I have been trying to figure out a historically appropriate way of looking at the “Marseille”-style court cards. The most popular schema for the courts these days is the Myers-Briggs personality types, but these of course aren’t historical. Their 17th century equivalents were the four temperaments. But the “Marseille” style courts have a lot of individual personality, especially the Noblets. Do these personalities express the four historical temperaments in some systematic way, either by suit or by rank? It is possible, but if so, I don’t see it. I will take up this question in relation to each of the Noblet court cards as I get to it.

Another schema of interpretation is suggested by visual similarities between aspects of particular courts and particular trumps. From the meaning of the trumps, one can then associate the meaning of the court, and vice versa. For example, the Noblet Page of Cups has a wreath of flowers; and so does the girl on the Lover card (below, left and right). Also, the horses on the Knight cards use the same colors as the horses on the Chariot cards, in four various ways. What do such parallels suggest, if anything?



A second mode of interpretation that currently appeals to me is in terms of literary antecedents.Almost as soon as I saw the Noblet Page of Swords (above center), I thought of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. He is standing there lost in thought, perhaps trying to decide something (just as, perhaps, the young man on the Lover card might be trying to decide something). From the way his sword touches his head, it would seem to be something like, “Should I kill myself or my uncle?” or perhaps “Do I really want to be a killer? Maybe I'm not cut out to be a soldier.”

After thinking this, I read Jodorowsky’s account of the pages, where he says (Way of Tarot p. 52).

“To be or not to be?” the Page of Swords seems to be asking himself as he prepares to sheathe his sword

So at least somebody else has had the same idea.

On ATF there were a couple of threads a while back on the issue of whether Shakespeare had tarot images in mind when he was writing some of his plays. I am interested in a different question: Is it historically appropriate to see the tarot court cards of 17th century Paris, specifically those of Noblet, in terms of characters in Shakespeare’s plays? Or if not, then those of other plays as known at that time, or of the sources that Shakespeare used?

It is clear that the trumps of the 15th century originated in part from the mystery plays of the late Middle Ages. They also reflected specifically Renaissance expressions of these themes, in art and conceivably also drama. But the court cards were not so definitely defined; they reflected court realities of the time, but in not very interesting ways. As the court cards developed over the centuries, their characterizations improved, especially in the cards of Noblet. Could drama as known in the Renaissance—either Greco-Roman or Renaissance—have influenced how they were drawn and seen?

My thesis is somewhat difficult, I admit. Shakespeare himself, in Noblet’s mid-17th century Paris, was virtually unknown, according to the history books. But French people also went to London, where his plays could still be seen, until Cromwell closed the theatres in 1640, and moreover, there were the first and second folio editions of his works. And after 1640 some theatre troupes may have tried their luck in Paris, catering to an Anglophile crowd. French theatre at that time was rather dismal, except for the much-maligned Corneille, who had been driven out of Paris by Cardinal Richilieu’s Academie Francaise for not following their rules for good theatre. Before 1640, some Parisians would have looked enviously across the channel; after that date, they may have congratulated themselves on their good fortune, if some London actors had come to Paris. It is not necessary that the designer of the Noblet actually have read or seen the plays; he may have just had them described to him and been struck by their intrinsic interest.

My fallback position is that if the court cards do not reflect Shakespeare, then they at least reflect characters from which he drew his unique creations. It is well known that he rewrote stories from other sources—Greek, Latin, Italian or French. Some of these sources were well regarded in Paris: e.g. Plutarch’s Lives and Seneca. In some cases I have found the relevant characters in his sources; in many cases I have not. This is especially true of the one play whose influence I see most often in the Noblet: Hamlet. Hamlet himself is the first of his kind, as far as I can tell.

(Note added by mikeh Jan. 10, 2011: In fact, 16th century French sources can be found for Shakespeare characters corresponding to all the Noblet courts. They, in turn, have 14th-16th century Italian sources. These in turn have characters corresponding to them in Latin and Greek classics well known during this whole era. So it is possible to read my argument without Shakespeare entering in at all. I refer those who wish to read this argument, in which Shakespeare drops out, are referred to my final consecutive post in this series, entitled "additions, summary and alternate hypothesis," of Dec. 15, 2010.)

HOW WERE THE SUITS DIFFERENTIATED HISTORICALLY?

Court cards obviously had a life before Shakespeare. Earlier interpretations would have continued, the Shakespeare-types merely grafted onto existing stock. So I should probably say something about those earlier cards.



Looking at the early courts, it is clear that there is some meaning to the differentiation among suits. Swords not only carry their suit sign but wear armor. In one 16th century Italian-style deck, which may or may not be a tarot (Kaplan vol. 2 p. 277), the King looks at the viewer as though holding his subjects accountable for something, lest they taste his sword. (Perhaps he is even pointing at us; next to him, Cups is pointing upward, and Batons at himself.) For their part, Batons not only wield batons, as a symbol of authority or as a modest weapon, less effective than a sword, but sometimes have other differentiating features. In the PMB they all have green sleeves or gloves, signifying agriculture or fertility.



I base my interpretation not only on the traditional association of Batons with agriculture, but on the same green garments’ appearance in four other cards: Love, Hanged Man (for the resurrection), Queen of Cups, and Empress.



In the 16th century deck that I posted above, as I have said, the King of Batons points to himself; perhaps he means to be pointing to a prime source of fertility. In another 16th century deck (Kaplan vol. 2 p. 184), the King of Batons has a phallic finger, which we might recognize from the Noblet Bateleur.



Coins on the cards, which the court figures display, are made in the likeness of coins, suggesting a dealer in money, such as a banker or a merchant. In cups, the Ace of Cups often looks like a baptismal font, and the cups themselves could be communion cups. Similarly, the King in the 16th century deck I showed first (also bottom row below) points toward heaven. But the same deck shows a Page downing a drink.



In the 18th century, several writers made observations similar to those I have just made. De Mellet, for example, says (http://www.donaldtyson.com/gebelin.html):

The Sword marked royalty and power of the earth.

The priests made use of vessels for the sacrifices, and the Cup designated sacred.

The Coin, commerce.

The Baton, the Hoe, the Needle represent agriculture.

Also:

The Cups in general announce happiness, and the Coins wealth.

The Batons are devoted to agriculture and prognosticate more or less abundant harvests, the things which are seen in the countryside or which pertain to it.

They stand for a mixture of good and evil: the four court figures have a green wand, similar to the wand of Fortune, but the other cards express, by compensating symbols, an indication neither good or bad: two only, whose wands are the color of blood, seems devoted to misfortune.

All the Swords predict only misfortunes, especially those marked with an odd number, that carry still a bloody sword. The only sign of victory, the crowned sword, is in this suit the one sign of a happy event.

But there are a couple of problems. First, meanings got attached to the comparable suits in regular cards based on how they looked: e.g. love with Hearts. That probably had an effect on the similar suit in tarot, emphasizing the relationship of Cups to love as opposed to religion. Second, the suits may have evolved new meanings on their own. In the 19th century we hear of Swords as about thinking, Cups as about the emotional life, Coins about health, and Batons as about access to magical realms. Were these changes introduced by the Golden Dawn, or were they continuing a tradition already in effect, perhaps even before de Mellet? Just because de Mellet didn’t mention these meanings doesn’t mean they didn’t exist. His acquaintance with the cards was probably superficial.

There is also the question of to what extent there was competition from other principles of card design, e.g., the four temperaments. Part of the problem here is deciding which suit goes with which temperament. Sources from that time do not agree.

Then there is the question of how to interpret the different ranks, from page to king. The Sola-Busca tarot deck of 1491 shows evidence of Neopythagorean influence in the pips and of an arrangement according to the four temperaments in the courts. The Noblet trumps, I think, show Neopythagorean considerations as well (viewtopic.php?f=12&t=530&start=20#p8518). Well, the same Neopythagorean structure could have been applied to the Courts. Jodorowsky has developed this theme, although his assigning the highest value to the Knights is obviously without historical merit. What follows is my own, based on the Neopythagorean precepts I discussed in the thread "Deciphering the Sola-Busca Trumps" for the Aces through Fours (starting at viewtopic.php?f=12&t=530) and Pages (11) through Kings (14) (starting at viewtopic.php?f=12&t=530&start=40#p8973).

