[lit-ideas] Re: The Pyrrhic Dance
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 16:00:57 EST
L. K. Helm quotes from Cartlage:
>"the Spartans moved forward slowly and to the music"
and his quote from Thucydides: "a standing institution in their army ...
intended to make them advance evenly, and in time, without breaking their
order."
The description 'slowly', by Cartlage, suggests this was _not_ the pyrrhic,
but it was a good thought anyway!
More on it below.
PYRRIKHE, a dance in armour, invented by Pyrrikhos. A war dance in which the
motions of actual warfare were gone through, in armour, to a musical
(drumming) accompaniment.
1597 BP. HALL Sat. VI. i. 266
Or dance a sober pyrrhic in the field.
1776 BURNEY Hist. Mus. 67
Proper for military dances called Pyrrhics in which the dancers are armed.
1906 19th Cent. Mar. 450
In Sparta all who were above five years of age learnt the Pyrrhic.
1630 B. JONSON New Inn iii, Do they not still Learn there..The Pyrrhic
gestures, both to dance and spring In armour, to be active in the wars?
1632 HEYWOOD Iron Age 306
Music strike a pyrrhic strain.
1748 CHESTERFIELD Lett. 11 Oct.
"I now plainly see the prelude to the pyrrhic dance in the north, which I
have long foretold.
1815 ELPHINSTONE Acc. Caubul (1842) II. 81
Their amusements are listening to songs..and dancing a sort of Pyrrhic
dance, in which they go through some warlike attitudes, and leap about,
flourishing their swords.
1821 BYRON Don Juan III. lxxxvi. x (Isles of Greece),
You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet,
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
1698 FRYER Acc. E. India & P. 109
Dancing in such antique dances as resemble the Pyrrhical Saltation.
1842 SMITH Dict. Grk. & Rom. Antiq. s.v. Saltatio, Three Pyrrhicists, two
of whom are engaged in the dance.
1626 B. JONSON Staple of N. IV. iv,
His hyper, and his brachy-katalectics, his pyrrhics, epitrites and
choriambics.
1749 J. MASON Numbers in Poet. Comp. 43
A Pyrrhic may possess any Place of the Verse except the last. But wherever
it is, it gives a brisk Movement to the Measure.
1824 L. MURRAY English Grammar 372
"A pyrrhic has both the words or syllables unaccented:
as, as,n < tall tree’.
1871 ROBY Lat. Gram. I. xii. §289
Of words ending in a pyrrich or dactyl is rarely elided before a short
syllable, except in proper names; or in first foot
1886 MAYOR Eng. Metre ii. 31
They intended to vary the ordinary rhythm by introducing an accentual
pyrrhic.
1907 ORMOND English Metrists 175 A trochee Ruskin prefers to name choreus,
keeping the former term for what most writers call pyrrhic or dibrach.
1749 J. MASON Numb. Poet. Comp. 16, I have exemplified the Pyrrhic, which
contains two short Times, by two short Monosyllables, because every Word of
two
Syllables hath in the Pronunciation an Accent upon one of them, and in
English Metre every accented Syllable is long; and there~fore no English Word
of
two Syllables can properly exemplify a Pyrrhic Foot, which consists of two
short ones.
1586 W. WEBBE Eng. Poetrie (Arb.) 69 Two short [syllables] called
Pyrrichius as v v. hyther.
1589 PUTTENHAM Eng. Poesie II. xiii. (Arb.) 133
For your foote pirrichius or of two short silables ye haue these words [ne]
[ny] [ne] [li] and others of that constitution or the like.
1702 ADDISON Dial. Medals Wks. 1730 I. 429 ‘My barber has often combed my
head in dactyls and spondees... Nay’, says he, ‘I have known him sometimes run
even into pyrrhichius's and anapæstus's’.
1818 HALLAM Mid. Ages ix. I. (1868) 589 Hodie is used as a pyrrhichius.
From Smith (source above, available online):
"There were various dances in early times, which served as a preparation for
war: hence Homer (Iliad XI.49, XII.77) calls the Hoplites πρυλέεs, a
war-dance having been called πρύλις by the Cretans (Müller, Dor. III.12 §10).
"Of such dances the most celebrated was the Pyrrhic (ἡ Πυῤῥίχη), of which
the πρύλις was probably only another name."
"This Plato (Nomoi VII. p 815) takes as the representative of all war
dances."
"The invention of this dance is placed in the mythical age, and is usually
assigned to one Pyrrhikhos, but most of the accounts agree in assigning it a
Spartan origin (Athenaios, Deipnosophistae, XIV. p630e; Strabo, Geographia, X.
p466; Plat. Nomoi p796; Lucian, Ib. 9)."
"Its time was very quick and light, as is shown by the name of the Pyrrhic
foot ().
