this newfangled age?   

17  
Dancing (bright Lady) then began to be,  
When the first seeds whereof the world did spring  
The Fire, Air, Earth, and water did agree,  
By loves persuasion, Nature's mighty King,  
To leave their first disordered combating;  
And in a dance such measure to observe,  
As all the world their motion should preserve.   

18  
Since when they still are carried in a round,  
And changing come one in another's place,  
Yet do they neither mingle nor confound,  
But every one doth keep the bounded space  
Wherein the dance doth bid it turn or tracc:  
This wondrous miracle did Love devise  
For Dancing is loves proper excrcise.   

19  
Like this, he framed the Gods eternal bower,  
And of a shapeless and confused mass  
By his through-piercing and digesting power  
The turning vault of heaven framed was:  
Whose starry wheels he hath so made to pass,  
As that their movings do a music frame  
And they themselves, still dance unto the same.   

20  
Or if this (All) which round about we see  
(As idle Morpheus some sick brains hath taught)  
Of undivided motes compacted be,  
How was this goodly Architecture wrought?  
Or by what means were they together brought?  
They err that say they did concur by chance,  
Love made them meet in a wellordered dance.   

21  
As when Amphion with his charming Lyre  
Begot so sweet a Siren of the air,  
That with her Rhetoric made the stones conspire  
The mines of a City to repair,  
(A work of wit and reasons wise affair)  
So loves smooth tongue, the motes such measure taught  
That they joined hands, & so that world was wrought.   

22  
How justly then is Dancing termed new  
Which with the world in point of time begun?  
Yea Time itself (whose birth jove never knew  
And which is far more ancient than the Sun)  
Had not one moment of his age outrun  
When out leapt Dancing from the heap of things,  
And lightly road upon his nimble wings.   

23  
Reason hath both their pictures in her Treasure,  
Where Time the measure of all moving is;  
And Dancing is a moving all in measure,  
Now if you do resemble that to this  
And think both one, I think you think amiss:  
But if you judge them Twins, together got,  
And Time first borne, your judgement erreth not.   

24  
Thus doth it equal age with age enjoy,  
And yet in lusty youth for ever flowers,  
Like Love his Sire, whom Painters make a Boy,  
Yet is he eldest of the heavenly powers;  
Or like his brother Time, whose winged hours  
Going and coming will not let him die,  
But still preserve him in his infancy.   

25  
This said; the Queen with her sweet lips divine  
Gently began to move the subtle air,  
Which gladly yielding, did itself incline  
To take a shape between those rubies fair  
And being form, softly did repair  
With twenty doublings in the empty way,  
Unto Autinous ears, and thus did say.   

26  
WHat eye doth see the heaven but doth admire  
When it the movings of the heavens doth see?  
Myself, if I to heaven may once aspire,  
If that be dancing, will a Dancer be:  
But as for this your frantic jollity  
How it began, or whence you did it learn,  
I never could with reason's eye discern.   

27  
Antinous answered: jewel of the Earth  
Worthy you are that heavenly Dance to leadc:  
But for you think our dancing base of birth  
And newly borne but of a brainsick head  
I will forthwith his antic Gentry read,  
And for I love him, will his Herald be  
And blaze his arms, and draw his Pedigree.   

28  
When Love had shaped this world, this great fair wight  
That all wights else in his wide womb contains  
And had instructed it to dance aright,  
A thousand measures with a thousand strains,  
Which it should practise with delightful pains  
Until that fatal instant should revolve,  
When all to nothing should again resolve:   

29  
The comely order and proportion fair  
On every side did please his wandering eye,  
Till glancing through the thin transparent fire  
A rude disordered rout he did espy  
Of men and women, that most spitefully  
Did one another throng, and crowd so sore,  
That his kind eye in pity wept therefore.   

30  
And swister than the Lightning down he came,  
Another shapeless Chaos to digest,  
He will begin another world to frame,  
(For Love till all be well will never rest)  
Then with such words as cannot be expressed  
He cuts the troops, that all a sunder fling,  
And ere they witted, he casts them in a ring.   

31  
Then did he rarefy the Element  
And in the centre of the ring appear,  
The beams that from his forehead shining went,  
Begot an horror and religious fear  
In all the souls that round about him wear,  
Which in their ears attentiveness procures  
While he with such like sounds their minds allures.   