The Pages correspond to the Monad, the beginnings, a young man just starting out, in any of four different directions. There might be a relationship to the Bateleur and to Strength, trumps numbers 1 and 11. The Knight is the journeyman in that profession. Since the Twos involve separation from the One, becoming a journeyman requires some separation from the former master, perhaps even moving to another town. Pages are unmarried; Knights might be, but if married, it is secondary. He is primarily on a quest to prove himself. Knights, as Twelves, might have some relationship with the Popess and the Hanged Man. The King is the new Master, who has made a success of himself. His number, Fourteen, is also the Four, the Tetrad, which represents full realization (as in the four directions, four elements, or four gospels). He is related to the Emperor, and perhaps in some way to Temperance (the mean between extremes?). The Queen is the Master’s wife and helper, who also might assume the duties of the Master if he dies or is away, either formally or actually. Her number, Thirteen, is also the Three, a number associated with child-bearing. It is related also to the Empress and perhaps to the Death card.

ENTER SHAKESPEARE

Let me give an example of stock characters that I do not see in the court cards: namely, those of Commedia dell’Arte. There were for example Pierrot as the frustrated lover, Pantalone as the wealthy elder suitor, and Columbine as the young lady being courted by both. I don’t see any of this in the cards, even in the Lover. I admit that I don’t know Renaissance Italian drama very well; but when I do read about it, I don’t see how it could generate the Courts. Yet from Shakespeare, who was only a few decades earlier than the Noblet, I can generate characterizations of many specific Noblet courts, as I will demonstrate in subsequent posts.

In one place Shakespeare gives a list of seven stock characters, described in rather satirical terms: the “seven ages of man” speech in As You Like It,. One of the characters, the melancholy Jaques, recites it to the audience. It has no relationship to the action of the play; so it could easily have been known by people not at all familiar with Shakespeare. It begins:

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages... (2.7.139ff)

The list of satirical characterizations that follows correlates to the seven planets, from the Moon to Saturn, as well as to the traditional seven "ages," from "infantus" to "decrepitas." I have found the individual characterizations corresponding to age and planet of some use in describing the Noblet. I will quote them in the appropriate place.

Besides these schematic characterizations, there are also specific characters in the plays themselves. Certain figures in the Noblet courts correspond to certain characters in the works of Shakespeare. The majority are in just one play, Hamlet. I will give an example in my next post.

THE NOBLET PAGE OF SWORDS

The Page of Swords is shown pointing his sword at his head, as though lost in thought, and perhaps of a melancholy disposition. (I am posting Flornoy's restored version, from my copy of his deck. If anyone knows how to access the originals of the courts, let me know.)



Who is he? Let’s go to Shakespeare. With some age-appropriate adjustments, he might correspond to the schoolboy in Jaques’ speech, the second “age,” immediately following the infant, ruled by Mercury:

And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school...(As You Like It II.vii.145f)

But if that is our Page, he is rather older than the 7-14 year old of the “seven ages” speech; and he has been dragged away from his studies to be a soldier. Perhaps he has doubts as to his suitability for his new career, his new “school,” the school of war.

In Shakespeare, Hamlet is just such a character, dragged from his studies in Wittenburg into the maelstrom of Danish politics. And he looks at killing as an absurdity. In viewing the Norwegian army crossing Denmark toward Poland, he says:

... I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds...(4.4.59ff, 1982 Arden Edition)

And yet that is just where Hamlet sees his duty. If they can do it, so can he!

Another reflection on killing is in his “To be or not to be” speech, where there is a double meaning.

To be or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them... (3.1.56ff)

From the wording so far, the action contemplated would seem to be against someone else, the one who has caused his “sea of troubles.” But in what follows, “to die, to sleep,” the implication is suicide: both possibilities are in his mind. Choler turned inward is melancholia. I can easily imagine the Noblet Page of Swords with a thought-bubble over his head, thinking, “Shall I kill my uncle or myself?”

Jodorowsky’s description of the negative Page of Swords fits Hamlet. (This is in another part of the book than the sentence I quoted in my previous post.)

This figure, who possesses the foundations of intelligence, lacks self-confidence....The negative aspects of this card would be lies, self-depreciation, intellectual confusion, verbosity, halting and poorly organized thought, and verbal aggression. (Way of Tarot p. 339)

It is the element of “verbal aggression”—and perhaps more--that suggests the choleric temperament. But in the card his energy seems to be directed inward, and hence more melancholic. Hamlet’s self-depreciation because of his delay is well known, one source of his melancholy. He calls himself a "dull and muddy-mettled rascal...a John-a-dreams" (2.2.561f). "Am I a coward?" he asks himself (2.2.566). And:

...Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must like a whore unpack my heart with words
And fall a-cursing like a very drab,
A scullion! Fie upon't! Foh! (2.2.578ff)

I think Jodorowsky’s interpretation of the card has historical justification as applied to Hamlet.



The Page of Swords resembles the boy in the middle in the Lovers card, trying to choose between virtue and pleasure. That again fits Hamlet, agonizing between alternatives. He expresses the same kind of dilemma in his tirade against Ophelia, who purports to represent Honesty but in fact, according to Hamlet, is just there to corrupt him, she is the allure of dishonest Beauty.

HAMLET. If you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty. Ay, truly, for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.

OPHELIA. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

HAMLET. You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it: I loved you not. (3.1.107ff)

Commentators on Hamlet often interpret “honesty” here as meaning simply chastity; but with the word “he” it is clear that a masculine personification is meant, and chastity is not a masculine virtue. I suspect that Mercury, Renaissance god of honesty, is also meant (see Ficino, Three books on life, where Mercury rails against Venus in this regard).

At the same time, Mercury is also a trickster, as revealed, for example, when he tries to deny stealing Apollo’s cattle. Hamlet’s own deficiencies in regard to honesty come out when he says both “I did love you” and “I loved you not.” In that way Hamlet will choose virtue over pleasure, and Ophelia begone! And Ophelia is patently dishonest, lying to Hamlet about where her father is, when actually he’s right there spying on their conversation. And then:

HAMLET. I have heard of your paintings well enough. God hath given you one face and you make yourselves another. You jig and amble, and you lisp, you nickname God’s creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I’ll no more on’t, it hath made me mad...(3.1.144ff)

Hamlet has a murder investigation to conduct, and a call to seek justice. He’s not going to swayed by the lure of dalliance with Ophelia.

The “Etteilla” word-lists, although over a century later (assuming they are not Papus’s 1909 invention) have something in common with my Shakespearean protagonist.

ETTEILLA, UPRIGHT: Overseer, Spy, Onlooker, Observer, Searcher, Connoisseur, Intendant.—Examination, Note, Remark, Observation, Annotation, Speculation, Count, Calculation, Computation—Learned, Artistic. REVERSED. Without Warning, Sudden, Suddenly, Suddenly Interrupting, Astonishing, Surprising, Unexpectedly.—Improvise, Act and Speak Without Preparation, Compose and Recite Straightaway.

“Overseer,” I think, comes from the Page’s posture, standing casually as though watching others work. But it seems to me that the Noblet is too engrossed in his own thoughts to be watching anybody. As for “spy,” well, Hamlet is not one; but he is the victim of spies. He also is an “onlooker, observer, searcher, connoisseur,” “learned, artistic,” and makes many a “speculation” and “calculation.”

The Reverseds give the opposite tendency: to act quickly instead of observing and speculating, when unexpected occasions warrant it. This aspect of the meaning is not shown on the SB card, but we see it in the actions of Hamlet: he has to act suddenly, improvise, act and speak without preparation. For example, when he realizes he is being spied upon with Ophelia’s cooperation, he quickly reacts verbally against her (3.1.130ff), as we have seen; then later, realizing he is being spied upon by a man behind a curtain, he reacts quickly by killing the man hiding there (3.4.21f)—who turns out not to be the man he thought it would be.

So the Noblet Page of Swords is best described as the Hamlet type, thrust into a role about which he has doubts, and yet where duty, conventionally interpreted, dictates resolute action. He is the would-be soldier doubtful of his cause, yet who will act quickly if not wisely when required.

