Parson upon Dorothy : the other versions

A while ago, I wrote an article about the first version of Parson upon Dorothy, a bucolic dance by the editors of the Dancing Master. I presented several proposals of reconstruction for that choreography – and proposed mine. About my version, I’ve heard good and bad things, so why don’t you make up your own mind?

In the previous article, I had promised to have a look at the other two versions of the dances. Those latter versions are quite similar, enough to be studied together. So today, I propose to reconstruct those two choreographies.

Being a French native speaker, I write in English as good as I can. Please let me know if you sot any error. thank you!

The sources for Parson upon Dorothy

For more information about the tune and its longevity, see my previous article.

Parson upon Dorothy, version 2, is to be found the first time in the 11th edition of the Dancing Master (1701). Then in the five following edition, up to 1716 (16th edition).

Then, from the next edition (1721), we find the third version. It stays in the 18th and last edition, in 1728.

We also read the instructions for version 2, verbatim, in John Walsh’s The Compleat Country-Dance Master, after 1735 (series2, vol. 4). Walsh carelessly plagiarises the Dancing Master, from his first book in 1718: it is not a surprise to find an identical text. We already had observed that phenomenon in Hambleton Round O.

Let’s now try to reconstruct those two dances.

Version 2 of Parson upon Dorothy (1701-1716)

One cannot reconstruct any dance without reading the original text first, so here it is:

The text

Honour to the Presence, then to your own. Lead up forward and back, that again

The 1. Man sides with his own wo. Then on the outside, 1. Man and wo. And turn S. half round and back again, turn half round as before, and back again, then take your own wo. By the right hand and turn her once round, then by the left hand and turn her once round again; then the 1. Man goes to the 2. Wo. And the 1. Wo. To the 2. Man, and so go on till you come to your own place again. Do this to the end.

Henry Playford, The Dancing Master, Londres, 11ème édition, vol I, p.94.

Please don’t give up because of the rambling text. I know, it is a bit like reading the transcription of a call, where the caller reminds the figures more than they explains them. And sometimes, they ahve to repeat, for the dreamy couple far in the back of the room.

But it takes more to discourage me!

Introduction

First step: to split the text into logical blocks.

Honour to the Presence, then to your own. Lead up forward and back, that again

Since the end of the 17th century, the standard introductions (Lead, Sides, Arms) are less in favour. The Dancing Master‘s new dances don’t contain those typical figures. Yet, several longways dances have an “introductory figure”, as the one above.

The introductory figure of Parson Upon Dorothy, n°2 is the same as in The King’s Jigg. Here are some examples of such figures:

• Lead up all and fall back, that again : | Set to your own and fall back, then arms with your own : | (The Duke of Lorain’s March)
• Lead up all a D. forward and back, that again, Sett, that again (Punk’s Delight, the new way)
• Lead up all, and down : | That again, Sett to your own, and fall back : | That again (Black Jack)

Those introductory figures are performed by all dancers at once, only once. How do I know that?

I concede that it is unclear in Dorothy. But in the other dances that I mentionned, there is the word all. So that part is for all dancers, and not only for the first man.

The introductory figure is sometimes doubled (that again), but it is not repeated on each turn of the dance. Indeed, that part is clearly set apart from the rest of the text by an horizontal line. Furthermore, the other parts of the text finish with an explicit order to repeat the figure with other couples:

• Do this to the end (Parson upon Dorothy)
• Do this to all, the rest following (The Gossip’s frolick)
• Do this to the last (Amaryllis)

The problem with the introductory figure in Parson upon Dorothy no.2

That particular introductory figure is tricky to reconstruct because it doesn’t cover the whole music. The Dancing Master gives 3 melodies of 4 bars, in 4/4. I am not a musician, so I systematically translate that in walking steps:

3 melodies of 8 steps each, all played twice = 48 steps / beats.

48 steps is pleeeenty of time to perform this:

Honour to the Presence, then to your own. Lead up forward and back, that again

I think that, whatever the punctuation hints, that againapplies to the whole line, and not only to the part after the dot.

