The Dance
In Brueghel’s (1) great picture, (2) The Kermess, (3)
the dancers go round, they go round and
around, the squeal (4) and the blare (5) and the
tweedle (6) of bagpipes, (7) a bugle (8) and fiddles (9)
tipping (10) their bellies, (11) (round as the thick-
sided (12) glasses (13) whose wash (14) they impound) (15)
their hips and their bellies off balance (16)
to turn them. Kicking (17) and rolling about (18)
the Fair (19) Grounds, (20) swinging (21) their butts, (22) those
shanks (23) must be sound (24) to bear up (25) under such
rollicking (26) measures, (27) prance (28) as they dance
in Brueghel’s great picture, The Kermess
FOOTNOTES
(1) Brueghel, Pieter, the Elder (1525?-1569): The greatest Flemish painter of the 16th century, whose landscapes and vigorous, often witty, scenes of peasant life are particularly renowned.
(2) A painting or drawing, etc. that shows a scene, a person or a thing.
(3) (Country Fair): (a) An outdoor festival of the Low Countries (Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg). (b) A fair held usually for charitable purposes.
(4) A long high cry or sound.
(5) A loud unpleasant noise.
(6) (Twiddle): (a) A twist or turn. (b) A decorative twist in a pattern, piece of music, etc.
(7) Musical instrument played especially in Scotland. The player blows the air into a bag held under the arm and then slowly forces the air out through pipes to produce sound.
(8) A musical instrument like a small trumpet, used in the army for giving signals.
(9) Colloquial term for any kind of bowed instrument, especially the violin, or in reference to its use as a ‘folk’ instrument.
(10) (a) To move so that one end or side is higher than the other; to move something into this position. (b) To make something/somebody come out of a container or its/their position by holding or lifting it/them at an angle. (c) To touch something lightly so that it moves in a particular direction.
(11) (a) The part of the body below the chest. (b) The upper surface of a stringed instrument, over which the strings are stretched.
(12) Having thick sides.
(13) (often in compounds) A container made of glass, used for drinking out of.
(14) An insipid beverage.
(15) To collect and confine (water) in or as if in a reservoir.
(16) To make somebody/something unsteady and in danger of falling.
(17) To move your legs as if you were kicking something.
(18) (a) To turn over and over and move in a particular direction; to make a round object do this. (b) To turn over and over or round and round while remaining in the same place; to make something do this. (c) (roll about): to be laughing so much that you can hardly control yourself.
(19) An outdoor entertainment at which people can play games to win prizes, buy food and drink, etc., usually arranged to make money for a special purpose.
(20) (often in compounds) An area of land that is used for a particular purpose, activity or sport.
(21) To move or make something move with a wide curved movement.
(22) (a) The part of the body that you sit on. (b) A large round container for storing or collecting liquids.
(23) (a) The part of an animal’s or a person’s leg between the knee and ankle. (b) The straight narrow part between the two ends of a tool or an object (e.g. a musical instrument).
(24) (a) Sensible; that you can rely on and that will probably give good results. (b) In good condition; not damaged, hurt, etc.
(25) To remain as cheerful as possible during a difficult time.
(26) Cheerful and often noisy.
(27) (a) A particular amount of something, especially a fairly large amount. (b) One of the short sections of equal length that a piece of music is divided into, and the notes that are in it. (c) A stately English dance of the 15th and 16th centuries. (‘trod a measure’ is a frequent phrase in Elizabethan drama).
(28) To walk in an energetic way and with more movement than is necessary; to move quickly with exaggerated steps so that people will look at you.
ANALYSIS
“We can know nothing and can know nothing but the dance . . .”
“The dance, to dance to a measure
contrapuntally,
satyrically, the tragic foot.”
Williams had far more of a painter’s eye than do most poets. His famous, somewhat baffling, yet nevertheless valuable, concept of the ‘variable foot’ (each ‘foot’—or line- fragment—a held moment or unit of measure within an unfolding apperception) gives the typographical movement of his later poems something of the character of animated abstract painting. It is clear that he felt a compelling convergence of visual and aural patterns as he wrote.
One can easily notice how wisely the poet introduces both the painter and his painting, along with its peasant-dance theme, in the very first line. In the second line Williams starts using his usual technique of broken sentences in order to paint the occasion of the dance and its continuity. (Unstressed words at the end of each line make the eyes run on to the next.)
The repetition of the word ‘round’ in the coming lines helps the reader much to find out what the dance is like. Furthermore, these repeated words, which will occur more and more in the following lines, are telling of the drunken-style Williams has chosen in the middle part of the poem, inducing us to see the dancers’ drunkenness more vividly.
The sounds are not necessarily musical anyhow: there is ‘squeal’ and ‘blare’ everywhere. More confusion is aroused when the reader discovers the ambiguity of such words as ‘bellies’ and ‘shanks’, which can refer both to the instruments and the dancers. (Hence, ‘their’ in the fifth line could refer to the dancers, and simultaneously to the ‘fiddles’, etc.)
When the dancers go round, tipping their hips and bellies off balance to turn them (make them dance), comes the only instance of simile in the poem (the bracketed lines): their bellies are likened to the mugs they have been drinking from. ‘Off balance’ are the drunk dancers; so is the structure, which is overusing word repetitions up to the very last line, rounding off the poem with a final appreciation of the painter, who as Williams has said somewhere else, was an artist par excellence:
“Peter Brueghel the artist saw it
from the two sides: the
imagination must be served—
and he served
dispassionately.”
Nima Tahsili