The origin of the tarantella is a matter of debate. Some say that it is a remnant from Bacchanalian rites; some say it derives from whirling responses to spider bites. Certainly, it seems to have been long associated with parts of Italy as the only cure for some tarantula bites.* The tarantella’s inclusion in wedding reception dances mimics the dancing associated with the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, a celebration that involved women dressed as brides who danced themselves into a trance as though they were under the influence of a black-bellied tarantula’s toxins.
The Web hides its own poisonous spiders who inflict hallucinatory trances upon those willing to dance to any innuendo, regardless of its veracity. Because the Web is far-reaching, its sticky threads are difficult to avoid. Anticipating where and how the spiders of inimical ideas and rumored guilt build their traps is the only way to avoid the bite. Want some advice? Before you act under the influence of such spiders, do some further research. That poisonous bites can affect the nervous system is undeniable, but they don’t have to infect the mind. Whirling in a mob is a questionable cure.
You don’t need to dance in a trance.
*Fabre, Henri J., The Life of the Spider. 1912. Fabre writes (p. 5), “The Italians have bestowed a bad reputation on the Tarantula, who produces convulsions and frenzied dances in the person stung by her. To cope with ‘tarantism,’ the name given to the disease that follows on the bite of the Italian Spider, you must have recourse to music, the only efficacious remedy, so they tell us. Special tunes have been noted, those quickest to afford relief. There is medical choreography, medical music. And have we not the tarentella, a lively and nimble dance, bequeathed to us perhaps by the healing art of the Calabrian peasant?”
The Web hides its own poisonous spiders who inflict hallucinatory trances upon those willing to dance to any innuendo, regardless of its veracity. Because the Web is far-reaching, its sticky threads are difficult to avoid. Anticipating where and how the spiders of inimical ideas and rumored guilt build their traps is the only way to avoid the bite. Want some advice? Before you act under the influence of such spiders, do some further research. That poisonous bites can affect the nervous system is undeniable, but they don’t have to infect the mind. Whirling in a mob is a questionable cure.
You don’t need to dance in a trance.
*Fabre, Henri J., The Life of the Spider. 1912. Fabre writes (p. 5), “The Italians have bestowed a bad reputation on the Tarantula, who produces convulsions and frenzied dances in the person stung by her. To cope with ‘tarantism,’ the name given to the disease that follows on the bite of the Italian Spider, you must have recourse to music, the only efficacious remedy, so they tell us. Special tunes have been noted, those quickest to afford relief. There is medical choreography, medical music. And have we not the tarentella, a lively and nimble dance, bequeathed to us perhaps by the healing art of the Calabrian peasant?”
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