So, the dancers do Honour, Honour, Lead up and back, that occupied 16 beats. that module can be repetead three time, once on each melody. Quite boring for today’s dancers, indeed. But that’s the most coherent explanation.

The figures

Texte original	Explanation
The 1. Man sides with his own wo.	Couple 1 sides
Then on the outside,	Unclear, I’ll return to it
1.Man and wo. And turn S. half round and back again,	Couple 1 facing partner, each 1/2 turn single and back
turn half round as before, and back again,	Same a before
then take your own wo. By the right hand and turn her once round,	Couple 1 right-hand turn
then by the left hand and turn her once round again;	Couple 1 left-hand turn
then the 1. Man goes to the 2. Wo. And the 1. Wo. To the 2. Man, and so go on till you come to your own place again. Do this to the end.	The progression is clearly laid out, 1st man goes from woman to woman, and the 1st lady from man to man

That’s nice from the author to explain us how the dancers progress, but we need to know on which figure the progression happens!

In that choreography, we have:

• Sides ;
• « on the outside » ;
• Turn single ;
• Hand-turns.

Traditionally, none of the known figures above allow the dancers to progress. By deduction, it only leaves the mysterious on the outside to progress.

Interprétation for the 2nd version of Parson upon Dorothy

So I interpreted that on the outside as a “Cecil Sharp siding” (don’t hit me already!). The partners cross with their right shoulder to switch places (the man then goes on the outside of the set). The partners then turn around on their right shoulder to face each other. That is, in fact, a inverted Cecil Sharp siding (a regular Sharp siding preconises a right sholder crossing)

J’ai donc interprété ce then on the outside comme un « Cecil Sharp siding ». Les partenaires se croisent épaule droite pour changer de place (l’homme passe bien « à l’extérieur » de la formation), et se retournent sur leur épaule droite pour se faire face. Ceci est, de fait, un sides à la mode de Sharp, inversé (pour un Sharp sides classique on se croise épaule gauche).

So, at the end of that on the outside, partners have switched places. And the man (to whom the historical instructions are systematically addressed) has gone on the outside.

Did everything turned out for the best ? We’ll see !

Before proposing you a reconstruction for version 2, let’s see if the thrid version can enlighten us on that ambigous then on the outside.

Version 3 for Parson upon Dorothy (1721-1728)

The text

As usual, let’s read the txt!

Each strain is to be play’d twice  over

The first Man side with his Partner on one side .| Then on the other 😐 Then both clap once, and turn their Backs to one another and clap again .| Then their Face and clap, and their Backs and clap once 😐 Then they turn their Face and clap three or four times, and turn his Partner and clap three or four times again; then turn and leave his partner to go to the 2. Man, and he goes to the 2. Wo. And do the same, till they get to the bottom, and leave off on their own sides 😐

Henry Young, The Dancing Master, Londres, 17ème édition, vol. I, p. 94.

Comparison with version no. 2

At first glance, notice the disappearance of the introductory figure!

But above all, note the similarities with version 2. The text is very different, but the movements described are almost identical.

Version 2	Version 3
Honour 2x, Lead up 2x
Side	Sides
« On the outside»	Sides on the other side
½ turn single	Clap and turn your back to partner
½ turn single	Clap and face partner
½ turn single	Clap and turn your back to partner
½ turn single	Clap and face partner
Turn partner	Clap clap clap turn partner
Turn partner	Clap clap clap turn partner and progress

The two versions are therefore extremely similar. So much so, in fact, that you have to wonder whether it might not be the same choreography?

Could version 3 simply be a correction, an improvement on the text of the previous version?

So, fifteen years after the first publication of Parson upon Dorothy, John Young would have (finally!) corrected a faulty version or improved an unclear description.

But this seems strange to me. There’s something wrong, isn’t there?

Something fishy

A very late and unusual correction

In the Dancing Master, it is fairly rare to see corrections. Choreographies are added or removed, sometimes replaced by others of the same name (such as Goddesses, of which there is a version from 1651 to 1716, and another in 1721 and 1728). Corrections tend to involve modernising the spelling, such as Kemps Jegg (1651), which becomes Kemp’s Jigg (1698). Moreover, fifteen years seems a long time to make a correction.

