Draft:Cosmic dance

The cosmic dance is the notion that creation is an act of music. It is also known as the heavenly dance, dance of the stars and the universal dance. This trope of Western thought, most popular in the Middle Ages, was drawn from the early Greek philosophers. Plotinus' fable of the Great Chorus trampling a tortoise in its path is an early instance.

It is closely related to the music of the spheres idea, and to the broader sense of an orderly and harmonious physical world reflecting the order and harmony of heaven. See the great chain of being. It was particularly influenced by astronomical observations of the heavens in constant and orderly motion.

The cosmic dance is eloquently referenced in many Elizabethan era texts, including Milton's masque Comus, his Reason of Church Government, and works by Dryden, Shakespeare, Elyot and Isidore of Seville. Sir John Davies' (of Ireland) unfinished poem Orchestra is entirely dedicated to illustrating the doctrine. Sir John has suitor Antinous persuading Penelope to dance by appealing to the nature of the universe.

Ficino, citing followers of Plato, conceptualised the cosmic dance of the planets to produce but one of two forms of divine music; the other known only to the mind of God.

Courtly dancing in early modern England was promoted within elite circles on the basis of its celestial association.