Love's Labor's Lost and Dance Tautology: Dance as a metonym for love and courtship

Neither Twelfth Night or Love's Labor's Lost actually contains an entire dance, but dance figures prominently in metaphors of courtship, gentility, and general athletic prowess. In Act Three, scene one of Love's Labor's Lost, Moth queries, "Master, will you win your love with a French Brawl?" (III.i. 8-9) While his master, Armado, does not understand him initially, "How meanest thou? Brawling in French? (III.i. 13), Moth clarifies his meaning by using more dance terms, "No my complete master; but to jig off a tune at the tongue's end, canary to it with your feet…" (III.i. 11-12). Moth suggests that dancing is a good way for Armado to court Jaquenetta and ensures that both Armado and any less-educated audience members understand his metaphor by associating a French dance with the more common English jig. However, for the twentieth-century reader Moth's clarification hardly enlightens. We know no more about the jig or the canary than we do about the French branle, and footnotes rarely offer more information than "a dance" or in the case of to canary in the Signet Shakespeare, "dance in a lively way."³² In order to appreciate how subtly Shakespeare enriches the above speech, an understanding of the words themselves becomes necessary.

In Shakespeare and the Dance, Alan Brissenden defines a brawl or branle as a "linked dance related to the basse dance, usually in duple time; the dancers move sideways instead of forward. Thoinot Arbeau gives directions for twenty-four different branles in Orchesography (1589) and there were many others."³³ Here, a linked dance is one where the dancers hold hands and a basse dance, or low dance, is a solemn dance without jumps or leaps. As Arbeau's twenty-four branle variations demonstrate, the branle was extremely popular in France, therefore making it an appropriate dance to refer to wooing the French princess with. Indeed, it is a slow dance where one holds hands -- perfect for flirting and romancing.

A jig like the one Moth refers to Brissenden defines as a "Dance and song of a bright and apparently bawdy nature at the end of a play."³⁴ More specifically, Charles Baskervill describes the step in The Elizabethan Jig as characterized by leaping and whirling.³⁵ It is fitting, then, that Moth refers to the tongue and singing a tune when he mentions it saying, "to jig off a tune at the tongue's end" (III.i. 11-12). Unlike other dances where lyrics may or may not have accompanied movement, the jig, by definition, includes vocals. The only other mention of a jig in Love's Labor's Lost, "To see great Heracles whipping a gig / And profound Solomon to tune a jig" (IV.iii. 164-165), similarly refers to a lighthearted song and dance. In addition, a jig's bawdiness would hardly be out of place in a precocious boy's description of courtship and its lively and entertaining character make it a suitable vehicle for coquetry.

The canary, one of the most distinctive Renaissance court dances, is also knowingly referred to in this passage. Although most likely Spanish in origin, both French and Italian dancing manuals describe a canary, and as this phrase proves, English audiences knew it, as well. While the man being addressed is a Spaniard and Shakespeare could be referring to that in mentioning a dance from the Canary Islands, the dance itself makes appropriate Moth's injunction that in seeking love Armado should, "canary to it with your feet" (III.i. 12). One would canary with the feet as opposed to the arms or legs or another part of the body because fancy footwork, brushes, and stamping characterize the canary steps. Shakespeare's phrasing demonstrates an understanding of the dance's specific steps beyond its generally reputed, lively characteristics. Likewise, the structure of the canary dance makes it an effective part of this description of courting. Arbeau describes the dance thus:

A young man takes a damsel and to the rhythm of the appropriate tune they dance together to the far end of the hall. This done, he withdraws to the place from whence he started, continuing the while to gaze at the damsel; then he regains her side anew and performs certain passages after which he with draws again. The damsel now advances, does likewise before him and then withdraws to her former place, and they continue to sally and retreat as many times as the variety of passages permits.³⁶

The canary dance parallels courtship's back-and-forths as a whole while the canary's showy, Flamenco-like steps make it a suitable means of wooing for the feet. Thus, between the canary's stamping, the jig's jumps and leaps, and the branle's graceful sashaying, Shakespeare covers the spectrum of loving as well as of wooing. While we may need footnotes and translators, Shakespeare's audience recognized dance as a symbolic language that could apply to universals from human love to cosmic harmony.

Footnotes

³² William Shakespeare. The Complete Signet Classic Shakespeare. (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1972), p. 413. back to text
³³ Brissenden, p. 112. back to text
³⁴ Brissenden, p. 114. back to text
³⁵ Charles Read Baskervill. The Elizabethan Jig. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1929), p. 358. back to text
³⁶ Thoinot Arbeau. Orchesography. Langres, 1589. Translated by Mary Stewart Evans; Introduction and Notes by Julia Sutton. (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1967.), p. 179-180. back to text