Re: Gebelin online in English

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Wordreference has "jeter un sort" for "cast a spell". "Disposer" can mean "induce". It is a little less emphatic than "casting" but not as passive as "showing": "arranging some spell", perhaps? "Spell" does fit what a Magician does, or pretend to do. My main objection is to "wand" instead of "staff" or "rod". The "disposant" is an action by the Bateleur, while the "bagette" is in a biblical context.

About the Horace reference, I think by "framed gold" Gebelin just means it's of lasting memory or significance. I found Sablefeather's explanation fitting:
[Maybe a reference to "Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero" - Horace Ode 1.11. "Seize the day, put no trust in tomorrow".]
Now that is cast in gold, as common today as it ever was. The fool lives in the moment, going whatever way strikes his fancy, without any thought as to where it will lead.

Re: Gebelin online in English

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mikeh wrote: 24 Jun 2019, 02:05
Added: another error, I think, although all the translations make it (copying each other?). He renders " l'Amour les perce de ses traits" as "Cupid lines up his arrow. " Surely the meaning is "Love pierces them with his traits."
Not all, Tyson gets it totally wrong and translates it:
"... a priest blesses them, an expression of love on his features."

SF is closer with:
"...Love pierces them of its traits."

But again SF has not translated 'traits' correctly, and the use of 'its' implies a reading of l'Amour here in the abstract sense as 'love' rather than as a name referring to the figure/god of Love, Cupid.

Both of them I believe have mistranslated 'traits' here, not realizing that 'traits' is used here in the somewhat archaic sense of meaning 'arrows'.
l'Amour means here [the god of] Love, that is, Cupid/Eros, the fourth figure on the card (the lover, the beloved, the priest (as Gebelin describes them) and l'Amour/Cupid).

Eros/Cupid/the god of Love is, or was, often named "l'Amour" in French, sometimes diminutively as 'the little god of Love' - "l'Amoureau" . The phrase 'l'Amour …. perce de ses traits' is one derived from the common depiction of Cupid with drawn bow and arrow.

Trait [or traict] has several meanings, line, arrow, dart, lance, shaft, spear [in which sense it is now rarely used], or in terms of character as features, traits [more common meanings in modern French]. As 'arrow' it is not exactly synonymous with Flesche, or dart [arrow] - as it is usually used in respect of an arrow that is bowed and drawn, aimed, lined up, ready to shoot - it also means a lance/spear, but again tends to be used specifically of a lance/spear in hand ready to be thrown. That is, it is used of projectile weapons (lances, spears, arrows, darts) in use, at the ready, in the course of action. As such there is no one word translation of it in English I can think of off-hand, 'arrows' doesn't give the full meaning of it, it needs some qualification such as, for example:

Cupid [or, the god of Love] is ready (or, about?) to pierce them with his arrows.

Re: Gebelin online in English

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mikeh wrote: 10 Jul 2019, 13:09 About the Horace reference, I think by "framed gold" Gebelin just means it's of lasting memory or significance. I found Sablefeather's explanation fitting:
[Maybe a reference to "Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero" - Horace Ode 1.11. "Seize the day, put no trust in tomorrow".]
Now that is cast in gold, as common today as it ever was. The fool lives in the moment, going whatever way strikes his fancy, without any thought as to where it will lead.
Well, yes - but that doesn't sound to me anything like how Gebelin had just described the fool. That is, as trying to escape himself, but unable to escape his errors/remorse that bite him. Which is the sense in which I found Horace's Ode to the victim of remorse:


"Not even for an hour can you bear to be alone, nor can you advantageously apply your leisure time, but you endeavour, a fugitive and wanderer, to escape from yourself, now vainly seeking to banish remorse by wine, and now by sleep; but the gloomy companion presses on you, and pursues you as you fly."


The fool is dogged by his errors/remorse.

Re: Gebelin online in English

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SteveM wrote: 10 Jul 2019, 10:02
mikeh wrote: 28 Jun 2019, 10:28
I think it would be good if you tidied up those two Tarotpedia translations and posted them here or somewhere easily accessible. It would be a useful service.
OK - I can do that - I will put it in a thread here where perhaps others will contribute corrections, amendments notes and links - and perhaps when we are satisfied with it you could also put it up on one of your blogs?
I've made a start of it here:

http://www.forum.tarothistory.com/viewt ... f=9&t=1414

Corrections, amendments, notes, links welcome.

Also any suggestion re: formatting - I tried for a while to follow Gebelin's as it appears in Monde Primitif, but that is very inconsistent and for ease of reading I think a more consist format would be better.