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P e ter L. H a ys
T H E DANCE OF LOVE AND DANCE OF D EATH ■!. : ■ • I IN R O M E O A N D JU LIE T
In Shakespeare’s first romantic tragedy, R o m e o an d Ju liet , the lovers meet on a festive occasion at the Capulets’. Romeo attends with Benvoiio, Mercutio, and others, masked and uninvited— in Shakespeare’s time a com pliment to the host, as Old Capulet’s manner indicates (I, v, 68-76). Romeo’s friends, Mercutio in particular, urge him to participate in the festivities—“Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance” (I, iv, 13). But he refuses both in speech and action: “Not I, believe me” (I, iv, 14), and “W hat’s he... that would not dance?” (I, v, 134). My purpose is to investigate the significance of Rom eo’s not dancing as expressed in these two scenes, the fourth and fifth of A ct I, and to contrast them with his activity in the first scene of A ct III. Shakespeare’s sources for the play also have Romeo set apart most of the time. Arthur Brooke, in T h e T ragicall H istorye o f R o m eu s an d Ju liet, has Romeus stand aside for most of the evening, looking on; and much the same occurs in Luigi da Porto’s version, Istoria n ov ellam en te ritrovata d i d u e N o b ili A m an ti (c. 1530). T h e young lovers are attracted to each other’s looks, but in both these sources, it is Juliet who approaches Romeo at the last dance of the evening and draws him into the ring on the excuse that Mercutio, on her other side, has icy hands, and at least the hand that Romeo holds will be warm. Shakespeare alone emphasizes Romeo’s not dancing at all, while—throughout the first part of the play—emphasizing dancing. Thus, while approaching the festivities, Benvoiio says (I, iv, 10), “W e’ll measure them a measure, and be gone.” In scene v, old Capulet insists that all the ladies present must dance; and he and a relative argue— in a boring ex change completely unnecessary for the plot—how long ago they last danced. Juliet identifies the departing Romeo to the Nurse, not by his position or apparel but by his singular behavior: “W hat’s he... that would not dance?” Later in the play, Mercutio says to T y balt: “H ere’s my fiddlestick; here’s that shall
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make you dance” (III, i, 51-52). And, throughout the first half of the play— and the first half only— “brawl” and “measure,” words which are also the names of specific dances, occur eleven times, “dance” or “dancing” seven times. W hy all this insistence on something that Romeo does not do? I believe the answer lies in the significance of dancing, as explained by E. M. W. T ill- yard in T h e E liz ab eth an W o rld P icture and as found in Sir John Davies’ poem O rchestra (1594, 1596) and in Sir Thom as Elyot’s T h e B o\ e N a m e d the* G overn ou r (1531). Says Tillyard, “... T h e created universe was itself in a state of music,
... it was one perpetual dance.”2 A fter citing similar statements from Isidore of Seville, Thom as Elyot, and Milton, Tillyard concentrates on O rchestra , wherein “creative love first persuaded the warring atoms to move in order” (p. 97). T o quote from Davies’ own poem: The fire air earth and water did agree By Love’s 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. (St. 17)
A ll things on earth participate in this dance, which figures each thing’s, each m an’s, place in divine order. “M en looked on the world under three figures: a chain, a set of corresponding levels of existence, and a dance. Although Davies chooses to elaborate this last figure, he implies the other two. T he very scheme of his poem consists in describing the fundamental dance of life throughout most of the links of the vast chain of being” (O , p. 11). O rchestra was written in 1594, probably before R o m e o an d Ju liet, and was published in 1596, probably after the first production of the play. There is no way of knowing whether Shakespeare read O rchestra in manuscript; but, as Tillyard says, T h e M erchan t o f V en ice and T roilu s an d C ressida show “his knowledge of the general doctrine” (p. 95). Davies emphasizes that danc ing puts disparate elements into smooth order, into harmony. T h u s: true Love, which dancing did invent, Is he that tun’d the world’s whole harmony And linked all man in sweet society. , (St. 94) L ike the planets in their spheres, creating their musical harmonies, men in dancing, says Davies, are in social harmony. But Romeo does not dance, and
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Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast. (II, iii, 94) Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow. (II, vi, 15)
Maturity, moderation, measure (a word much punned on in Acts I and I I ) , 7 these are the qualities lacking in most of the characters in R o m e o an d Juliet. L et me insert here that I do not see the whole play as simply a lesson in prudence. As others have said before me, part of the play’s fascination is that the sins of impetuousness and imprudence are, paradoxically, the basis for grand passion of the young lovers. But order is one of Shakespeare’s most constant themes, whether figured by Lovejoy’s chain of being or by the dances of R o m eo an d Ju lie t ; and I suggest that the violations of order committed by Romeo and Tybalt in the play are foreshadowed by their not dancing in I, v. T o the contrary, what they do engage in is an anti-dance, a dance of disorder and death, a duel. Shakespeare several times has linked dancing and swords. In T itus A n d ron icu s (II, i, 39) Demetrius speaks of Chiron’s “dancing rapier” ; in A ll’s W ell (II, i, 32-3), Bertram complains of “no sword worn / But one to dance with”; and in A nton y a n d C leopatra (III, xi, 35-36), Antony denounces Octavius as one who “at Philippi kept / His sword e’en like a d ancer... .” In R o m e o a n d Ju liet , Mercutio describes Tybalt’s style of fencing in terms that suggest accompaniment by m usic: “H e fights as you sing prick- song—keeps time, distance, and proportion; he rests his minim rests” (II, iv, 20- 22). In III, i, he challenges to make Tybalt dance. According to the latest articles on fencing styles in this play, Tybalt’s style was essentially Spanish, as set forth by D on Jeronimo de Carranza in his F ilosojia^ d e^ las A rm as^ (1569), rather than sword and buckler, as earlier critics have suggested. Among the proofs offered are M ercutio’s insulting comments that Tybalt is a “courageous Captain of compliments, / A gentleman of the first and second cause” (II, iv, 21- 28), and that he is “a villain that fights by the book of arithmetic” (III, i, 9 5 ).8 Carranza’s P h ilosophy contained a section on the punctilio of duelling, as did the text of the Italian fencing master Vincentio Saviolo; but Carranza alone, before Shakespeare’s time, emphasized the causes for fencing. Also, the Spanish style of fencing was based on geometry, laying a circle on the floor and marking it into precise, “arithmetic” sections; fencers were taught to move around this circle to “ ‘complement’ the movements of an imaginary opponent.”9 More to the point, George Silver, a contemporary of Shakespeare, described those who used the Spanish manner of fence as having “their feet continually moving, as if they were in a dance.”10 And finally, John Florio, in his language book S econ d F ru its , puffs his countryman Saviolo, praising both his fencing ability and his dancing.