"Plato (Nomoi VII. p815) describes it as representing by rapid movements of
the body the way in which missiles and blows from weapons were avoided, and
also the mode in which the enemy were attacked."
"It was also performed at Athens at the greater and lesser Panathenaea by
Ephebi, who were called Pyrrichists (Πυῤῥιχισταί) and were trained at the
expense of the Choragus (Schol. ad Aristoph. Nubes 988; Lysias, ἄπολ.
δωροδοκ. p698)".
"In the mountainous parts of Thessaly and Macedon dances are performed at
the present day by men armed with muskets and swords (Dodwell, Tour through
Greece, vol. II. pp21, 22)."
"One of Sir W. Hamilton's vases (ed. Tischbein, vol. I. pl. 60), represents
three Pyrrhicists, two of whom with shield and sword are engaged in the
dance, while the third is standing with a sword."
"The Pyrrhic dance was introduced in Rome by Julius Caesar (Suet Jul. Caes.
39)."
"He gave entertainments of divers kinds: A Pyrrhic dance was performed."
"It seem to have been much liked by the Romans; it was exhibited both by
Caligula and Nero (Dion Cass. LX.7; Suet. Ner. 12), and also frequently by
Hadrian (Spartian. Hadr. i9)."
"Athenaeus (XIV. p631a) says that the Pyrrhic dance was still practised in
his time (the third century A.D.) at Sparta, where it was danced by boys from
the age of fifteen."
---- from online review of book on the pyrrhic (Bryn Mawr Review)
"Much has been done to uncover the cultural meanings of the pyrrhic dance."
"Initiation ritual for young men is the key to its original character but
traces variations and mutations."
"Dance, according to Greek thought, was educational and civilizing."
"Armed dances are attested early and continue throughout antiquity, but the
names and types were legion."
""Pyrrhiche" became both the name of a specific kind of dance and a general
name for armed dance, which makes it difficult to isolate the distinctive
character of the pyrrhiche proper."
"At Athens the pyrrhikhe was associated specially with Athena, for she was
said to have invented it after her victory over the Giants or the Gorgon. At
the Panathenaia, choruses of youths competed in separate pyrrhic contests."
"These contests predate the Kleisthenic tribes, for there is no indication
that the contest pitted the ten tribes against one another. In investigating
other possible Attic contexts C. constructs a tenuous argument for connecting
the pyrrhiche with the Athenian Apatouria. The Suda lists two dramatists under
the name of Phrynichos. The first, son of Polyphradmon, must be the famous
tragedian who produced the Fall of Miletos. The second Phrynichos, son of
Melanthas, is otherwise unknown, and there are reasons to think that his entry
refers to the first Phrynichos. Aelian, meanwhile, preserves the item that
Phrynichos was elected general because one of his tragedies contained bellicose
songs appropriate for pyrrhic dancers. Thus we have a dramatist known for
pyrrhic songs who (C. suggests) acquired the nickname "son of Melanthas." C.
sees in the nickname a hint of the subject of one of his pyrrhic songs: the
duel
of Xanthos and Melanthos on the border between Boiotia and Attica, which
Melanthos, the Athenian hero, won by a trick. From Hellanikos on this story is
given as the aition of the Apatouria. C. deduces that because the aition of the
Apatouria was represented in a pyrrhiche, the pyrrhiche was associated with
the Apatouria, the festival at which fathers registered their sons in the
phratry. On this basis C. proposes her overall thesis that the pyrrhiche was
originally connected with initiation into adulthood (something Angelo Brelich
had suggested in connection with the Panathenaia)."
"Attic vases illustrated with armed dances, of which she provides good (if
not large) photographs. Male dancers are identified wherever possible as
ephebes, partly because the scene often shows a stool holding a piece of folded
cloth, which C. interprets as the chlamys (ephebic cloak)."
"The former may jokingly recall men's valor to themselves (or reflect actual
symposium entertainment)."
"Satyrs dancing assimilate the pyrrhic to the realm of Dionysus, while
Amazons suggest Artemis. Dionysus and Artemis: these gods reveal the arc of
significations over which pyrrhiche extends."
"On the borders of Attica are signs of the pyrrhiche. An inscription from
Halai Araphenides thanks a Philoxenos for sponsoring a chorus of pyrrhicists at
an unnamed festival; C. suggests the Tauropolia for Artemis Tauropolis (a
goddess who has been linked to initiations of young men), since the honor is to
be announced at that festival. Close to Attica, the pyrrhiche was offered to
Artemis Amarysia, recipient of an important cult in Euboia, and (by the first
century BCE) to Artemis in Megara. Tracing the affinity of Artemis for the
pyrrhiche is one of C.'s achievements."
"In Lakonia no early evidence exists for the purrhikhe under that name,
although armed dances were practiced."