If this does not come from Shakespeare, then from where? I cannot think of any other figure in art or literature before Noblet’s time that comes anywhere near fitting the card as well as Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Could the character’s fame have traveled to Paris by then? I don’t see why not. He is a character that Senecan tragedy practically clamors for, with its grim enactment of horrible deeds done for political expediency, with consequences, and resulting suicides, totally unforeseen by the protagonists. In classical tragedy, I can think of two precedents, but neither has the perplexity shown by Hamlet and our Page of Swords. One is Aeschylus’s Orestes, who hesitates before killing his mother, an act for which he pays dearly. The other actually occurs to Hamlet, in a speech he has the chief player recite: Pyrrhus, from Euripides’ Hecuba, who holds his sword in the air a moment before bringing it down on Priam. But neither hesitates long, nor articulates Hamlet’s dilemma.

I have labeled his temperament as melancholic. But he is also angry, i.e. choleric. A later age called Swords the suit of thinking. Hamlet is also that, pre-eminently so.

NOBLET PAGE OF CUPS

The Page of Cups, bowing courteously, could be the young lover of which Jaques says in his “seven ages” speech, immediately following his account of the schoolboy:

...next is the lover, sighing like a furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’s eyebrow” (II.vii.148f).

There is also Romeo, Juliet, and numerous young lovers in Shakespeare’s comedies, as well as those of many other medieval and Renaissance literary creations. The story of Romeo and Juliet was Italian, dating from before the Renaissance. With such characters, we are again at a Neopythagorean beginning, this time of the emotional life.



Visually the Page of Cups resembles the girl on the right side of the Lover card. Both have a ring of flowers in their hair, and the body language of both suggests that they are guided by their hearts. The girl has her hand there, in fact, as though to tell the others, “I do not represent pleasure; I represent the heart. Let him be true to his heart, too. That’s all I ask.” To be sure, her other hand (assuming it is hers) is near her private parts, but its placement there is as though to ward off hands and glances directed in that direction.

Here Jodorowsky again has something useful to say:

The discovery of the emotional world both tempts and terrifies him. His heart first says yes, then no....He could embody a desire to live mixed with fear...He also evokes the passage of the child into adult life, and first love with its doubts and great enthusiasms...He can signify a lack of trust in life and emotional relationships, and a pessimistic concept of love. (Way of Tarot p. 340)

If, in Hamlet, Hamlet is the boy in the middle of the Lover card (see my previous post), Ophelia is the girl on the right. She knows that she loves Hamlet, and she wants him to love her. But what to do? Her father cautions that their different status means that whatever he himself wants, his choice is not up to him, as he is royalty. So Ophelia becomes more distant to Hamlet. Then Hamlet starts acting crazy, attacking her verbally (I gave examples in the previous section). So much for love!

Even when the two lovers are constant and of the same class, as with Romeo and Juliet, there are huge difficulties: their warring families, and an adviser whose advice only seems to get them into worse trouble.

In other plays, the comedies, there is the difficulty that no matter how ardently one lover pleads his or her love, the other turns a deaf ear, in love with someone else—who predictably enough, doesn’t love them. It takes a Puck (in Midsummer Night's Dream) or a Rosaline (in As You Like It) to straighten things out.

Here are the “Etteilla” word-list for this card:

ETTEILLA, PAGE OF CUPS, UPRIGHT: Fair Young Man, Studious.—Student, Application [Diligence], Work, Thought, Observation, Consideration, Reflection, Contemplation, Job.—Business, Profession, Employment. REVERSED: Tendency, Bent, Proclivity, Inclination, Attraction, Taste, Sympathy, Passion, Affection, Attachment, Friendship.—Heart, Craving, Desire, Appeal, Promise, Seduction, Invitation, Agreeableness.—Flattery, Cajolery, Fawning, Sycophancy, Praise, Approbation.—Inclined towards threatening ruin and complete destruction.

These words describe the Noblet card well, I think, in a Neopythagorean context of someone starting out in his emotional life. The Uprights give his situation, and the Reverseds indicate his emotional state. If he is a student, perhaps his attachment or passion is to a teacher, or a career. If so, it is the emotional appeal of his chosen field that is relevant here, as opposed to the other consideration, his attraction to the teacher, Some of the words in the Reverseds suggest the negative aspects of desire: “flattery, cajoling, fawning, sycophancy.” There are other temptations as well, familiar to the world of students and teachers (i.e. sexual activity): seduction, craving, desire, all of which are “inclined towards threatening ruin and complete destruction.”

Besides the craving for the forbidden love-object, there is also the craving for drink, as in the 16th century Page of Cups shown in my first post; the same words are appropriate—in fact any desire can be taken too far.

More appropriately, there was also the ardent love of the divine, for example that of the young saints-to-be, as represented in the lives of the saints as told by the Church. (I have recently been reading about St. Peter of Verona, for example.) Ever since the Song of Songs, secular love had been taken as a metaphor for divine love.
Its excessiveness might have been the love that was so exalted that it rejected the Church in this world, which often did not meet a youth's exacting expectations, or which castigated others beyond reasonable expectations. Savonarola might be an example. Its negative side includes the hypocritical, false love of God which a Savonarola reacts against.

I will stop here to see if anybody has anything to add or criticize. Then I will continue going through the Noblet Courts.

In my previous post, I neglected to address the issue of the Page of Cups’ temperament. On the card, he looks either phlegmatic, i.e. calm, or sanguine, i.e. optimistic, as he starts to initiate a relationship with his beloved. If his love-object is God, then either he is phlegmatic, as beyond the vicissitudes of this world, or sanguine, at being in the hands of a merciful Lord. It is similar if his love-object is secular, except that in the future he may be either melancholy or choleric, depending on how the situation develops and his own personality.

THE PAGES OF COINS AND BATONS

Holding a small coin in his left hand, the Page of Coins resembles the Magician (Jodorowsky p. 343), who also holds a coin in his right hand. By the same token, the Page of Batons corresponds to the Magician in virtue of the object the Magician holds in his left hand. Normally this would be a wand, although the Noblet’s is a phallic finger, either intentionally or because the upper part of the wand has broken off. The suggestion, to me at least, is that the objects held by the two pages have something of magic about them.



Coins are magical in the sense that they can turn into other things when used, and also disappear, when turned into objects that are used up so that they cannot be turned back into money. They can also multiply, if wisely invested. Holding the coin up, he is advertising it as a commodity. He might be merchant’s son, hawking his father’s wares. Or he is a banker’s son, learning how to lend money in a way that will yield a profit. From his expression, perhaps he is unsure if he will make a good salesman; or perhaps he is wishing he could play like other children. The Page of Coins’ coin is larger than the Bateleur’s. I infer that the Page’s commitment to money and trade is larger than that of the Bateleur. But they are both salesmen on the street, competing for customers with their magic objects.

Unlike on the Magician card, the scene on the Page card has a second coin, in the ground. This could be a coin as potentiality, the doubling of his money through his activity. It also suggests to me the gospel story of the talents (Mt 25:13ff), in which one of the servants buries the coin, named a talent, that the master gave to his care, so that it would not be lost. The master then unfavorably compares him to the servant who invested his talent and thereby turned a profit. In that sense, the coin might be more generic than money or goods, but include talents as well, which can either be buried or used profitably. We must use our god-given talents; this is a theme for which the Renaissance offered many positive examples, poor boys who made good, like Leonardo da Vinci. In the 18th century, Immanuel Kant made the use of one’s talents as one example of action required by his “categorical imperative” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative).

In Shakespeare, there aren’t many merchant’s or banker’s sons. There are, however, young people who make use of money or commodities so as to advance themselves: for example, the merchant’s young friend in Merchant of Venice, who uses money the merchant borrows from Shylock; another example is Shylock’s daughter, who steals her father’s jewels so as to provide herself with a dowry when she elopes with a Christian. These are presumably good uses of idle money. There is an element of uncertainty, of course: the merchant’s collateral is ships’ cargoes, and all his ships sink before returning to Venice. (So Shylock can demand his “pound of flesh.”) Chance, and divine providence, enter in.

