Good, Huck. The case is getting weaker all the time.
I will continue. For poem XII, we have the Emperor, to wit:
« Soubs la pourveance bonne / Du Créateur qui hault tonne, / Empereur porte couronne / Dont grands poeuples avironne, / Aux quelx divers tourmens donne / Ou par voulenté felonne / Ou car n'est sage personne. »
Under the good power / of the Creator who thunders on high / Emperor wears crown / Whence great peoples row (?), / To whom various torments he gives / Or by treacherous will / Or in as much as no one is wise.
For triumph XIII, Strength (La Force) I we have Hercules and lions. The title then was, in most sources, Fortezza, i.e. Fortitude, the cardinal virtue, but Hercules no doubt had that as well :
«Herculés fut oultrageux voyagier / Qui entreprint toutes les mers nagier / Pour nom acquerre. / [...] Pluseurs monstres il avait abastu, / Tué géants et lyons desvestu. Tant estoit fort »
"Hercules was an outragous voyager / Who undertook to swim all the seas / To acquire a name. / [...] Many monsters has he beaten, / Killed giants and despoiled lions. So strong he was."
L"Hote observes that this applies more readily to the PMB card than to the Cary-Yale's.
For XIV, we have Judgment (the title then was the Angel, but the concept is the same):
« Et quant point n'y penseront, / Les meschants trespasseront, / Tout ce monde lesseront, / Fuir Juge ne pourront.
And he doesn’t think about it at all, / The wicked will pass on, / All leaving the world, / Cannot Escape the Judge. "
For XV, the triumph is "Triomphe". I assume he means the Chariot. At the end he says that this one corresponds to trump VII in the traditional order ("ordre traditionell"). The Chariot was often called "Triumphal Chariot":
« Luise le soleil ou pleuve: / Le temps glache comme ung fleuve, / Aussy font les biens mondains. / D'or et d'argent estes plains, / Honnouréz comme les saints: / Quy n'a de quoy, sy le treuve. »
Whether the sun shines or it rains: / Time slides like a river / So also are worldly goods. / From Gold and silver you are pitiable [or, Gold and silver are pitiable] / Honored like the saints / Who has the wherewithal, finds it thus. [Glache = slide]
I see the Sun and Time here (the old man with the hourglass, in the early tarot), but nothing resembling a Chariot. Presumably he sees gold and silver as the proof of secular triumph.
In poem XVI, L'Hote finds the Maison-Dieu--not by that name, of course, but in what is depicted on the card.
« Fortune et pechié forvoyent / Les hommes, tant qu'ilz ne voyent / Comment par leur seule faulte / Eslongent la Cité haulte [...] Les deux contre toy combatent, / Homme mortel, et te bâtent / Voullans qu'en chemin demoeures / Et de corps et d'esprit moeures. [...] Mes armes sont bien congnues Dessus et desoubs les nues: / Champ de gueule à troys fleurs d'or / Pour toy mener je porte or. »
Fortune and Sin mislead / men, so much that they do not see / How by their fault alone / they are removed from the high City [...] The two against you fight, / mortal man, and beat you / You wish the abiding road / and manners of body and spirit. [...] My arms are known Above and below the naked ones/ Red Field with three gold flowers / To lead you I wear gold
By "arms" is meant a coat of arms. He says that Dembowski says that such arms are unknown. He finds "red field with three gold flowers" a reference to the fire (red) and lightning (gold) on the Tower card. That seems quite a stretch. But might there not have been a coat of arms on the Chariot card? In the Cary-Yale, the lady holds a gold coin with a Visconti heraldic on it (
http://www.tarothistory.com/images/caryyalechariot.jpg). Perhaps L'Hote's description of the arms is meant to be generic. Also, the horses are by me identified with body and spirit, the two lower parts of the Platonic soul. He could also be thinking of Fortune and Sin as the two horses. And there is a road.
In poem XVII, L'Hote finds the Hermit.
Avise toy en chemin, / Car Pechié / Embuchié, / Embronchié / Et par grand barat muchié,
/ En habit de pelerin / Se faint de Vertu voisin. » [embuchié = prêt à embusquer; embronchier = caché 6]
He advises you on the road, / for Sin ready to ambush, / Hidden / And by great guile hidden/ In pilgrim's dress / makes Virtue a neighbor. [Embuchié = ready to ambush; embronchier = hidden]
L'Hote seems not to know that in the early cards the Old Man held an hourglass, so that he was Time, and in the PMB dressed rather expensively. Time, "Temps", fortunately, is a word that occurs several times in his quotes from other poems, which might better fit this card than this verse, or those verses the cards he associates them to.
We move on to XVIII. He says that in both V and XVIII "the virtues jostle; it is a question of justice, temperance, wisdom, prudence, patience..." XVIII in particular evokes "justice, hardiesse, actrempance [tempérance], courtoysie, sagesse" (justice, boldness, temperance, courtesy, wisdom). But the card associated with this poem, L'Hote declares, is Hope, "Esperance" in French, another of the Cary-Yale's theological virtue cards. In this poem L'Hote finds the phrase, "l'actente et l'esperance" (I don't know the meanng of "actente": perhaps "attention", like the similar "Actendéz" in the quote for poem XXIII. L'Hote says that this card is the one that probably changed to Temperance in later tarots. Similarly Charity, by the famous balancing of mercy with justice, becomes the Justice card. And Faith into the Bateleur. L"Hote seems to have no respect for the idea that Justice and Temperance had to be in the Cary-Yale if four other virtues were. But many virtues are in the poem!