32  
How doth Confusion's Mother, headlong Chance  
Put reasons noble squadron to the rout?  
Or how should you that have the governance  
Of Nature's children, heaven and earth throughout  
Prescribe them rules, and live yourselves without?  
Why should your fellowship a trouble be,  
Since man's chief pleasure is society?   

33  
If sense hath not yet taught you, learn of me  
A comely moderation and discreet,  
That your assemblies may well ordered be  
When my uniting power shall make you meet,  
With heavenly tunes it shall be tempered sweet:  
And be the model of the world's great frame,  
And you Earth's children, Dancing shall it name.   

34  
Behold the world how it is whirled round,  
And for it is so whirled, is named so;  
In whose large volume many rules are found  
Of this new Art, which it doth fairly show:  
For your quick eyes in wandering too and fro  
From East to West, on no one thing can glance,  
But if you mark it well, it seems to dance.   

35  
First you see fixed in this huge mirror blew  
Of trembling lights a number numberless,  
Fixed they are named, but with a name untrue,  
For they are moved, and in a Dance express  
That great long year that doth contain no less  
Than threescore hundreds of those years in all  
Which the Sun makes with his course natural.   

36  
What if to you these sparks disordered seem  
As if by chance they had been scattered there?  
The Gods a solemnemeasure do it deem  
And see a just proportion every where,  
And know that points whence first their movings were,  
To which first points when all return again,  
The axle-tree of Heaven shall break in twain.   

37  
Under that spangled sky, five wandering flames,  
Besidos' the King of Day, and Queen of Night,  
Are wheeled around, all in their sundry frames,  
And all in sundry measures do delight:  
Yet altogether keep no measure right.  
For by itself, each doth itself advance,  
And by itself, each doth a Galliard dance.   

38  
Venus the Mother of that bastard Love  
Which doth usurp the world's great Marshals name,  
Just with the Sun her dainty feet doth move  
And unto him doth all her gestures frame:  
Now after, now afore, the flattering Dame  
With divers cunning passages doth err,  
Still him respecting that respects not her.   

39  
For that brave Sun the Father of the Day,  
Doth love this Earth the Mother of the Night,  
And like a revellour in rich array  
Doth dance his Galliard in his Lemen sight,  
Both back, and forth, and sideways passing light,  
His gallant grace doth so the Gods amaze,  
That all stand still and at his beauty gaze.   

40  
But see the Earth, when she approacheth neete,  
How she for joy doth spring and sweetly smile;  
But see again her sad and heavy cheer  
When changing places he retires a while:  
But those black clouds he shortly will exile,  
And make them all before his presence fly  
As mists consumed before his cheerful eye.   

41  
Who doth not see the measures of the Moon  
Which thirteen times she danceth every year?  
And ends her pavine thirteen times as soon  
As doth her brother, of whose golden heir  
She borroweth part and proudly doth it wear.  
Then doth she coylieturne her faoe aside,  
That half her cheek is scarce sometimes descried.   

42  
Next her, the purt, subtle, and cleansing fire,  
Is swistly carried in a circle even:  
Though Vukan be pronounced by many a liar  
The only halting God that dwells in heaven.  
But that foul name may be more fitly given  
To your false fire that far from heaven is fall  
And doth consume, waist, spoil, disorder all.   

43  
And now behold your tender Nurse the air  
And common neighbour that ay runs around,  
How many pictures and impressions fair  
Within her empty regions are there found,  
Which to your senses Dancing do propound?  
For what are breath, speech, Echoes, music, winds,  
But dancings of the air in sundry kinds?   

44  
For when you breath, the air in order moves,  
Now in, now out, in time and measure true;  
And when you speak, so well the dancing loves,  
That doubling oft, and oft redoubling new,  
With thousand forms she doth herself endue:  
For all the words that from your lips repair,  
Are nought but tricks and turnings of the air.   

45  
Hence is her prattling daughter Echo borne,  
That dances to all voices she can hear;  
There is no sound so harsh that she doth scorn,  
Nor any time wherein she will forbear  
The airy pavement with her feet to wear.  
And yet her hearing sense is nothing quick  
For after time she endeth every trick.   