An addition, a deletion

I’m talking about a same dance, but there’s a big difference between the two versions. It’s the ‘claps’. Completely absent from the previous version, they start almost every figure here.

It’s possible that the dancers, carried away in their momentum, ‘naturally’ added the hand claps. And that John Young then updated the text to reflect what was being done at the time?

In the same vein, there’s the famous introductory figure (2 honour, 2 lead up and back), which disappears in the third version. Does this reflect the zeitgeist of 1721, when introductory figures had had their day?

The sides-sides sequence in the Dancing Master, 1701

In 1701 – the year Parson upon Dorothy version 2 was published – the sides-sides sequence was rare. If we exclude dances with introductions, we find two sides one after the other in only 7 dances out of 336, or 2.08% of the corpus.

This sequence is expressed as follows:

• Joan’s Placket: the first couple sides on one side .| and on the other side : |
• A la mode de France: sides all to the right and to the left
• Cobler’s Jigg: the first man sides with his own wo. Then on the other side of his own wo.
• Smith’s rant: first sides with your own wo. Then on the other side
• Moll Peatley, the new way: the first couple side to the second couple of one side and then on the other side

That leaves Row well ye mariners and Under the greenwood, where the sides are done with two different people.

You’ll notice with me that when two sides follow each other, the author clearly indicates to do it ‘on one side and on the other’ or ‘on the right and on the left’. He doesn’t quibble talking about the outside or the inside. Why should the wording be different for an identical movement?

On the outside

In version 2, the text reads:

The 1. Man sides with his own wo. Then on the outside

Now, if the man does a classic sides, to the left (right shoulder against his partner’s right shoulder), then the second side is to the right. In other words, towards the inside of the formation, not the outside.

Hypothesis

n short, as you will have gathered, my Cartesian, logical brain is keen to see two distinct dances in versions 2 and 3 of Parson upon Dorothy. Each version is differentiated by its mode of progression (as well as the presence or absence of an introductory figure and clapping). I really wish Henry Playford and Henry Young were as logical as I am. And for each movement to have one and only one name.

But I can’t convince myself. Despite significant differences between the two versions, I believe that the same dance is described both times. Perhaps the second version is an update, inspired by what the dancers did at balls. This would explain the disappearance of the outmoded introductory figure and the addition of lively hand claps.

So here’s my proposal. I like the idea of a figure that gets everyone moving at the start of the dance, which is why I’m keeping the introductory figure. I also think the hand claps are fun. So I’m proposing a hybrid version.

Reconstruction for versions 2 & 3 of Parson upon Dorothy

Part.      Mes.     Fig.

A            1-8        Introduction (do nothing)

B            1-4        Honour partner, twice

               5-8        Lead up and back, twice

C            1-8        As B

A’           1-8        Active couple sides on Right, then Left shoulder

B’           1-2        Active partners, clap and 1/2 turn single to the right (finishing back to partner)

               3-4        Active partners, clap and ½ turn singleto the left (finishing facing partner)

               5-8        Same as B1-4, beginning the turns to the left. End with three claps

C’          1-4       Active couple right-hand turn. End with three claps

               5-8        Active couple, left-end turn, then go froward to next partner

Repeat the dance with one more active couple, then again and again until everyone is back to starting place.

I think I gathered the most interesting elements of both texts. Is it a good reconstruction – in the sens that it follows exactly the original text? No. is it a good dance? I think so (you may disagree!). Especially if you keep the sets short (4 couples max.)

If you’d rather have a perfectly historical reconstruction, you can:

• Leave out parts A, B, C of my proposal: you the get a good reconstruction of versio 3 (1721-1728);
• Leave out the claps: you the get a good reconstruction of version 2 (1701-1716 + Walsh 1735).

I’m open to discussion about this famous then on the outside, and this introductory figure – all too often omitted from reconstructions. Will you dance Parson upon Dorothy? In which of its three versions?

Leave me a comment!