ABSTRACT
The close relationship between dancing and Eros stems from the philosophical assumptions and problematic agencies it shares with music. Dancing is only allowed for "honest recreation, or bodily exercice", and moderation must be respected both in the manner of dancing and in the critical choice of a dancing master. The critical, deeply disenchanted use of music and of dance imagery is narrowly related to the strategies of love in a play which revolves around the issue of matrimony. The polarization of the erotic action of dancing is at the core of the debate between the metaphysical function of the dance as an expression and agent of harmony, in the microcosm, the macrocosm and body politic. The ethical implications of the metaphysical basis have been put forward by dance research in ways that explicit the link between dance as an erotic principle as well as agent, and its translation in the ideal of moderation, or temperance.