In the more generic sense of the use of one’s talents, our Page is reminiscent of Prince Hal, in Henry IV Part I, in comparison with his father’s enemy’s son, Harry Hotspur. At the beginning of the play, King Henry, the Prince’s father, complains that while his enemy’s son is out winning battles for his father’s cause, his own son is a wastrel (1.1.76ff). The scene immediately following appears to confirm the King’s assessment: Hal is in a tavern cavorting with other wastrels, even discussing how they might enrich themselves by robbing some pilgrims on the way to Canterbury.

As it happens, the situation is more complex than it first appears. The apparent wastrel is learning skills and virtues that will be of service later on; while the “good son” is being led into battles that are more than he can handle; he ends his life as “ill-weaved ambition” (5.4.88). But the theme is set at the beginning: how to use one’s talents not merely as a duty, or as a way of achieving fame, but as an expression of one’s inner being, which may be telling one, just now, to play rather than work, and then to set limits on that play (e.g. not robbing pilgrims). In that capacity, play is also work; “The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton," says the saying popularly attributed to Wellington (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterloo_i ... ar_culture). One need not have read Shakespeare’s play to get the message. Just knowing something of the plot would have sufficed.

In this sense our Page might be a hesitant entrepreneur, hoping to “follow his own star” rather than family tradition. This seems to be how Jodorowsky sees him:

Should he start a career, and if so, which one? How to enter active life? Is this investment worth the trouble? Will I get my health back? These are the questions that the Page of Pentacles asks when considering taking a physical or financial risk. (p. 343)

The issue, as we see from the Page’s expression (on the Noblet as well as the Conver) is not just “Will I be successful?” but also “Do I want to be doing this?”.

Here is the “Etteilla” word list:

ETTEILLA, PAGE OF COINS, UPRIGHT: Dark Young Man, Study, Instruction, Diligence [Application], Meditation, Reflection.—Work, Occupation, Apprenticeship.—Scholar, Disciple, Student, Apprentice, Amateur, Pupil, Speculator, Negotiator. REVERSED: Profession, Superfluity, Magnanimity, Luxuriousness, Sumptuousness, Splendor, Abundance, Myriad.—Liberality, Kind Deed.—Generosity, Charity.—Crowd, Multitude.—Degradation, Wasting, Pillage, Dissipation.

This list, besides connoting again the young man starting out, reminds me even more of Prince Hal in the “Henry IV” plays. The Uprights are what his father would like him to be, while the Reverseds are what he, at that moment, would like to be:, careless in his style, perhaps generous to his friends. The last words in the list suggest the downside of that lifestyle: “degradation, wasting, pillage, dissipation.” That is the life of a young man who spends too much, is too careless, or is too greedy for material things as opposed to the higher pleasures.

The life described by this list, both Upright and Reverseds, is reminiscent of other Renaissance princes. There is Lorenzo the Magnificent, for example, known for his learning and generosity, and also for ruining the family fortune, by lack of attention and interest. On a more material plane, there was also the young Duke of Milan, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, whose luxurious entry into Florence shocked the Florentines. And after Galaeazzo was his bother Ludovico, equally splendid, until he tried to get too much and ended up in a French prison. Ludovico’s rise and fall was taken as a morality tale; in Elizabethan England. There was even a tragedy based on his life. There was also, in England itself, Richard II, brought down for his extravagant ways, as Shakespeare portrayed him.

Once again, I find it hard to attach a temperament to this Page. When acting as the spendthrift, the Page is cheerful and outgoing, i.e. sanguine. But when acting as an apprentice member of the merchant class, he is more melancholy, as shown on the Noblet card, but probably optimistic about his future, when he will be able to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

THE PAGE OF BATONS

Batons, as I said in my first post on this thread, has to do with the country and agriculture. Since the country is the place of fertility and ever-renewing life, it is also the suit of sexuality and thus, in later interpretations, of creativity; it is also that of recurrent death, as animals are slaughtered, the grain cut, and the land burned.

Batons was the suit of the peasantry, the common people. Clubs were the only weapons allowed to them for protection on the road, in contrast to the nobleman’s sword. In the trumps, as I said at the beginning of this post, he corresponds to the left hand of the Bateleur, conventionally holding a baton or wand. It is the magical object, like the Page of Batons’ club, that will transform his life. Instead of swinging his arms and bruising his fists, with a club he will be able to do some real damage without harm to himself. Perhaps in war he will even learn to use better weapons. Thus for the Page of Batons, I think of the peasants recruited to go to war because of its grandeur and the exhilaration they feel with weapons in their hands. They do not know that whatever weapon he is given, he will be no match for those of others: he is really cannon-fodder, as Hamlet in fact says, watching the Norwegian soldiers march off to Poland, who “for a fantasy and the trick of fame, go to their graves like beds.” When they are in battle, they correspond to the fourth stage of life in Jaques’ speech, corresponding to the planet Mars:

...Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth.

Shakespeare gives us another warning in Henry IV Part I, in this conversation, about the rag-tag group of peasants that Sir John Falstaff has managed to force into military service from his estate (after taking bribes from the able-bodied men and excusing them):

PRINCE. ...But tell me, Jack, whose fellows are these that come after?
FALSTAFF. Mine, Hal, mine.
PRINCE. I never did see such pitiful rascals.
FALSTAFF. Tut, tut; good enough to toss; food for powder, food for powder; they’ll fill a pit as well as better. Tush, man, mortal men, mortal men. (4.3.67ff)

In Hamlet, two characters fit this description, Rosenkranz and Guildenstern. They are friends of Hamlet who have been enlisted into the service of Hamlet’s foe and uncle, Claudius, thinking that Claudius has no ill will toward Hamlet. They unwittingly carry Hamlet’s death warrant with them to England; but as it happens, Hamlet rewrites the warrant and it is Rosenkranz and Guildenstern who die instead. Caught “between mighty opposites,” as Hamlet puts it, they die in total ignorance of why they do so.

From a Shakespearean perspective, there are two ways to interpret the Page’s stick. One we have already seen: as a weapon; carrying such, our Page needs to be wary of the danger. The other way of seeing the baton is as a phallus, and specifically, a magic phallus. In Midsummer Night’s Dream, the simple weaver Bottom probably gets one when the fairy Puck gives him an ass’s head. Despite his ridiculous head, the Queen of the Fairies wants him in bed. Ostensibly it is because Puck has sprinkled some magic love-dust in her eyes, so that when she saw him she would fall in love with him no matter what he was. The unsaid joke, from Apuleius’s Golden Ass, is that asses had the biggest phallus. In the book, when Lucius gets his human form back, the woman who desired him as an ass is no longer interested. In the play, it likewise doesn’t matter that Bottom has an ass’s head; he is still wanted by the Queen, who in a recent movie version is played by Michele Pfeiffer. As she winds herself around Bottom’s asinine body, she sings:

So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle
Gentle entwist; the female ivy so
Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.
O, how I love thee! How I dote on thee! (4.1.45ff)

The “barky fingers” would seem to have a phallic connotation. All that may or may not be part of the Page of Batons.

Even in its magical state, that phallus is a two-edged sword. The person led around by it, if they’re not careful or lucky, is an ass. Even apart from Shakespeare, that was the lesson of The Golden Ass. Not only did it lead people into ruin, for example Malvolio in Twelfth Night, but it killed people, and not just Romeo and Juliet. By the time of Shakespeare and Noblet, the new disease syphilis was rampant. The consequences of easy sex are spelled out in the late play Pericles Prince of Tyre Here is a conversation among the brothel-keepers :

PANDER. We lost too much money this mart by being too wenchless...
BAWD. The stuff we have, a strong wind will blow it to piece, they are so pitifully sodden.
PANDER. Thou sayest true; [they’re] too unwholesome, o’conscience. The poor Transylvanian is dead, that lay with the little baggage.
BOULT. Ay, she quickly poop’d [foundered] him; she made him roast-meat for worms... (4.2.4-5, 19-26)

In other words, he died of the disease he caught from her. Later, the heroine Marina, describing the brothel, says, “in this sty...diseases have been sold dearer then physic,” i.e. medicine (4.6.104f). (By “Transylvanian,” Shakespeare doesn’t mean a vampire; Since the play is set in Hellenistic times, he means a nobleman from the northern part of Greater Greece.)

