_This is the net wherein the sun's bright eye VENUS and MARS entangled did behold; For in this dance their arms they so imply, As each doth seem the other to enfold. What if lewd wits another tale have told, Of jealous VULCAN, and of iron chains? Yet this true sense that forged lie contains._
_These various forms of dancing LOVE did frame, And besides these, a hundred millions moe; And as he did invent, he taught the same: With goodly gesture, and with comely show, Now keeping state, now humbly honouring low. And ever for the persons and the place, He taught most fit, and best according grace._
_For LOVE, within his fertile working brain, Did then conceive those gracious Virgins three, Whose civil moderation did maintain All decent order and conveniency, And fair respect, and seemly modesty: And then he thought it fit they should be born, That their sweet presence Dancing might adorn_.
_Hence is it, that these Graces painted are With hand in hand, dancing an endless round; And with regarding eyes, that still beware That there be no disgrace amongst them found: With equal foot they beat the flowery ground, Laughing, or singing, as their Passions will; Yet nothing that they do, becomes them ill._
_Thus LOVE taught men! and men thus learned of LOVE Sweet Music's sound with feet to counterfeit: Which was long time before high-thundering JOVE Was lifted up to Heaven's imperial seat. For though by birth he were the Prince of Crete, Nor Crete nor Heaven should that young Prince have seen, If dancers with their timbrels had not been._
_Since when all ceremonious mysteries, All sacred orgies and religious rites, All pomps, and triumphs, and solemnities, All funerals, nuptials, and like public sights, All parliaments of peace, and warlike fights, All learned arts, and every great affair, A lively shape of Dancing seems to bear._
_For what did he, who, with his ten-tongued Lute, Gave beasts and blocks an understanding ear; Or rather into bestial minds and brutes Shed and infused the beams of Reason clear? Doubtless, for men that rude and savage were, A civil form of Dancing he devised, Wherewith unto their gods they sacrificed._
_So did MUSÆUS, so AMPHION did, And LINUS with his sweet enchanting Song, And he whose hand the earth of monsters rid, And had men's ears fast chainèd to his tongue, And THESEUS to his wood-born slaves among, Used Dancing, as the finest policy To plant Religion and Society._