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Thu s we can see fencing associated with dancing in Shakespeare’s mind by their similarity in movement and sometimes training, and also by language. I have quoted M ercutio’s musical description of T ybalt’s fencing, but there are other words that call both activities to mind. “Measure” is not only the name of a virtue neglected by the main characters of the play, it is also a musical term— the dance the maskers expect at the Capulets’—and a term in fencing. Thus instead of treading a measure, T ybalt and Mercutio, and Romeo and Tybalt measure swords. Similarly, M ercutio’s list of fencing terms used by Tybalt— p assad o (lunge) and pu n to reverso (backhanded thrust)—concludes with “the hay” (II, iv, 27), usually glossed as synonymous with tou ch e and derived from the Italian hai, you have it. However, these terms follow the musical ones quoted above; and the hay, like the measure and brawl, is an English dance.12 i :j j j. [ Regardless of what Shakespeare may have thought about settling indi vidual grudges with a sword, we know that toward the end of Elizabeth’s reign not just duelling but even rapiers themselves proved a nuisance. John Stow records that ; j- j j | | he was held the greatest Gallant, that had the deepest Ruffe and longest Rapier: the offence to the Eye of the one, and the hurt unto the life of the Subject, that came by the other, caused her Majesty to make Proclamation against them both and to place Selected grave Citizens at every gate, to cut the Ruffes and break the Rapiers points of all passengers that exceeded a yeard in length of their Rapiers... , Finally James I banned duelling in 1613 with his P roclam ation again st private
C hallen ges a n d C o m bats ,14 Few judicial trials of arms occur in Shakespeare’s
play: we see the preliminaries of one in the opening scenes of R ich ard II, wit ness a mock one between Hector and A jax in IV , v, of T roilu s an d C ressida , and do see formal challenge and combat between Horner and Peter in 2 H en ry V I and between Edgar and Edmund at the end of K in g L ea r. T h e rest of Shakespeare’s references to the code duello are satirical, like Armado’s remarks concluding A ct I of L o v e ’s L a b o u r ’s L o st , Sir T oby ’s advice to Sir Andrew Aguecheek ( T w elfth N ig h t, III, iv, 33-54 and III, iv, 193-200), Mercutio’s sneers at Tybalt’s first and second causes, and Touchstone’s disquisition on those same causes (A s Y ou L ik e It, V , iv, 69-108). It is perhaps no accident that two of these three mentions of duelling are ridiculed in comedies. In contrast, Shakespeare frequently uses dancing as a show of solemnity or, as Elyot said, of concord, to end plays amicably that had begun less so. T h u s we have “dancing measures” concluding A s Y o u L i k e It, a masque cele
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- Adolph L. Soens, “Tybalt’s Spanish Fencing in R om eo and Ju liet” Shakespeare Quarterly , X X (Spring 1969), pp. 121-127, esp. p. 124. See also Horace S. Craig, “Dueling Scenes and Terms in Shakespeare’s Plays,” University o f California Publications in English , IX (1942), pp, 1-28, esp. pp. 14-17. j. i j
- Ibid., p. 12.
- Paradoxes o f D efence (London, 1599; reprinted Amsterdam, 1968), p. 14. While we are discussing puns between fencing and other activities, let me cite Romeo’s excuse for not dancing (I, iv, 14-15): “You have dancing shoes f With nimble soles. I have a soul of lead... .” Silver quotes the exercises prescribed by Elizabethan England’s first Italian master of the fence: “Signior Rocko... taught the Noblemen & Gentlemen of the Court; he caused some of them to weare leaden soales in their shoes, the better to bring them to nimble ness of feet in their fight” (p. 64). j
- Florios Second Frvtes (London, 1591; Amsterdam, 1969), p. 119.
- Cf. Sieveking, pp. 440-442 and Orchestra , stanzas 47, 53, 64, 106.
- John Stow, Annales, continued by Edmund Howes (London, 1631), p. 869.
- Sieveking, pp. 405-406.
- As for the dance in Henry VIII, I, iv—if the design o f the play is Shakespeare’s — we can at least say for this dance that it was responsible for Elizabeth, “a happy conclusion.” The several procession in the play (II, iv; IV, i; and V, v all emphasize the theme of order and proper place.
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