46  
And thou sweet Music, dancings only life.  
The ears sole happiness, the airs best speech,  
Loadstone of fellowship, charming rod of strife,  
The soft minds Paradise, the sick minds Leech,  
With thine own tongue thou trees & stones canst teach  
That when the Air doth dance her finest measure,  
Then art thou borne the Gods & men's sweet pleasure.   

47  
Lastly, where keep the winds their reuchy  
Their violent turnings and wild whirling hays?  
But in the Airs tralucent gallery?  
Where she herself is turned a hundredth ways,  
While with those Maskers wanton she plays;  
Yet in this misrule, they such rule embrace  
As two at once encumber not the place.   

48  
If then fire, air, wandering and fixed lights  
In every province of imperial sky,  
Yield perfect forms of dancing to your sights,  
In vain I teach the ear, that which the eye  
With certain view already doth descne.  
But for your eyes perceive not all they see  
In this I will your senses master be.   

49  
For lo the Sea that fleets about the Land,  
And like a girdle eclipse her solid waist,  
Music and measure both doth understand:  
For his great Crystal eye is always cast  
Up to the Moon, and on her fixed fast.  
And as she danceth in her pallid spheere,  
So danceth he about the Centre here.   

50  
Sometimes his proud green waves in order set,  
One after other flow unto the shore,  
Which when they have with many kisses wet,  
They ebb away in order as before;  
And to make known his Courtly Love the more,  
He oft doth lay aside his three-forkt Mace,  
And with his arms the timorous Earth embrace.   

51  
Only the Earth doth stand for ever still,  
Her rocks remove not, nor her mountains meet,  
(Although some wits enriched with Learning's skill  
Say heaven stands firm, & that the Earth doth sleet  
And swiftly turneth underneath their feet)  
Yet though the Earth is ever steadfast seen,  
On her broad breast hath Dancing ever been.   

52  
For those blue veins that through her body spread,  
Those sapphire streams which from great hills do spring,  
(The Earth's great dugs: for every wight is fed  
With sweet fresh moisture from them issuing)  
Observe a dance in their wild wandering:  
And still their dance begets a murmur sweet,  
And still the murmur with the dance doth meet.   

53  
Of all their ways I love Meander's path,  
Which to the tunes of dying Swans doth dance,  
Such winding sleights, such turns and tricks he hath,  
Such Creeks, such wrenches, and such dalliance,  
That whether it be hap or heedless chance,  
In his indented course and wringling play  
He seems to dance a perfect cunning Hay.   

54  
But wherefore do these streams for ever run?  
To keep themselves for ever sweet and clear:  
For let their everlasting course be done  
They strait corrupt and foul with mud appear.  
O ye sweet Nymphs that beauty's loss do fear,  
Contemn the Drugs that Physic doth devise,  
And learn of Love this dainty exercise.   

55  
See how those flowers that have sweet Beauty too  
(The only jewels that the Earth doth wear  
When the young Sun in bravery her doth woe)  
As oft as they the whistling wind do hear,  
Do wave their tender bodies here and there;  
And though their dance no perfect measure is,  
Yet oftentimes their music makes them kiss,   

56  
What makes the Vine about the Elm to dance  
With turnings, windings, and embracements round?  
What makes the Loadstone to the North advance  
His subtle point, as if from thence he found  
His chief attractive Virtue to redound?  
Kind Nature first doth cause all things to love,  
Love makes them dance and in just order move.   

57  
Hark how the Birds do sing, and mark then how  
jump with the modulation of their lays,  
They lightly leap, and skip from bow to bow;  
Yet do the Cranes deserve a greater praise  
Which keep such measure in their airy ways,  
As when they all in order ranked are,  
They make a perfect form triangular.   

58  
In the chief angle flies the watchful guide,  
And all the followers their heads do lay  
On their forgoers backs, on either side,  
But for the Captain hath no rest to stay  
His head forwearied with the windy way,  
He back retires, and then the next behind,  
As his lieutenant leads them through the wind.   

59  
But why relate I every singular?  
Since all the world's great fortunes and affairs  
Forward and backward rapt and whittled are,  
According to the music of the spheres:  
And Chance herself, her nimble feet upbeares  
On a round slippery wheel that rolleth ay,  
And turns all states with her impetuous sway.   