"In the Hymn to the Kouros C. finds initiatory (as well as fertility)
themes, including the leap (a pyrrhic movement) that the "Great Kouros" is
called
on to make. An inscription from Itanos requiring oath-taking of all the
citizenry perhaps provides a context for initiatory performance."
"At Kos it was a circle-dance, like the dithyramb, at Rhodes apparently a
military dance. At Aphrodisias it appears in a list of musical and theatrical
events, while at Tripoli there is evidence of a professional pyrrhicist. C.
does an excellent job of extracting information like this, and much more, from
inscriptions. At Ephesos we find Artemis again: Kallimachos (Hymn. Art.
237-47) says that the Amazons founded the cult of Artemis and danced the
prylis;
perhaps this was the aition for a girls' dance."
"Armed dances were popular in Etruria, but seem to mix native elements with
Greek. At Rome the Salii performed an armed dance from early on, which Greek
authors linked to Greek dances. An important indication of the appearance of
the pyrrhiche in imperial times comes from Dionysios of Halikarnassos (Ant.
Rom. 7.71-2), who compares it to a Roman procession inaugurated after the
victory at Lake Regillus, of which he quotes a description from Fabius Pictor.
In
that procession choruses of men, youths, and boys dance with spears; a leader
sets the dance movements, quick and bellicose, and the chorus follows. But
then other dancers follow these, dancing the sikinnis (an undignified
Dionysiac dance) and mocking the pyrrhic dancers. Here we see the ambiguous,
Dionysiac aspect of the pyrrhiche."
"A technical discussion of meter. If the pyrrhiche utilized an anapestic
meter, it was faster, with more resolutions, than the marching anapests of
tragedy."
*****Lines from Spartan military songs****** in **** anapests **** are known
and
may be the closest thing we have to pyrrhic songs."
""Duels at the frontier" and Nestor's tale in Iliad 7.132-57 of fighting
Ereuthalion. In another version of this tale Nestor makes a great leap after
victory. Accepting from H. Mühlestein the idea that Nestor was originally the
hero of the Ionian Apatouria, C. conjectures that the Peisistratids (who
claimed kinship with Neleus) established the Neleid Melanthos at Athens in
conjunction with the Apatouria. This is the Pylian-Messenian then Ionic-Attic
tradition."
"But the pyrrhiche was also tied to Achilles and Neoptolemos. Invention of
the pyrrhiche was often attributed to Neoptolemos (with a pun on his other
name, Pyrrhos."
"Achilles doing a purrhikhe around Patroklos' pyre or Neoptolemos "leaping"
from the wooden horse or doing a victory dance after killing Eurypylos
represent transition (back) to battle or to adulthood."
"Neoptolemos at Delphi can be linked to the pyrrhiche via an image in
Euripides' Andromache and a Delphic ritual described in Heliodoros'
Aithiopika. C.
traces many other mythic links among these figures and fire, "red," leaping,
transitional moments, and other young men in myth. Violence and excess may
lead to death, that is, failed initiation. As Homeric epic prevailed and
Neoptolemos became the hero of Delphi, this "Trojan tradition" and the name
"pyrrhiche" supervened on earlier versions of the initiatory armed dance
(perhaps
the prylis) over territory stretching from Euboia through Lakonia. Artemis,
recipient of the pyrrhiche, is connected with the Trojan cycle via Iphigeneia.
Prylis and pyrrhiche could be linked to funerals as well; they symbolize
return to life."
"The pyrrhiche is often linked in later writers to Dionysus as inventor or to
the sikinnis. The sikinnis is the inverse of the pyrrhiche, permitting
adults to return to the abandon of childhood; or the Dionysiac pyrrhiche is
traceable to Alexander's expedition to India."
"A dance of transition but as a triumphal dance, which she interprets as a
mark of warrior integration. She then remarks (217), "The totality of
narratives examined inspires one to think that the dance itself in its duration
represented the moment of alterity, of liminality, but also that it symbolized
the
cohesion of the group of participants ... with respect to the spectators,
and that the conclusion [of the dance] marked the integration -- or
reintegration -- of the group of dancers into the collective.""
"To the dominant meaning of reaffirming a collectivity of warriors a
community may add themes such as renewal of nature, as the dance of the
Kouretes
does. The pyrriche, in sum, has the "predisposition" to transmit a thematic
complex deeply linked with the schema of rites of passage (separation,
liminality, reintegration), but its specific sense derives from the occasion.
There is
no pyrrhiche per se."
"As a choreographic style it could be incorporated into dithyramb. Over time,
the pyrrhiche lost its ritual meaning in many places and became
entertainment, even pantomime."