Here is the Etteilla word list for this card:

ETTEILLA, PAGE OF BATONS, UPRIGHT: Stranger, Unknown, Extraordinary.—Strange, Uncommon, Unusual, Unheard Of, Surprising, Admirable, Wonderful, Marvel, Miracle.—Episode, Digression, Anonymous. REVERSED: Announcement, Instruction, Opinion, Warning, Admonition, Anecdotes, News, History, Stories, Fables, Postmen [?] [Notiens], Education.

Etteilla shows us how to interpret this card: the big stick is wonderful, surprising, admirable, a miracle. A connection to the Bateleur is implied in such words. It is also likely to lead him into trouble, requiring “warning” and “admonition.”

Etteilla’s words “stranger” and “news” applied to this figure don’t fit the Shakespeare characters. The only way I can explain them is that they comes from an old formula dating back to the Sola-Busca. Its Page of Batons (below right) is on a journey, with a smile on his face and a message in his boot. “Envoy” in the “Etteilla” list for Swords might come from the same source.



Jodorowsky, reflecting on the Conver image (above middle), sees the Page of Batons as hesitant, asking himself “To do or not to do?” (p. 52). The Noblet (above left) looks less hesitant, more simply pleased with his good fortune. To that degree the Noblet Page is an ignorant fool. Hesitation is wise. But even Jodorowsky sees him as ready to take up his Baton in action. He imagines this Page saying (p. 326):

...my face is turned toward the viewer’s right. In this way I am promising to go forward. The creative act is announced, insemination is prepared, war is threatened, because my action can also be inspired by the 3 in the form of XIII, the Nameless Arcanum, and be destructive. In that case, I am nothing less than a bomb ready to explode.

All of this is well taken (leaving aside his invocation of the 3). Shakespeare, too, describes this “bomb,” for example in Romeo, after Tybalt kills Mercutio. However the danger is not only internal, as Shakespeare shows: it is in the external conditions as well.

One more thing about the Page of Batons: his face resembles somewhat the lady on the left in the Lovers card: the path of virtue. Well, anyone who chooses the hag on the left over the babe on the right is certainly an ass. Duty plus a sense of magical power is usually a recipe for disaster.

In temperament, his situation is the opposite of Coins. The Noblet looks happy now, but it is not an occasion for joy to those wiser than he. Again, this is a suit that is hard to fit to the temperaments, because time changes one’s mood. He might soon be melancholic.

A. THE NOBLET KNIGHTS



You will notice that the colors on the Noblet Knights’ horses, in Flornoy's restoration roughly follow the colors of the horses on the Chariot cards. One of the horses drawing the Chariot is gray, and the other one a kind of pink or coral. The horse of the Knight of Swords is mostly gray; the horse of Batons is mostly peach-colored, not that different from the pinkish color of the Chariot's horse. There is a similar contrast in Cups vs. Coins: Cups is mostly peach, while Coins is whitish.

Here I don’t think Flornoy’s restoration of the colors is accurate: at least it isn’t on the Chariot card. I haven't seen the originals for the others. Flornoy has made the the horse on our left darker in color than the one on our right. This does not correspond to the contrast between colors on the original.There, the one on the left is much lighter in color than the one on the right. Perhaps the one on the right is some variety of red, but darker than pink. Since I don't know, I am going to call the one on our right, and the horse on Batons and Cups, "dark" rather than "pink", and the other one "light."



Why this aspect of the colors is important is in relation to the myth of the chariot in Plato’s Phaedrus, which I think governs this card (my argument is at viewtopic.php?f=12&t=31&start=30#p8885). There the noble horse is white and the ignoble horse dark. Exactly what color is represented in the Greek word translated “dark” is unclear from the various translators: It might be reddish; for example, in the wine varieties, Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc, which are in reality red and clear. I think the Chariot's light horse corresponds to the Phaedrus's white horse, and the darker one to the Phaedrus's dark horse.

Red, or “dark,” is the color of passion in the Phaedrus, chiefly there the color of lust. But it could also signify a higher passion, such as love. Moreover, red elsewhere is the color of anger, another passion. It brings the blood to a boil and sometimes results in bloodshed. Red is also the color of war. War’s planet is the red one whose god is Mars.

White, or "light," likewise, has a variety of meanings. It stands for purity, chastity, and peace.
How these symbolic meanings relate to the meanings of the Noblet Knight cards remains to be determined. In Plato it is the horse that follows the voice of reason.It might then signify "clear" as in Pinot Blanc: clear vision.

I will try not to make too much of these contrasting colors. For one thing, It is still not clear what they are, or whether they are the same on the various horses. For another thing, very few other historical decks have them—not even the Dodal, which is in many respects similar in style.

B. THE NOBLET KNIGHT OF SWORDS



The Noblet Knight of Swords (on the right above) is the only one actually shown charging. He seems to be doing so with a cool demeanor, surveying the scene carefully, assessing the situation—unlike Batons, who looks away. Swords is focused and businesslike rather than in a rage. As such this knight is a character-type fitting any number of Shakespeare military heroes: one fit is Henry V, the former Prince Hal, a natural warrior who knows when he can win, even against a more numerous foe (as at Agincourt, where he has a secret weapon, the longbow). He acts from calculation rather than anger, love, or vanity. Another example is Fortinbras, i.e. “Strong in Arms” in Hamlet, the Norwegian crown prince who coolly picks up the pieces at the end of the play, not only getting the lands his father had lost 30 years before—his early motivation for fighting--but all of Denmark in the bargain. Another fit would be Octavius Caesar in Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra, who by not losing his cool (unlike the unstable Cassius in the former play, and Antony in the latter) wins an Empire and becomes Augustus. Of these candidates for Knight of Swords, only Octavius would have been known in France independently of Shakespeare, because he is described similarly in Plutarch's Lives.

Etteila’s word-list describes this type well, although with a nod to the anger customarily associated with war. However the Noblet Knight would seem to be, by the colors of his horse, emotionally more cool than hot:

ETTEILLA, KNIGHT OF SWORDS, UPRIGHT: Soldier, Man With a Sword, Man-At-Arms, Fencing Master, Swordsman.—Soldier From an Entire Corp or Army, Combatant, Enemy.—Dispute, War, Combat, Battle, Duel.—Attack [Address], Defense, Opposition, Resistance, Destruction, Ruin, Reversal.—Enmity, Hate, Wrath, Resentment.—Courage, Valor, Bravery.—Satellite [Attendant], Mercenary [Stipendiary]. REVERSED: incompetence, Ineptitude, Foolishness, Folly, Stupidity [Imbecility], Imprudence, Impertinence, Extravagance, Ridicule, Silliness.—Fraud, Swindling, Mischief, Cunning.

The Reverseds are the negative of the Uprights, in various senses.

Jodorowsky has an interesting, and very Shakespearean, take on this card. For him this knight functions in a world unaffected by hope and therefore also unaffected by fear. When he is done, the carnage all around him, he is ready for a new life, based on love or the sacred, i.e. the domain of Cups. He sees this transition as the main crisis to be overcome for the Knight of Swords. Indeed, Shakespeare's rational military men--Fortinbras, Octavius, Prince Hal--act without emotion, as though sealing themselves off from squeamishness as well as fear. They surely have hopes, but they are very much in the background. Very few are shown expressing any kind of love. Prince Hal does so before taking up the sword, but then pointedly rejects Falstaff and his whole milieu. He might be opening himself up to love later, after his victory at Agincourt as King Henry V, wooing the daughter of the King of France (Henry V 5.2.98ff). But here love is also expedient, and we hear no more about it. He died two years after his marriage, probably from dysentery contracted during yet another campaign against the French (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_V_of_England).

C. THE NOBLET KNIGHT OF BATONS

The Knight of Batons is the other knight who holds his weapon at the ready, sitting on a darker horse. His club is perhaps raised to defend a cause he believes to be just, perhaps also with a certain amount of anger. Yet instead of looking ahead of him and calculating where best to put his weapon, he is looking the other way. One possibility is that he doubts that he will be victorious, that he sees that his club, his weapon of the common people, is no match for the swords confronting him.



