I repeat this story so that you may see how powerful these enticements are when used at the right moment, and how hard even the most reluctant and sanctified souls find it to resist them. John Maior, in the life of John the Monk, who lived in the days of Theodosius, praises the hermit as a man of extraordinary chastity and most austere life. But one night the Devil happened to come to his cell disguised as a young market girl who had lost her way, and begged him, for God’s sake, for lodging.

“The old man let her in. After some ordinary conversation about her misadventure, she began to entice him with lewd talk and jokes, play with his beard, kiss him, and do worse, until at last she overcame him. As he prepared himself for the act, she suddenly vanished, and all the devils in the air laughed him to scorn.” I will not argue much about whether this is a true story or a fiction; it serves to illustrate what I have said.

Yet even if those enticements I have described, and similar baits, are insufficient, many others can themselves intensify this passion of burning lust. Dancing is by no means the least of these. It is so powerful a device that I must not omit it. Petrarch calls it “an incitement to lust,” lust’s spur, “a circle whose centre is the Devil himself.” “Many women who practise it have returned home unchaste, most no better or worse, and none improved.”

Another calls it “the companion of every filthy pleasure and enticement. It is hard to tell what mischief comes of it, what coarse talk and obscene actions,” and often such monstrous gestures, lewd movements, wanton tunes, prostitutes’ kisses and familiar embraces,

As the girl of Cadiz begins her lustful dance to song, And the girls, applauded and approved, Sink to the ground with trembling buttocks, A stimulus to flagging desire.

That it will drive the spectators mad. When the epitomizer of Trogus had fully described King Ptolemy’s debauchery, he added “drumming and dancing”—fiddling and dancing—as a chief device and instrument of his downfall: “The king was not merely a spectator but a principal performer himself.”

Nevertheless, it is common practice, and part of a gentlewoman’s upbringing, to sing, dance and play the lute or a similar instrument before she can say the Lord’s Prayer or the Ten Commandments. Their parents think it the surest way to get them husbands. They are compelled to learn, and so “they practise unchaste loves from their tenderest years.”

As it is often practised, dancing is a powerful enticement, and many are ruined by it. Thais in Lucian enticed Lamprias through a dance. Herodias pleased Herod so much that she made him swear to give her whatever she asked: John the Baptist’s head on a platter.

Robert, Duke of Normandy, riding past Falaise, saw a beautiful maiden, Arlette, dancing on a green, and was so captivated by the sight that he simply had to sleep with her that night. Owen Tudor won Queen Catherine’s affection at a dance when he happened to fall with his head in her lap. Who cannot find parallels to these stories in their own experience?

Speusippus, a noble gallant in the Greek writer Aristaenetus, happened to see a beautiful young gentlewoman, Panareta, dancing. He fell so deeply in love that for a long time afterwards he could think of nothing but Panareta. He came home raving, full of Panareta: “Who would not admire her, who would not love her, if he merely saw her dance as I did? Oh, wonderful, divine Panareta! I have seen old Rome and new Rome, many beautiful cities and many handsome women, but never anyone like Panareta. Beside Panareta they are all dross, all frumps! Oh, how she danced, how she tripped, how she turned, with what grace! Happy the man who shall possess her. Oh, incomparable, matchless Panareta!”

When Xenophon, in his Symposium or Banquet, has discussed love and employed every imaginable device to move Socrates among the rest, he concludes with a delightful interlude or dance of Dionysus and Ariadne, to stir him further.

“First Ariadne entered dressed as a bride and took her place; soon Dionysus came in, dancing to the music. All the spectators admired the young man’s bearing, and Ariadne herself was so moved by the sight that she could scarcely sit still. After a while Dionysus, gazing at Ariadne and fired with love, bent to her knees, embraced her and kissed her gracefully. She embraced him in return and kissed him with equal affection, and so on, as the dance required. The onlookers warmly applauded and praised them both.”

“When Dionysus rose, he lifted her up with him, and many charming gestures, embraces, kisses and loving courtesies passed between them. Seeing handsome Bacchus and beautiful Ariadne kissing each other so sweetly and sincerely, and embracing so truly, the spectators swore that they were really in love. So inflamed were they by the sight that they began to stir themselves as though they would take flight.”

“At last, seeing them still embracing so willingly and now ready to go to the bridal chamber, they were so transported that the unmarried men swore they would marry at once, while the married men immediately called for their horses and galloped home to their wives.”

What greater incitement can there be than this burning lust? What more violent assailant? It is with good reason, then, that so many general councils condemn dancing, so many Church Fathers abhor it, and so many grave men speak against it. “Do not keep company with a woman,” says Sirach 8:4, “who is a singer or dancer; neither listen, lest you be caught by her cunning.” “In the circus lust is not so much watched as learned.” Haedus maintains that lust in theatres is not seen but learned.