60  
Learn then to dance you that are Princes borne  
And lawful Lords of earthly creatures all;  
Imitate them, and thereof take no scorn,  
For this new Art to them is natural  
And imitate the stars celestial.  
For when pale Death you vital twist shall sever,  
Your better parts must dance with the for ever.   

61  
Thus Love persuades, and all the crown of men  
That stands around doth make a murmuring;  
As when the wind loosed from his hollow den,  
Among the trees a gentle base doth sing,  
Or as a Brook through pebbles wandering:  
But in their looks they uttered this plain speech,  
That they would learn to dance if love would teach.   

62  
Then first of all, he doth demonstrate plain  
The motions seven that are in nature found,  
Upward, and downward, forth, and back again,  
To this side, and to that, and turning round:  
Whereof, a thousand brawls he doth compound,  
Which he doth teach unto the multitude,  
And ever with a turn they must conclude.   

63  
As when a Nymph arising from the Land  
Leadeth a dance with her long watery train  
Down to the Sea, she wries to every hand  
And every way doth cross the fertile plains  
But when at last she falls into the main  
Than all her traverses concluded are,  
And with the Sea her course is circulate,   

64  
Thus when at first Love had them marshaled  
As erst he did the shapeless mass of things,  
He taught them rounds and winding Heyes to tread,  
And about trees to cast themselves in rings.  
As the two Bears whom the first mover flings  
With a short turn about heavens axle-tree,  
In a round dance forever wheeling be.   

65  
But after these, as men more civil grew  
He did more grave and solemn measures frame,  
With such fair order and proportion true  
And correspondence every way the same,  
That no fault finding eye did ever blame:  
For every eye was moved at the sight  
With sober wondering, and with sweet delight.   

66  
Not those old Students of the heavenly book,  
Atlas the great, Promethus the wise,  
Which on the Stars did all their lyfe-time look  
Can ever find such measures in the skies,  
So full of change and rare varieties;  
Yet all the feet whereon these measures go,  
Are only Spondeis, solemn, grave, and slow.   

70  
But for more divers and more pleasing show,  
A swift and wandering dance she did invent,  
With passages uncertain to and fro,  
Yet with a certain answer and consent  
To the quick music of the Instrument.  
Five was the number of the musics feet,  
Which still the dance did with five paces meets   

71  
A gallant dance, that lively doth bewray  
A spirit and a virtue Masculine,  
Impatient that her house on earth should stay  
Since she herself is fiery and divine:  
Oft doth she make her body upward flyne,  
With lofty turns and capriols in the aure,  
Which with the lusty tunes accordeth fair.   

69  
What shall I name those currant travases  
That on a triple Dactyle foot do run  
Close by the ground with sliding passages,  
Wherein that Dancer greatest praise hath won  
Which with best order can all orders shun:  
For every where he wanton must range,  
And turn, and wind, with unexpected change.   

70  
Yet is there one the most delightful kind,  
A lofty jumping, or a leaping round,  
Where arm in arm, two Dancers are entwind,  
And whirl themselves with strict embracements bound,  
And still their feet an Anapest do sound:  
An Anapest is all their musics song,  
Whose first two feet are short, & third is long.   

71  
As the victorious twins of Leda and jove  
That taught the Spartans' dancing on the sands,  
Of swift Eurotas dance in Heaven above,  
Knit and united with eternal hands;  
Among the Stars their double Image stands,  
Where both are carried with an equal pace  
Together jumping in their turning race.   

72  
This is the Net wherein the Suns bright eye  
Venus and Mars entangled did behold,  
For in this Dance, their arms they so imply  
As each, doth seem the other to enfold;  
What if lewd wits another tale have told  
Of jealous Vulcan, and of iron chains,  
Yet this true sense that forged lie contains.   

73  
These various forms of dancing, Love did frame,  
And beside these, a hundred millions mot,  
And as he did invent, he taught the same  
With goodly gesture, and with comely show,  
Now keeping state, now humbly honouring low.  
And ever for the persons and the place  
He taught most fit, and best according grace.   

74  
For Love, within his fertile working brain  
Did then conceive those gracious Virgins three,  
Whose civil moderation did maintain  
All decent order and conveniency,  
And fair respect, and seemly modesty:  
And then he thought it fit they should be borne,  
That their sweet presence dancing might adorn.   

