Tea at Trianon: Pyrrhichios: The Ancient Greek War Dance

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Pyrrhichios: The Ancient Greek War Dance

From The Greek Reporter:

Pyrrhichios was the ancient Greek war dance that originated from the mythical Couretes deities, who danced to save the newborn Zeus from the hands of Cronus. The ancient Greek war dance has survived through the ages. It can be traced back to mythology and through to a specific war dance of the Pontic Greeks that continues to be performed traditionally to this day. The dance goes back ages ago and is associated with Zeus, the ruler of all gods.

Hesiod’s epic poem Theogony has been used as the source for Greek mythology. In the poem, Zeus was the son of Cronus and Rhea. Cronus had murdered his father, Uranus, due to the orders of his mother, Gaea, to ascend to the throne of the gods. (Read more.)