Page:Elizabethan People.djvu/265

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INDOOR AMUSEMENTS
209

singles broken down, come up, meet two doubles, fall back, and then honour."[1]

The canary was a quick and lively dance. "A lady is taken out by a gentleman, and after dancing together to the cadences of the proper air, he leads her to the end of the hall; this done, he retreats back to the original spot, always looking at the lady. Then he makes up to her again, with certain steps, and retreats as before. His partner performs the same ceremony, which is several times repeated by both parties, with various strange fantastic steps, very much in the savage style."[2] The galliard was another similar dance with much leaping and capering among the steps. A third dance of this nimble character was the lavolta, to which Sir John Davies devotes the following lines:

"Yet there is one the most delightful kind,
A lofty jumping, or a leaping round,
Where arm in arm two dancers are entwined,
And whirl themselves, with strict embracements bound;
And still their feet an anapest do sound.
An anapest is all their music's song,
Whose first two feet are short, and third is long."[3]

The two slow and dignified dances most in vogue were the pavin and the measure. "The

  1. Act IV., Scene ii.
  2. Douce, Illustrations of Shakespeare, Vol. I., p. 331.
  3. Poem on Dancing, Stanza 70.