75  
Hence is it that these Graces painted are  
With hand in hand dancing an endless round:  
And with regarding eyes, that still beware  
That there be no disgrace amongst them found;  
With equal foot they beat the flowery ground,  
Laughing, or singing, as their passions will,  
Yet nothing that they do becomes them ill.   

76  
Thus Love taught men, and men thus learned of Love  
Sweet musics sound with feet to counterfeit,  
Which was long time before high thundering jove  
Was lifted up to heavens imperial seat.  
For though by birth he were the Prince of Crete,  
Nor Crete, nor Heaven, should that young Prince have seen  
If Dancers with their Timbrels had not been.   

77  
Since when all ceremonious mysteries,  
All sacred Orgies and religious rights,  
All pomps, and triumphs, and solemnities,  
All Funerals, Nuptials, and like public sights,  
All Parliaments of peace, and warlike fights,  
All learned Arts, and every great affair  
A lively shape of Dancing seems to bear.   

78  
For what did he who with his ten-tonged Lute  
Gave Beasts and blocks an understanding ear?  
Or rather into bestial minds and brute  
Shed and infused the beams of reason clear?  
Doubtless foremen that rude and savage were  
A civil form of dancing he devised,  
Wherewith unto their Gods they sacrificed.   

79  
So did Musaem, so Amphion did,  
And Linus with his sweet enchanting song,  
And he whose hand the earth of monsters rid  
And had men's cares fast chained to his tongue:  
And Theseus to his wood-borne slaves among  
Used dancing as the finest policy  
To plant religion and society.   

80  
And therefore now the Thracian Orpheus Lyre  
And Hercules himself are stellified;  
And in high heaven amidst the starry Choir  
Dancing their parts continually do slide:  
So on the Zodiac Ganymede doth ride,  
And so is Hebe with the Muses nine  
For pleasing jove with dancing, made dinine.   

81  
Wherhfore was Proteus said himself to change  
Into a stream, a Lion, and a tree,  
And many other forms fantastic strange  
As in his fickle thought he wished to be?  
But that he danced with such facility.  
As like a Lion he could place with pride,  
Ply like a Plant, and like a Riner slide.   

82  
And how was Caeneus made at first a man,  
And then a woman, than a man again  
But in a Dance? which when he first began  
He the man's part in measure did sustain.  
But when he changed into a second strain  
He danced the woman's part another space,  
And then returned into his former place.   

83  
Hence sprang the fable of Tirefias  
That he the pleasure of both saxes tried:  
For in a dance he man and woman was  
By often change of place from side to side.  
But for the woman easily did slide  
And smoothly swim with cunning hidden Art,  
He took more pleasure in a woman's part.   

84  
So to a fish Venus herself did change,  
And swimming through the soft and yielding wave,  
With gentle motions did so smoothly range  
As none might see where she the water drove:  
But this plain truth that salsed fable gave  
That she did dance with sliding easiness,  
Pliant and quick in wandering passages,   

85  
And merry Bacchus practised dancing to,  
And to the Lydian numbers rounds did make:  
The like he did in th'eastern India do,  
And taught them all when Phoebus did awake,  
And when at night he did his Coach sorsake:  
To honour heaven, and heavens great rolling eye  
With turning dances, and with melody.   

86  
Thus they who first did found a commonweal,  
And they who first Religion did ordain,  
By dancing first the people's hearts did steal,  
Of whom we now a thousand tales do feign.  
Yet do we now their perfect rules retain,  
And use them still in such devices new  
As in the world long since their withering grew.   

87  
For after Towns and Kingdoms founded were  
Between great States arose wellordered war,  
Wherein most perfect measure doth appear  
Whether their well-set ranks respected are  
In Quadrant form or Semicircular:  
Or else the March, when all the troops advance  
Unto the Drum, in gallant order dance.   

88  
And after wars, when white-winged victory  
Is with a glorious triumph beautified,  
And every one doth Io Io cry,  
While all in gold the Conqueror doth ride,  
The solemn pomp that fills the City wide  
Observes such rank and measure every where,  
As if they altogether dancing were.   

89  
The like just order Mourners do observe,  
(But with unlike affection and attire)  
When some great man that nobly did deserve  
And whom his friends impatiently desire  
Is brought with honour to his latest fire:  
The dead corpse too in that sad dance is moved,  
As if both dead and living, dancing loved.   

