bending, spray is flying, Sunny waves beneath them glancing. Sportive myriads round them dancing, With their hundred feet in motion, Twinkling ’mid the foam of ocean.” 

He concluded amidst thunders of applause, the reference to the fleet being especially rewarded with a purse from the host and a shower of gold pieces from the guests.

Other recitations followed, not all, it must be confessed, in so elevated a strain; each was produced with a few bars of music appropriate to its character.

The next entertainment was of a less intellectual kind. Now dancers were introduced into the room by the trainer who had taught them, and whose slaves in fact they were. The man was a red-faced, bloated looking creature, who, however, had been very active in his time, and could still display a wonderful amount of agility when he was engaged in teaching his pupils. The dancers were brother and sister, twins, and curiously alike, though the boy was nearly a half-head taller, and generally on a larger scale than the girl. The performance commenced with a duet of the harps[Pg 75] and the flute. The harp, a small instrument not larger than a violin was played by the boy, the flute by a female player, who had come into the room along with the dancers. After a while the harp became silent, the flute continuing to give out a very marked measure. To this the girl began to dance, whirling hoops into the air as she moved, and catching them as they fell. Many were in the air at once, and the girl neither made a single step out of time nor let a single hoop fall to the ground.

[Pg 75]

A more difficult and exciting performance followed. The flute-player changed the character of her music. The Lydian measure which had been admirably suited to the graceful steps of the dance gave place to the swift Phrygian scale, wild and fantastic music such as might move the devotees of Cybele or Dionysus to the mysterious duties of their worship. At the same time an attendant of the trainer brought in a large hoop, studded round its inner circle with pointed blades. The girl commenced to dance again with steps that grew quicker and quicker with the music, till, as it reached a climax of sound, she leapt through the hoop. The flute-player paused for a moment, as the dancer turned to recover her breath, her bosom rising and falling rapidly, and her eyes flashing with excitement. Then the music and the dance began again, with the same crescendo of sound and motion, till the same culminating point was reached, and the same perilous leap repeated.

 Prev. P 49/228 next