"The connection between the pyrrhiche and rites of transition must have
faded, for it cannot be found at the institutional level in the fifth century
or
later, but she believes that the evidence shows traces of an earlier stage in
which the pyrrhiche was executed by a young warrior at a moment of initiation
or at a funeral. C. thus follows a strong continental tradition in taking
age-class initiation of the young as her frame of reference -- a tradition
established for the Greek world by Henri Jeanmaire, taken up by Angelo
Brelich,
and followed more recently by Claude Calame and Pierre Brulé, among others._2_
(http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2000/2000-03-17.html#n2) These scholars
assume that, like other pre-urban cultures, early Greek culture must have had
rituals for moving young men and women to adult status, and they look for such
rituals, or their traces, in Greek religious practice and myth. The model can
be combined with structuralism, as C. does to some extent, for the
liminality and inversion associated with the period of initiation can be
detected by
its being coded as a series of oppositions (visual, linguistic, culinary,
sartorial, etc.) to standard practices or values."
"There is a school of thought that is sceptical of using initiation as an a
priori framework."
"Simon Price, for instance, remarks, "Initiation rituals or 'rites de
passage' are held to underlie many if not all myths.... As a matter of fact
classical Greece had very few initiation rituals and so the theory hypothesised
that, while rituals had been lost or transformed, myths continued to be told in
the classical and later periods. Compulsive detection of initiation rituals can
be rather arbitrary and in the end casts little light on Greece of historic
periods."
"According to this approach, which I share, the (earlier) existence of a
relevant initiation ritual is something one must demonstrate before
interpreting
myths or gestures as a reflection of it; not all pre-urban cultures practiced
initiation."
"Greek myth reveals concern with the transition of the young to warrior
status, certainly, but such concern exists whether ritualized or not. Indeed,
myth may substitute for ritual in expressing a culture's anxiety and interest
in
the process."
"The category "initiation ritual" but relies on earlier scholars'
interpretations of various festivals like the Apatouria as initiatory. She
therefore
gives the sceptic no new reason to accept the one-time presence of age-class
initiation throughout Greece, necessary to her thesis. On the contrary, it
seems to me that her effort to identify initiatory practices sometimes leads
her
to distortions. In discussing Athens, for instance, C. must weight evidence
inappropriately, slighting the Panathenaia compared to the Apatouria, even
though there is no real evidence for the pyrrhiche at the latter. Moreover, I
have a different impression of the nature of these festivals. In a recent
study
of the Attic phratries Steven Lambert points out that the only connection
ever drawn between the Apatouria and the myth of Xanthos and Melanthos is the
punning false etymology of Apatouria from apate (deception). He thinks the
connection is a scholar's invention, perhaps Hellanikos'. If so, ephebic
ideology was not germane to the festival. The Apatouria, in any event, was a
festival of kinship that linked generations and involved children of various
ages._5_ (http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2000/2000-03-17.html#n5) Similarly,
the
Panathenaic pyrrhiche was danced by boys and adult men as well as youths. In
both cases C. describes the festivals as concentrated on a single moment of
discontinuity (change of status for youths), whereas the festivals seem to me
to
celebrate a continuum of involvement for male citizens from boyhood on."
"Age-class initiation explains ritual or myth, I find C.'s discussion
enormously valuable in ways that transcend this issue, for two reasons. First,
she
organizes a huge amount of evidence very skillfully and pursues many issues
of interest; beyond those I have mentioned she discusses, e.g., pyrrhic and
tragedy, Polybios on dance in Arcadia, maenads, the iconography of dance in
Asia
Minor. One of the best features of the book is that C. always provides the
actual evidence for her conclusions and often discusses other possible
interpretations. She has remarkable command of scholarship on a wide range of
problems; for Americans the book is a goldmine of information on recent
European
scholarship on all these topics."
"A psychological view of the pyrrhiche. When C. describes the dance itself
as the state of alterity and its conclusion as reintegration in the community
she turns from age-class initiation to the idea of transition from one state
of mind to another: the pyrrhiche as inducing or miming the warrior's shift
into and out of intense battle-focus, "furious" yet coordinated with his
fellow-soldiers. At this level the idea of transition is productive because it
includes all dancers. It allows us to see dance and myth as complementary (as
C.
implies), for the dance represents successful negotiation of the transitions
while myth warns of possible failures. In myth the outcome wavers between
destructive violence and victory. C.'s discussion of Neoptolemos captures the
problem of the "new warrior" -- his emotional intensity and potential isolation
and the need to integrate him into a military structure. In the dance the
discipline of the rapid, weapon-brandishing choral dance controls the fervid
psychological state that it also evokes. The pyrrhiche can thus "educate"
especially young men in controlled and coordinated aggressiveness."
"The psychological interpretation may explain the connection of Artemis with
the pyrrhiche, for she oversees the wild and bounds it off from human
culture. It accounts for the affinity of Dionysus and the pyrrhiche. Likewise,
C.'s
demonstration of the evolution of the dance in the Hellenistic period
provides another way to glimpse the changed relationship of citizens to war."
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