90  
A diverse cause, but like solemnity  
Unto the Temple leads the bashful bride,  
Which blusheth like the Indian ivory  
Which is with dip of Tyrian purple died:  
A golden troup doth pass on every side  
Of flourishing young men and Virgins gay,  
Which keep fair measure all the flowery way.   

91  
And not alone the general multitude,  
But those choice Nestor's which in counsel grave  
Of Cities, and of Kingdoms do conclude,  
Most comely order in their Sessions have:  
Wherefore the wise Thessalians ever gave  
The name of Leader of their Country's dance  
To him that had their Country's governance.   

92  
And those great Masters of the liberal Arts  
In all their several Schools do Dancing teach:  
For humble Grammar first doth set the parts  
Of congruent and well-according speech:  
Which Rhetoric whose state that clouds doth reach,  
And heavenly Poetry do forward lead,  
And divers Measures, diversly do tread.   

93  
For Rhetoric clothing speech in rich array  
In loser numbers teacheth her to range,  
With twenty tropes, and turnings every way,  
And various figures, and licentious change:  
But Poetry with rule and order strange  
So curiously doth move each single pace,  
As all is marred if she one foot misplace.   

94  
These Arts of speech the guides and Marshals are,  
But Logic leadeth Reason in a dance,  
(Reason the Cynosure and bright Load-star  
In this world's Sea t'avoid the rock of Chance)  
For with close following and continuance  
One reason doth another so ensue,  
As in conlusion still the dance is true.   

95  
So Music to her own sweet tunes doth trip  
With tricks of, 3, 5, 8, 15, and more:  
So doth the Art of Numbering seem to skip  
From even to odd in her proportioned score:  
So do those skills whose quick eyes do explore  
The just dimension both of earth and heaven  
In all their rules observe a measure even.   

96  
Lo this is dancings true nobility.  
Dancing the child of Music and of Love,  
Dancing itself both love and harmony,  
Where all agree, and all in order move;  
Dancing the Art that all Arts do approve:  
The fair Character of the world's consent,  
The heavens true figure, and th'earth's ornament.   

97  
THE Queen, whose dainty ears had borne too long  
The tedious praise of that she did despise,  
Adding once more the music of the tongue  
To the sweet speech of her alluting eyes,  
Began to answer in such winning wise  
As that forthwith Antinous tongue was tied,  
His eyes fast fixed, his ears were open wide.   

98  
Forsooth (quoth she) great glory you have won  
To your trim Minion Dancing all this while,  
By blazing him loves first begotten son;  
Of every ill the hateful Father vile  
That doth the world with sorceries beguile:  
Cunningly mad, religiously profane,  
Wit's monster, Reason's canker, Senses bane.   

99  
Love taught the mother that unkind desire  
To wash her hands in her own Infant's blood;  
Love taught the daughter to betray her Sire  
Into most base unworthy servitude;  
Love taught the brother to prepare such food  
To feast his brothers, that the allseeing Sun  
Wrapped in a cloud, that wicked sight did shun.   

100  
And even this self same Love hath dancing taught,  
An Art that showeth th' Idea of his mind  
With vainess, frenzy, and misorder fraught;  
Sometimes with blood and cruelties unkind:  
For in a dance, Tereus' mad wife did find  
Fit time and place by murdering her son,  
T'avenge the wrong his traitorous Sire had done.   

101  
What mean the Mermaids when they dance and sing  
But certain death unto the Mariner?  
What tidings do the dancing Dilphins bring  
But that some dangerous storm approacheth near?  
Then sith both Love & Dancing liveries bear  
Of such ill hap, unhappy may they prove,  
That sitting free, will either dance or love.   

102  
YEt once again Antinous did reply,  
Great Queen, condemn not Love the innocent,  
For this mischievous Lust, which traitorously  
Usurps his Name, and steals his ornament:  
For that true Love which dancing did invent,  
Is he that tuned the world's whole harmony,  
And linked all men in sweet society.   

103  
He first extracted from th'earth-mingled mind  
That heavenly fire, or quintessence divine,  
Which doth such sympathy in beauty find  
As is between the Elm and fruitful Vine,  
And so to beauty ever doth incline.  
lives life it is, and cordial to the heart,  
And of our better part, the better part.   