Jodorowsky adds that this Knight as changing direction, a metaphor for a move into “receptivity” and “extreme sublimity” of desire, the theme of Batons, into the life of the mind, Swords (p. 336). I suppose that is possible: but he also may be deciding to run, in accord with a rational assessment, rather than fight nobly but suicidally. The Etteilla word list seems to suggest that interpretation:.

ETTEILLA, KNIGHT OF BATONS, UPRIGHT: Departure, Moving, Alienation, Absence, Abandonment, Change, Flight, Desertion, Transmigration, Emigration.—Transposition, Translation, Transplantation, Transmutation, Escape. REVERSED: Discord, Breach, Rupture, Dissension, Division, Going Off, Separation, Splitting Up.—Faction—Quarrel, Sorting Out—Cut, Break, Discontinuity, Interruption.

These words seem to take the line that the Knight’s backward view signifies a change of direction away from the battle and into flight. This interpretation gains from looking at the historical situation of that time in Northern Europe in general and France in particular. In the Low Countries and Germany of the late 16th-early 17th century, retreat was the strategy of both Protestants and Catholics, after an exhausting 50 or so years of war; the members of each side moved to places that were friendly to them, Protestants to Protestant governments and Catholics to Catholic ones. In France at the time of the Noblet there was much repression of Huguenots, with some asserting their right to be Protestants in France, some trying to be inconspicuous, some becoming Catholic, and some leaving the country. Many taking the first and second routes were killed. The Noblet Knight suggests either of the other two--i.e. a change of direction--as the rational course.

I am not suggesting that the Noblet is a Huguenot deck, but only that it was done in a Huguenot milieu, providing a pictorial representation of one solution. Many Huguenots were country people, as appropriate to the suit of Batons, but they also included many artisans and intellectuals, the social classes from which the deck would have sprung. Here is Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguenot):

The Huguenot population of France dropped to 856,000 by the mid-1660s, of which a plurality lived in rural areas.

Earlier they had been 2 million. Many had been killed, and many more had already left by then. More were to follow. In 1698 Louis XIV revoked the 16th century edict that nominally protected Protestantism and also banned emigration. Wikipedia describes the result:

..It precipitated civil bloodshed, ruined commerce, and resulted in the illegal flight from the country of about 180,000 Protestants, many of whom became intellectuals, doctors and business leaders in Britain as well as Holland, Prussia and South Africa.

I presume that Huguenots had been in such professions before their flight as well. In counseling retreat before a superior force, the Noblet Knight of Batons is giving good advice. Follow a rational course instead of the anger you feel. Anger is what is signified, perhaps, by the color of the horse; the rational course is what is signified by the look backwards, and the turning horse.

In Shakespeare, the option of retreat and exile, as opposed to confrontation or delay, is not usually portrayed. It is not very dramatic. But it is the tactic used by Pericles in Pericles Prince of Tyre, when threatened with death; he is then able to return when the danger passes; the only drawback is that he has to spend many years in exile and manages to lose his wife on the return voyage. It is also the tactic used by Fortinbras in Hamlet. He gives up his plan to attack Denmark, so as to avenge his father, at least temporarily, and so gets Denmark without a fight later. In both cases, the character stops reacting out of anger and switches to a more cerebral approach; perhaps that is what Jodorowsky is saying, when he says that this card marks a transition to Swords, his suit of thinking.

In Hamlet, however, I think we can also see another interpretation of the card: the Knight as looking at his weapon instead of what is in front of him, but not changing direction. On this way of seeing the card, the knight is still wondering whether his club, which looked powerful at first, is good enough to do the job; or perhaps he is looking at its large size in order to reaffirm his courage. But the Knight’s hesitation is only momentary, and he continues to attack, doing what he thinks is right. But he is more focused on his own power than on understanding his presumed enemy.

In Hamlet the character who follows this scenario is Laertes, the brother of Ophelia. Unlike Hamlet, Laertes moves unhesitatingly to avenge his father’s death (Hamlet killed him by mistake, another case of not looking at what was in front of one), but without much thought as to who his enemy is. He thinks Hamlet’s uncle Claudius was his father Polonius’s killer, and with that motive foments rebellion against Claudius. But when Laertes finally confronts Claudius, there is no more talk of rebellion. Even Laertes' sister Ophelia, although mad, seems not to blame Claudius. Claudius has little difficulty defending his innocence and pointing Laertes’ anger toward Hamlet, as a way of getting Laertes to do Claudius’s dirty work. Then the process repeats. Rather than investigating Hamlet’s own perspective, Laertes focuses again on his weapon: in this case, the poison he can put on the tip of his fencing rapier, so as to use it on Hamlet during a reputedly friendly match. He has again mistaken his enemy, as he realizes too late. The character of Laertes, as far as I can determine, is original with Shakespeare.

So in this case Shakespeare’s plays offer two interpretations of the card, that favored by Etteilla and Pericles and that provided by the example of Laertes. Etteilla’s view that the knight is changing direction so as to retreat fits the card well, as well as the times in which Noblet was living. Moreover, it is a course sanctioned by both long-time practice and literature, such as the well known tale of "Apollonius of Tyre." Shakespeare’s Laertes, on the other hand, also offers good advice to anyone consulting the cards as reminders of wise counsel (i.e. as "emblems," in the 16th-17th century sense): before you charge, understand the one you are attacking--look at him--and not just your own situation and powers.

For these cards, the color of the cards indicates the temperament. In Swords, the light color suggests little influence of negative emotions: he is phlegmatic or perhaps sanguine; but neither of these descriptors quite captures what is going on. In Batons, the dark suggests anger, which is either clouding his thinking or something he manages to overcome, thereby changing his direction and leaving the field. He is choleric at the beginning but not, if he makes the transition, when he turns. Especially given that the color of the horses is not a feature that is retained, I wonder whether temperament is a useful way of categorizing these cards.

Addition to preceding post: I found an example where the two horses on the Chariot card are actually white and red instead of gray and pink/peach. It is at http://l-pollett.tripod.com/cards43.htm. Andy says it is by Bourdel. Presumably that would be Claude Bourdel or Burdel, c. 1751 Swiss. One version currently being marketed, under the title "Universal Tarot of Marseille" has the horses as white and black (http://insightfulvision.com/gallery-universel-.php). Black and white are what most of the post-de Gebelin decks make them, e.g. Papus, Wirth, Waite; so perhaps the card was recolored to suit current fashion. I don't know what colors the Knights' horses are in that deck. Another version of Bourdel (depicted in Kaplan, Vol. 2, p. 328 and at http://insightfulvision.com/gallery-burdel-c.php) has the horses the same color.

NOBLET KNIGHT OF COINS

Coins and Cups are the suits whose suit signs are not weapons. Their horses are colored oppositely. The cool, rational one is Coins.



The Knight of Coins, in this depiction, appears to be journeyman merchant who travels everywhere in his trade. Perhaps he never says put long enough to settle down; yet he builds his fortune in the process. He might be the manager of a branch of the family business in some remote land. Perhaps he does have a home base, which pays his salary and where his children grow up. Or maybe his family is in exile with him, and all long to return. The goal, whether in money or in dwelling, leads them forward like a Star of Bethlehem; such also is the coin on the card.

Our Knight, I am imagining, is a stranger everywhere; his home, such as it is, is the whole world. In a metaphorical sense, this description fits Hamlet before Elsinore, in his role as a student, to whom nothing is foreign except perhaps his own castle and the people in it.

I am not aware of a play that features a traveling merchant. There are references to them, usually by ship; e.g. the ships paid for by the merchant in Merchant of Venice, or the pirates who sell their captives into slavery in Pericles Prince of Tyre, or who capture Hamlet. It is a risky business. Metaphorically, one possibility is Pericles himself (not the historical Pericles, who ruled Athens, let me clarify), a ruler rather than a merchant, who is away from home almost the entire play, winning fame, fortune, and misfortune, after fleeing his own city. In Pentapolis, the place he stays longest, he is known at first as the "stranger knight" (2.3.67). While abroad he wins a wife, but also loses her, and then a daughter as well. So much for rationality. He plunges into melancholy; but there will be a happy ending. This story was well known, under the name of “Apollonius of Tyre,” in numerous versions all over Europe (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonius_of_Tyre).

