A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Sink-a-pace
SINK-A-PACE—also written Cinque-pace, Cinqua-pace, Cinque Pass, Cinque Pas, Sinqua-pace, Sinque-pace and Sincopas—a name by which the original Galliard was known. Prætorius (Syntagma Mus. vol. iii. chap. ii. p. 24) says that a Galliard has five steps and is therefore called a Cinque Pas. These five steps, or rather combinations of steps, are well described in Arbeau's 'Orchésographie' (Langres, 1588). In later times the Galliard became so altered by the addition of new steps, that the original form of the dance seems to have been distinguished by the name Cinq Pas. It is frequently mentioned by the Elizabethan writers, well-known examples being the allusions in Shakespeare's 'Much Ado about Nothing' (Act ii. Sc. i), Twelfth Night (Act i. Sc. 3), Marston's 'Satiromastix' (Act i), and Sir John Davies' 'Orchestra' (stanza 67). The following less-known quotation is from the Histriomastix (Part 1) of Prynne (who was especially bitter against this dance): 'Alas there are but few who finde that narrow way … and those few what are they? Not dancers, but mourners: not laughers, but weepers; whose tune is Lachrymæ, whose musicke, sighes for sinne; who know no other Cinqua-pace but this to Heaven, to goe mourning all the day long for their iniquities; to mourne in secret like Doves, to chatter like Cranes for their owne and others sinnes.' The following example of a Cinque-pace is given by Wolfgang Caspar Printz, in his 'Phrynis Mitilenæus, oder Satyrischer Componist' (Dresden, 1696), as a specimen of 'Trichonum Iambicum.' A longer example will be found in Dauney's edition of the 15th-century Skene MS. (Edinburgh, 1838).