104  
This is true Love, by that true Cupid got  
Which danceth Galliards in your amorous eyes,  
But to your frozen heart approacheth not,  
Only your heart he dares not enterprise.  
And yet through every other part he flies,  
And every where he nimbly danceth now,  
That in yourself, yourself perceive not how.   

105  
For your sweet beauty daintily transfused  
With due proportion throughout every part,  
What is it but a dance where Love hath used  
His finer cunning, and more curious Art?  
Where all the Elements themselves impart,  
And turn, and wind, & mingle with such measure,  
That th'eye that sees it, surfeits with the pleasure.   

106  
Love in the twinkling of your eyelids danceth,  
Love danceth in your pulses and your veins,  
Love when you sow your needle's point advanceth,  
And makes it dance a thousand curious strains  
Of winding rounds, whereof the form remains,  
To show, that your fair hands can dance that hay,  
Which your fine feet would learn as well as they.   

107  
And when your ivory fingers touch the strings  
Of any silver-sounding instrument,  
Love makes the dance to those sweet murmurings,  
With busy skill, and cunning excellent:  
O that your feet those tunes would represent  
With artificial motions to and fro,  
That Love this Art in every part might show.   

108  
Yet your fair soul which came from heaven above,  
To rule this house, another heaven below,  
With divers powers in harmony doth move,  
And all the virtues that from her do flow,  
In a round measure hand in hand do go.  
Can I now see as I conceive this Dance,  
Wonder and Love would cast me in a trance.   

109  
The richest jewel in all the heavenly Treasure  
That ever yet unto the Earth was shown,  
Is perfect Concord, th'only perfect pleasure  
That wretched Earthborn men have ever known,  
For many hearts it doth compound in one:  
That what so one doth will, or speak, or do,  
With one consent they all agree thereto.   

110  
Concord's true picture shineth in this Art,  
Where divers men and women ranked be,  
And every one doth dance a several part,  
Yet all as one, in measure do agree,  
Observing perfect uniformity:  
All turn together, all together trace,  
And all together honour and embrace.   

111  
If they whom sacred Love hath linked in one,  
Do, as they dance, in all their course of life  
Never shall burning grief not bitter moan,  
Nor factious difference, nor unkind strife,  
Arise betwixt the husband and the wife.  
For whether forth or back, or round he go,  
As the man doth, so must the woman do.   

112  
What if by often interchange of place  
Sometime the woman get the upper hand?  
That is but done for more delightful grace,  
For on that part she doth not ever stand:  
But as the Measures law doth her command  
She wheels about, and ere the dance doth end,  
Into her former place she doth transcend.   

113  
But not alone this correspondence meet  
And uniform consent doth dancing praise,  
For-Comlines the child of order sweet  
Enamels it with her eye-pleasing rays:  
Fair Comeliness, ten hundred thousand ways  
Through dancing shedds itself, & makes it shine  
With glorious beauty, and with grace divine.   

114  
For Comeliness is a disposing fair  
Of things and actions in fit time and place,  
Which doth in dancing show itself most clear,  
When troops confused which here & there do trace  
Without distingushment or bounded space,  
By dancing rule, into such ranks are brought,  
As glads the eye, and ravisheth the thought.   

115  
Then why should reason judge that reasonles  
Which is wit's offspring, and the work of Art,  
Image of concord, and of comeliness.  
Who sees a clock moving in every part,  
A sailing Pinneste, or a wheeling Cart,  
But thinks that reason ere it came to pass  
The first impulsive cause and mover was?   

116  
Who sees an Army all in rank advance  
But deems a wise Commander is in place  
Which leadeth on that brave victorious dance?  
Much more in dancings Art, in dancings grace  
Blindness itself may reasons footstep trace:  
For of loves Maze it is the curious plot,  
And of man's fellowship the true-love knot.   

117  
But if these eyes of yours, (Load stars of love  
Showing the world's great dance to your mind's eye)  
Cannot with all their demonstrations move  
Kind apprehension in your fantasy  
Of dancings virtue, and nobility:  
How can my barbarous tongue win you thereto  
which heaven & earth's fair speech could never do?   

