Why do we say "To trip the light fantastic"?

Meaning:

To dance, usually in the context of ballroom dancing

Background:

In these days of Covid-19, to go out ballroom dancing, that is to say "to trip the light fantastic" seems a distant fantasy (but for those of us born with two left feet, it always was a stretch).

The phrase has its origins in a relatively short 1645 poem by John Milton titled L'Allegro ("The Happy Man") about Euphrosyne, the Goddess of Mirth who Milton describes as dancing (triping) with footwork (toe) that is light and fantastic (fantastic has its roots in the Greek phantastikos meaning able to imagine or make visible.)

... Come, and trip it as ye go
On the light fantastic toe,
And in thy right hand lead with thee,
The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty;
And if I give thee honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free; ...

At some point, toe got dropped leaving us with the expression we know today, which was popularized by vaudeville impressario Tony Pastor around the mid 19th century in The Ballet Girl, the chorus of which goes as follows:

While she danced on her light fantastic toe,
Round the stage she used to go;
Had it not been for a man named Joe,
She might have belonged to me.

Some years later, in 1894, song writers Charles B. Lawler and James W. Blake released The Sidewalks of New York, the chorus of which goes as follows:

East Side, West Side, all around the town
The tots sang "ring-a-rosie, " "London Bridge is falling down"
Boys and girls together, me and Mamie O'Rourke
Tripped the light fantastic on the sidewalks of New York.

The expression, tripping the light fandango came later. It was in use during World War II and memorably included in the lyrics of English rock band Procol Harum's 1967 hit, A Whiter Shade of Pale.

Incidentally, there is no deep meaning behind the group naming themselves Procol Harum, despite it bearing some similarity to the Latin expression procul his (meaning beyond these things). Instead, they borrowed the name from a friend's Siamese cat.

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