ETTEILLA KNIGHT OF COINS: Utility, Serviceable, Benefit, Gain, Profit, Interest.—Profitable, Interesting, Worthwhile, Important, Necessary, Obliging, Officious. REVERSED: Peace, Tranquility, Repose, Sleep, Apathy, Inertia, Stagnation, Inactivity, Idleness [Unemployment].—Leisure, Pass-times.—Recreation, Carefree, Nonchalance, Indolence, Laziness, Doing Nothing, Dullness, Discouragement, Exhaustion.

The Reverseds show the danger of a merchant empire: those outside the reach of central scrutiny might end up being like the negative Page of Coins, i.e. non-productive. This dichotomy, Benefit vs. Indolence is not that of Shakespeare’s fortune vs. misfortune. But of course if someone is lazy too much, the result will be misfortune—if not for the one involved, then for his employer back home. There might also be the suggestion that someone might work too hard, i.e. the word "Exhaustion," which can result in "Discouragement." Also, such trade over distances needs "Peace" and "Tranquility."

Jodorowsky sees the crisis to be overcome here, once the Knight has succeeded, as that of being less involved in the material realization and circulation of goods and more in the creation of what is new, that which represents brings new life. Thus we have wealthy philanthropists who contribute to the arts, from Cosimo di Medici to the Rockefellers. In Shakespeare, it might be Pericles’ rediscovery of his daughter, whom he thought lost, and who was the occasion of his melancholy, after which comes the rediscovery of his wife, whom he had thought dead. In Merchant of Venice it is the new life together of the two young couples.

KNIGHT OF CUPS

The Knight of Cups’ horse is mostly dark, the color of the lustful horse in Plato’s Phaedrus. If reddish, it is also the color of love, as in the corresponding suit of hearts. In Cups, the subject has become love of any sort, from the love of bodies to the love of God.



The Knight of Cups, in contrast to the Page, is the older and more experienced lover. He is the knight (perhaps married to someone else) devoted to his lady, like Shakespeare’s Mark Antony in Antony and Cleopatra. Plutarch, Shakespeare’s source, actually compares him to the dark horse of Plato’s Phaedrus:

... And, in fine, like Plato's restive and rebellious horse of the human soul, flinging off all good and wholesome counsel, and breaking fairly loose, he sends Fonteius Capito to bring Cleopatra into Syria... (http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/antony.html).

He is devoted even unto death, even if she should be his betrayer, as Shakespeare, following Plutarch, portrays her. In that sense this Knight is also Troilus to the unfaithful Cressida in another play, Troilus and Cressida, from a tale well known by way of Chaucer and Boccaccio.

A different example of the type is Hamlet’s uncle Claudius in the years before the action of the play, paying court to his brother’s wife, a consummated but unsatisfied love; the quest for its greater satisfaction is what sets the scene for the play. This pre-action, Hamlet’s mother’s adulterous love, was also in the French version of the story in Belleforest’s Histoires Tragiques of 1576.

An important background, in France and elsewhere, is the courtly Arthurian romances of the Middle Ages. There were Lancelot and Gueneviere, or Tristan and Isolde, both cases of the knight loving his lord's wife. On a more overtly sacred level, this knight is the Grail Knight, Galahad and others, in quest of the Holy Grail.

Less “passion’s slave,” we are reminded also of Henry V courting the daughter of the King of France. In that case it is Mars after his battle has been won, submitting himself to Venus. He is also Parsifal submitting himself to Blanchefleur, in the Parsifal romances by Chretien de Troyes and Wolfram von Eschenbach. The Knight of Cups is thus more universal than Shakespeare, part of the culture of the times.

ETTEILLA KNIGHT OF CUPS: Arrival, Coming, Approach, Access, Reception, Entrance, Bringing Closer.— Similarity.—Advent, Approximation.—Accession To.—Flow.—Comparison. REVERSED: Mischief, Villainy, Duplicity, Cunning, Artifice.—Keenness, Shrewdness, Suppleness, Fraud.—Subtlety, Irregularity.—Evil Deed.

The picture on the card is one of approach to an unseen other. Hence the “Etteilla” Uprights. The Reverseds portray not the opposite of approach—which is in Batons—but its evil side, as we see in Hamlet's Claudius.

For Jodorowsky the crisis to be overcome by this knight is to transition from the individual quest to the giving back to the collective of the boon he has found, especially in the material realm, i.e. the world of the suit of Coins—sponsoring hospitals or missions, for example. It seems to me that most examples of the Lover Knight, at least in literature available by the 17th century, never get that far.

Queens in the 17th century were almost by definition married to Kings and ruled only in the absence of a suitable candidate for King. They complement each other, in other words. For that reason I am going to consider the Queen and King of each suit together, before turning to another suit.

QUEEN OF SWORDS

For the Noblet Queen of Swords, I think of Lady Hotspur in I Henry IV, who resents her husband’s absence when he goes off to war and probably fears his death:

O, my good lord, why are you thus alone?
For what offense have I this fortnight been
A banish’d woman from my Harry’s bed?
Tell me, sweet lord, what is't that takes from thee
Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?
Why does thou bend thine eyes upon the earth,
And start so often when thou sit’st alone?...
Tis some heavy business hath my lord in hand,
And I must know it, else he loves me not. (I Henry IV 2.3.40-46, 66-67)

Hotspur replies that he doesn’t love her (2.3.93), unless he is on horseback (2.3.104f). What he is to do must remain secret from her (he has just been informed of some treachery, and fears his wife could be tortured for details). All he can tell her is, "Whither I go, thither shall you go too" (2.3.118): that if he succeeds, her status in the realm will have risen, and if not, then it may fall. Not much consolation. In the battle, of course, he dies. In the sequel play, when her father in law does discuss his preparations for war, she exclaims:

Yet, for God’s sake, go not to these wars! (II Henry IV 2.3.9)

The figure on the card (below left) looks to me like she is regarding the sword she is holding with disdain and resentment. She holds her hand on or near her belly, as though to say, do you want your unborn child to grow up having never known his father?



The trump she most resembles is Justice, I think (above right); she must administer justice in the kingdom while her husband is away, or deceased.

I think Etteilla confirms my interpretation.

ETTEILLA, QUEEN OF SWORDS: Widowhood, Widow, Privation, Absence, Dearth, Sterility, Indigence, Poverty.—Empty, Vacant, Deserted, Idle, Inactive, Unoccupied. REVERSED: Evil Woman.—Bale, Malice, Trickery, Subtlety, Artifice, Mischievousness, Bigotry, Prudery, Hypocrisy.

Swords’ fear of widowhood does not need Shakespeare, however: it is apparent even in 15th century versions: here are the PMB and the d’Este (below left and middle). Both are waving goodbye to their husbands, off to war, but I detect more dread in the d'Este. As gunpowder-based weapons were being improved, perhaps war was becoming deadlier.



Ettteilla’s Reverseds perhaps can be traced back to the Sola-Busca’s Olympia (above right), Queen of Macedon, Alexander the Great’s mother. Plutarch hints that she had her husband Phillip killed after he favored a wife taken after her. She could also be the wicked Queen or stepmother of fairy tales, i.e. Snow White’s nemesis, or Cinderella’s.

NOBLET KING OF SWORDS

For the Noblet King of Swords (below left), I think of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, who tells his son, “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown” (II Henry IV 3.1.31). This King looks from side to side and has a weapon in both hands, to foil the plots against him, just as Henry IV does his entire reign, and his son Henry V at the beginning of his. The father attained his rule by the sword and may die by the sword. Another example is Julius Caesar; here Shakespeare got his material from Plutarch, in a story which thereby would have been familiar to many. In Plutarch, Caesar recognizes that he has enemies, yet goes around without guards. Alexander the Great, the Sola-Busca’s King of Swords (below middle), might have been thought of similarly; after all his conquests, his sudden death from sickness, as related by Plutarch, preceded by erratic behavior, was suspicious; yet Alexander seems not to have been the suspicious sort.



