CHAP. this also was antiently the custom, as we learn I. from the account DICEARCHUS has left us of the women of Thebes'. Divested of this attire, her figure at home, contrasted with the disguise she exhibited abroad, is singularly striking. Among all the travellers who were admitted into female society at Athens, or who have related from report what they did not actually see, there has been no writer more faithful or more happy in his representation than CHANDLER. It seems as if the subject had, for once, raised his feelings to the temperature necessary for animated description; and he briefly sketches a glowing portrait of a Grecian virgin in her secluded apartment. Her employment here is seldom varied: the (1) Vid. Dicæarchi Stat. Græc. apud Geog. Minor. p. 16. Oxon. 1703. (2) There the girl, like Thetis, treading on a soft carpet, has her white and delicate feet naked; the nails tinged with red. Her trowsers, which in winter are of red cloth, and in summer of fine calico or thin gauze, descend from the hip to the ancle, hanging loosely about her limbs; the lower portion embroidered with flowers, and appearing beneath the shift, which has the sleeves wide and open, and the seams and edges curiously adorned with needle-work. Her vest is of silk, exactly fitted to the form of the bosom and the shape of the body, which it rather covers than conceals, and is shorter than the shift. The sleeves button occasionally to the hand, and are lined with red or yellow satin. A rich zone encompasses her waist, and is fastened I. time which is not spent in the business of the CHAP. toilette, and at meals, is given to spinning and embroidery. Reading or writing seems to be entirely unknown; or to be considered rather as the vulgar occupation of clerks and scriveners, than of persons of taste and rank. The accomplishments of the Grecian, as of the Turkish ladies, are few in number: some few among them are able to touch, rather than to play upon, the dulcimer or the guitar; and to dance, but without the slightest degree of elegance or of liveliness. We visited the ball to which we had been Descripinvited; and found a large party of the wealthiest Ball. matrons of the Greek families, seated in a row, with their daughters standing before them. When the dancing began, we were called upon tion of a fastened before by clasps of silver gilded, or of gold set with precious stones. Over the vest is a robe, in summer lined with ermine, and in cold weather with fur. The head-dress is a scull-cap, red or green, with pearls; a stay under the chin, and a yellow forehead-cloth. She has bracelets of gold on her wrists; and, like Aurora, is rosyfingered; the tips being stained. Her necklace is a string of zechins, a species of gold coin; or of the pieces called Byzantines. At her cheeks is a lock of hair, made to curl towards the face; and down her back falls a profusion of tresses, spreading over her shoulders. Much time is consumed in combing and braiding the hair after bathing; and at the greater festivals, in enriching and powdering it with small bits of silver, gilded, resembling a violin in shape, and woven-in at regular distances. She is painted blue round the eyes; and the insides of the sockets, with the edges on which the lashes grow, are tinged with black." Chandler's Travels in Greece, p. 123. Oxf. 1776. CHAP. I. Mode of Dancing practised by the women. to assist, and we readily joined in a circle formed. by a number of young women holding each other by their hands in the middle of the room. From the figure thus presented, we supposed that something like a cotillion was about to be performed; but the dance, if it may be called by that name, consisted solely in a solemn poising of the body, first upon one foot, then upon the other; the whole choir advancing and retreating by a single step, without moving either to the right or to the left. The gravity with which this was performed, and the pompous attitudes assumed, were so uncommonly ludicrous, that it was impossible to refrain from laughter. In order, however, to apologize for our rudeness, we ventured to propose that the most easy figure of a French or of an English dance might be introduced; which was attempted, but pronounced too fatiguing. At this moment the eyes of the whole company were turned upon the fat figure of a matron, who, rising from the divan on which she had been seated, beckoned to another lady still more corpulent than herself, and, as if to assert the superior skill of her countrywomen in an exercise for which she had been considered famous in her youth, promised to exhibit the utmost graces of an Athenian pasde-deux. Immediately, several whispers were made in our ears, saying, "Now you will see how the Grecian ladies, who have studied the art, are able to dance." The two matrons stationed themselves opposite to each other, in the centre of the apartment; and the elder, holding a handkerchief at either extremity, began the performance, by slowly elevating her arms, and singing, accompanied by the clapping of hands. It was evidently the dance of the Gipsies, which we had often seen in Russia, particularly in Moscow'; but here it was performed without any of the agility or the animation shewn by the Tzigankies, and had been modified into a mere exhibition of affected postures, consisting of an alternate elevation and depression of the arms and handkerchief, attended now and then with a sudden turn and most indecorous motion of the body, neither of the dancers moving a step from the spot on which she had originally placed herself. In all this there was nothing that could remind us, even by the most distant similitude, of the graceful appearance presented by the female Bacchanals, as they are represented upon the Grecian vases. But as we had seen something CHAP. I. (1) See Part I. of these Travels, Vol. I. Chap. IV. pp. 79, 80. Octavo Edition. CHAP. I. more like to those pictured chorea among the islands, there is no reason to conclude that all the antient features of the Grecian dance have been entirely laid aside. One of them is certainly retained in every part of Greece; namely, that characteristic of antient dancing which is connected with the origin of the exercise itself, and of a nature forcibly opposed to all our ideas of decency and refinement. It was probably owing to this circumstance that the Romans held dancing in such low estimation'. The most discreet females of Modern Greece, practising what they conceive to be the highest accomplishment of the art, deem it to be no degradation of the virtues which they certainly possess, when they exhibit movements and postures of the body expressing, in our eyes, the grossest licentiousness. Possibly it may have been from observing such violations of decorum, that some travellers, in their accounts of the country, have calumniated the Grecian women, by imputing to them a general want of chastity. Yet there is no reason to believe that any charge of this nature has been deservedly (1) See the observation of Cicero, as cited in Vol. V. of these Travels, Chap. IV. p. 166. Octavo Edition. |