In poem XIX, the name of the corresponding card is buried inside it somewhere. It is the Star:
« hardis et proeux champions qui en bien petit temps le monde tournèrent et par tout lesserent leur treslouable renommée ! [...] Et firent sy grand cris que du bout en aultre le monde fust estonné de leur voix et de leur lumière tout à cop esblouy. On les compare aussi à estoilles trescleres, ou au ciel estellé... »
"bold and proud champions who in a very short time change the world and by all are granted their very laudable fame. And such great cries were made that at the end the world was astonished by their voices and by their light suddenly dazzled. They are compared also to very bright stars, or the starry sky.
Of course triumph is mentioned here also, as well as fame, one early title for some card, and the world,
In poem XX we have the Moon. From the quotation marks in the middle, I would assume that both Fortune and Virtue are speaking:
«"Le ciel vous point, le ciel vous pique / Par influence magnifique." / "Que poeut sens et que vault practique / Contre puissance lunatique?"»
"The sky points to you, the sky pierces you / by its magnificent influence." / "What can sense and experience be worth / against lunatic power?"
Poem XXI has Death:
« Le Créateur glorifie, / En cui seulet te confie, / Car les vivans mortifie / Et le morans vivifie. »
The Creator glorifies / in whom alone you trust, / For the living mortify / And the dead quicken.
It seems to me that such sentiments are expressed in other of his quotations from the poems, too.
Poem XXII has the Lover:
« Oyez petis et grands ma doctrine notable. / [...] L'amour n'est pas durable. / Le plus prez d'elle a plus de soussy miserable, / Car mains arrestee est que le vent variable, / Que jamés en ung point estre ne poeut estable. »
"Big and little ones, hear my beautiful notable doctrine. / [...] Love is not sustainable. / The most worthy has [or is under] more misery, / For steady hands is as the variable wind / That never in one point will ever be at rest.
I don't quite get the point about "mains arrestee".
The last poem, XXIII, has for its card the World:
« Francs cueurs plantéz en terre, non pas pour y périr, / Mais en Cité celeste finalement flourir, / [...] Comme bons chevaliers errants aventureux, / Enflamméz de Vertu et d'Honneur amoureux, Actendéz sa bataille et ses cops rigoureux. »
"Courageous hearts you plant [or planted?] in the ground, not in order to perish there, / But the celestial City finally finally flourishes / [...] As good knights-errant adventurous / inflamed with Virtue and loving Honour, Observe his battle and his rigorous blows."
So we have, for L'Hote, the "heavenly city that will become traditional". In the Cary-Yale, he points out, there is "a walled city and in the foreground a knight (errant?)". Yes, I also find an Arthurian theme in that card, although castles rather than cities. In the quote, I notice that courage, i.e. Fortitude, is also mentioned. And the city, as the "high city" is mentioned elsewhere, too.
I am not ready to draw any conclusions.
Early on in this essay L'Hote has a quote from p. 171 of the poem (in Dembowski's edition) that he thinks refers to Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan. Virtue is speaking:
« En bonne foy, dame Fortune, monlt aidiez a ma cause monstrant par ces notables roys qu'en votsre amour n'a quelconque fiance, et qui plus vous croit, plus est decheu. Ores a point nous souvient de ung duc de Millan le quel fist paindre pompeusement vostre ymage une roue tournant. Et souvent de regardoit et en tenait devis [propos] comme aourant vostre puissance et vous remerciant des honneurs, largesses, triumphes haultes et grosses seignouries que soubs votre main tenoit. Maiz la loenge de son riche ouvrage fut abastue à ung mot par plus sage de luy disant que le paintre avoit lourdement mespris, car n'avoit arresté celle roue de tresfoi cheville, voulant par ce broquart signifier que folement le duc en sa prosperité se confioit et que mis au hault, debvoit doubter [craindre] le tour dont tumberoit en bas. »
"In good faith, lady Fortune, aid my cause, showing these notable kings not to have confidence in the love you have for them, and who, the more they believe you, the more they are ruined. Now we have remembered a Duke of Milan who had painted pompously your image on a turning wheel. And he often looked upon [it] and got devis [propos, purpose, sentiment] as having your power and thanking you for the honors, generosity, high triumphs and large seiniories that he keeps from your hand. But the loenge (?) of his rich work was beaten in a word by one wiser than he, telling him that the painter had heavily ill advised, because he had stopped this wheel three times cheville [joined?], wanting by this brocade (?) to signify that foolishly the Duke in his prosperity is confioit [had confided? confounded?] and that put on high, he must doubt [fear] the turn which brings him down”
Of this L"Hote says:
Autrement dit un duc de Milan a fait peindre une roue de fortune et la regarde souvent en sollicitant son propos.
That means that a duke of Milan has had a wheel of fortune painted and often looks at it seeking its purpose (or, sentiment or advice). Thus it is a kind of divination tool, he says. I myself am not sure about that. The three stops (arresté) on the wheel might be the three figures on top and the sides (except that there was also one at the bottom) in both the Cary-Yale and the Brera-Brambilla; Filippo looks at it to remind himself that others want his job and he must be vigilant to prevent losing power. It is a similar sentiment as in that expressed by his quote from poem III, regarding Fortune, "From the world it is, good or ill, / But to him governing crown or scepter / As having royal dignity / It too much puffs up his being." However Filippo, instead of getting more humility, seems to have become more paranoid. So after him came the deluge, so to speak, i.e. the burning of his castle by those who didn't mind his death.
So goes the world, or something like that.