118  
O Love my King: if all my wit and power  
Have done you all the service that they can,  
O be you present in this present hour,  
And help your servant and your true Leige-man  
End that persuasion which I erst began:  
For who in praise of dancing can persuade  
With such sweet force as Love, which dancing made.   

119  
Love heard his prayer, and swifter than the wind  
Like to a Page, in habit, face, and speech,  
He came, and stood Antinous behind,  
And many secrets to his thoughts did teach.  
At last, a crystal Mirror he did reach  
Unto his hands, that he with one rash view,  
All forms therein by loves revealing knew.   

120  
And humbly honouring, gave it to the Queen  
With this fair speech: See fairest Queen (quoth he)  
The fairest sight that ever shall be seen,  
And th'only wonder of posterity,  
The richest work in Nature's treasury;  
Which she disdains to show on this world's stage,  
And thinks it far too good for our rude age.   

121  
But in another world divided far,  
In the great, fortunate, triangled isle,  
Thrice twelve degrees removed from the North stat  
She will this glorious workmanship compile  
Which she hath been conceiving all this while  
Since the world's birth, & will bring forth at last,  
When six and twenty hundredth years are past.   

122  
PEnelope the Queen when she had viewed  
The strange-eye-dazeling-admirable sight,  
Feign would have praised the state and pulchritude,  
But she was strooken dumb with wonder quite,  
Yet her sweet mind retained her thinking might:  
Her ravished mind in heavenly thoughts did dwell,  
But what she thought, no mortal tongue can tell.   

123  
You Lady Muse, whom jove the Counsellor  
Begot of Memory, wisdom's Treasuresse,  
To your divining tongue is given a power  
Of uttering secrets large and limitless:  
You can Penelope's strange thoughts express  
Which she conceived, & then would feign have told,  
When she the wondrous Crystal did behold.   

124  
Her winged thoughts bore up her mind so high  
As that she weaned she saw the glorious throne  
Where the bright Moon doth sit in majesty,  
A thousand sparkling stars about her shone,  
But she herself did sparkle more alone  
Than all those thousand beauties would have done  
If they had been confounded all in one.   

125  
And yet she thought those stars moved in such measure  
To doetheir Sovereign honour & delight,  
As soothed her mind with sweet enchanting pleasure  
Although the various change amazed her sight,  
And her weak judgement did entangle quite:  
Beside, their moving made them shine more clear,  
As Diamonds moved, more sparkling do appear.   

126  
This was the Picture of her wondrous thought,  
But who can wonder that her thought was so,  
Sith Vulcan King of fire, that Mirror wrought  
(Which things to come, present, & past doth know)  
And there did represent in lively show;  
Our glorious English Courts divine Image  
As it should be in this our golden age.   

127  
Away Terpsichore, light Muse away,  
And come Vrame, Prophetess divine;  
Come Muse of heaven, my burning thirst allay,  
Even now, for want of sacred drink I tine.  
In heavenly moisture dip this Pen of mine,  
And let my mouth with Nectar overflow,  
For I must more than mortal glory show.   

128  
O that I had Homer's abundant vain,  
I would hereof another Ilias make,  
Or else the man of Mantuus charmed brain  
In whose large throat great jove the thunder spoke.  
O that I could old Geffrey's Muse awake,  
Or borrow Colin's fair heroic style,  
Or smooth my times with delia's servants file.   

129  
O could I sweet Companion, sing like you,  
Which of a shadow, under a shadow sing;  
Or like fair Salves sad lover true,  
Or like the Bay, the Marigolds darling,  
Whose sudden verse Love covers with his wing:  
O that your brains were mingled all with mine,  
T'enlarge my wit for this great work divine.   

130  
Yet Astrophil might one for all suffice,  
Whose supple Muse Chameleon-like doth change  
Into all forms of excellent devise:  
So might the Swallow, whose swift Muse doth range  
Through rare Ideas, and inventions strange,  
And ever doth enjoy her joyful spring,  
And sweeter than the Nightingale doth sing.   

131  
O that I might that singing Swallow hear  
To whom I own my service and my love,  
His sugared tunes would so enchant mine ear,  
And in my mind such sacred fury move,  
As I should knock at heavens great gate above  
With my proud rhymes, while of this heavenly state  
I do aspire the shadow to relate.   
FINIS.