The King of Swords, like the Queen, resembles the Justice card (above right). While he may have as his purpose the securing of justice, others see him as its embodiment. It is important for him to find the right balance between justice and mercy, in his case not an easy task, as he must suspect everyone.

In the Conver deck, he resembles the man on the Chariot card (Jodorowsky p. 339); both have moon-faced epaulettes. Like the Charioteer--and the principals of the Roman triumphal parades--he has been triumphant over his enemies. The wariness suggested by the Noblet is considerably attenuated.



Between the 15th century and the 17th, there has been a shift, from king as stalwart warrior to king as fearful of assassination, a shift reflected in both Shakespeare and the Noblet tarot. As no doubt suggested by actual events, absolutism has its downside, reflected also in the Etteilla Reverseds--which presumably are from the years just preceding the French Revolution.

At this point I have to interrupt my narrative. Comparison of the Noblet Queens with their 15th century counterparts suggests a continuity and development from the earlier to the later, perhaps reflecting the increased danger of warfare during this time. At the same time, the Kings suggest the increased danger of overthrow from within, so that all are suspected. That is probably one reason why Louis XIV systematically reduced the powers of the nobles and centralized the armed might of the kingdom under himself. That put off the “deluge” that came “apres moi,” after me, as he allegedly predicted. These shifts are evident in both Shakespeare and Noblet. Hence they may be products of the same traditional characterizations of royal personages, modified to fit the changing situation, and not necessarily related directly to each other.

The question then arises, what about the Knights and the Pages? I need to compare the Noblet with those that came before, for more insight into the process of influence.

However a look at the PMB and d’Este Pages is rather disappointing. (. I will spare you the Cary-Yale, which is equally so. There is only one d'Este Page)





All I see is some people with their suit signs standing at attention. There is none of the differentiation that we see in the Noblet.



By the 16th century, there is a little differentiation, as reflected in the Italian cards I showed in my first post, reproduced from Kaplan vol. 2 (p. 277).



In these, Swords seems the most involved in warfare, and Cups the least. But Swords has none of the self-doubt that we see in Noblet; and Cups is just comic. Again it may be that both Shakespeare and Noblet reflect a mutual horror of gunpowder-based warfare, as well as, in Cups, the increased seriousness (expressed in secular terms) of both the Protestant and Catholic Reformations compared to what came before.

Now let us turn to the Knights, starting with the PMB



What I see is a very focused Knight of Swords, not someone to tangle with. Batons is a show-off, having his horse rear in a demonstration of his control. Galeazzo Maria Sforza, who would have been a boy at the time of this deck (born 1444), is said to have had a favorite white horse. Somewhat older, he can be seen riding it in the Medici mural “Procession of the Magi” by Gozzoli, 1459-1461 (He is the one in front left, facing us in the image at http://thiswritelife.wordpress.com/tag/ ... ).Galeazzo had visited Florence in 1459. Cups is merely holding his suit-sign, as the Pages did; probably Coins (missing) is the same.

In the d’Este, both are charging. But I don’t see any dead bodies beneath Batons’ horse, suggesting to me a possible implication that clubs are less lethal than swords.



By the 16th century (Kaplan vol. 2 p. 275) it appears that Swords is more aggressive than in the 15th century, and also with better protection. Perhaps warfare is being recognized as more dangerous now.



Interestingly, Coins has the coin on the ground that in the Noblet is only on the Page card. There is the same danger of non-use of one’s talents (burying them in the ground), which perhaps accounts for words such as “Indolence” in the Etteilla Reverseds. This might reflect an increased emphasis on being productive, with commensurate rewards, that appears in the merchant and artisan classes of the time. Goods were pouring in from the Americas and the East; those with extra cash could buy arts, crafts, and manufactured goods. There was a growing link perceived between industriousness and godliness, especially among Calvinists (see Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism). They were increasingly numerous and threatening in France, Britain, and the Low Countries.

In the Noblet of the 17th century, we get a full differentiation, with some differentiated expressions on the faces as well: Batons’ change of direction, no longer charging headlong, appears for the first time. Swords continues to be serious, but Cups has an air of courtesy, and Coins is businesslike.



The similarity between Noblet and Shakespeare could be merely a reflection of the changing times on pre-existing characters, as opposed to direct influence. But the correspondences continue to be striking, as we will continue to see.

QUEEN OF BATONS

By virtue of her scepter-like baton, this card resembles the Empress (Jodorowsky p. 342).



Besides the scepter, her bare-breastedness connects her to the Empress’s fertility and nurturance. The Empress is not bare-breasted, but she has green sleeves, a feature in common with the PMB Queen of Batons and Empress (above right; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensleeves for the symbolism in terms of sexuality and fertility). Bare breasts take the place of this green. Here is Etteilla's list, which I presume reflects typical 18th century intepretations.

ETTEILLA, QUEEN OF BATONS, UPRIGHT: Woman of the Country, Housewife, Economy, Honesty, Politeness.—Gentleness, Virtue.—Honor, Chastity. REVERSED: Good Woman, Kindness, Excellence.—Obliging, Officious, Helpful.—Favor, Service, Duty.

I take “chastity” here to mean faithfulness to her husband rather than celibacy. She is the earth-mother of the deck. I associate her to Juliet’s Nurse, who wet-nursed Juliet after her own child died, and then takes grave risks in helping her secretly both to marry and to consummate that marriage. She also has her earthy, "greensleeves" side: she is capable of telling and appreciating sexual jokes (i.e. 1.3.2, 1.3.39ff, 1.3.105, 2.4.111ff, 2.4.142f). Here is Jodorowsky (p. 342):

In full possession of her sexuality and creativitiy, she can be passionate, capricious, instinctive, and independent.

She is a bit too independent for the 16th century: in the versions before Shakespeare, she ends up banished from Verona, to an uncertain fate.

The Nurse first appears in the Italian version of Bandello’s Novelle, 1554, translated into French in Boiasteau’s Histoires Tragiques, 1559 (Arbor Press edition of 1980 p. 35f). I do not know if her earthiness was part of the original characterization. The Nurse is not a Queen; but then women of the country were often not (somehow Fontainebleau or Versailles doesn’t count; they are more theme parks for the aristocracy than real country). In English literature, Chaucer’s Wife of Bath fits the part. There may be characters of this type in French or Italian drama, but if so I do not know them.

KING OF BATONS



The King's green baton is somewhat like the Emperor's scepter, and to that extent the two are associated. But it looks more like a parade baton. This King is the country squire, full of pomp and circumstance and not much power. In appearance he resembles the Charioteer of the Chariot card. So his position is the result of accomplishment rather than birth; or it is simply a parade float at Carnival. A beardless, younger king putting on airs: I don’t know of any character in Shakespeare precisely fitting this image. He seems more French, like the title character of Moliere’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, which satirizes the vanity of both the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Bourgeois_gentilhomme). But its 1670 date is too late for the card. There may have been precursors, satires of country gentlemen who tried to pass as sophisticated in the city.



The d'Este King of Batons (above middle) merely shows an exaggerated lofty regality; clearly he is on show for others to admire. The PMB (above left) is even younger than his Noblet counterpart; his green sleeves, like those of the Queen, show his sexual proclivities.The 16th century card that I showed in my first post, appropriately, points to himself. The green sleeves of the PMB show up as the green baton in the Noblet.

Jodorowsky associates this King with sexuality, creativity, and power, in both the positive and negative aspects of these attributes (p. 242f)

He can be a renowned artist or someone who is creative in every activity, a man of power, a sincere lover, a warrior, or a martial arts master. His negative aspects can be despotism, boasting, or a powerful sex drive amputated from love. He could be a seducer, a tyrant, a self-obsessed artist.

Most of these associations would also fit the Emperor. It seems to me that the King of Batons' association with the Charioteer adds a particular tension. The Charioteer is up in the clouds, in the world of his ideals, in a chariot whose horses tend to want to go in opposite directions, towards reason and lust. Our King, whose baton of dignity is colored green, is perhaps pulled both ways, like the Chariot by its horses; he has to exercise firm control to stay in his chosen world.

This King looks to be in his 30s. Apart from that, he fits Shakespeare’s description of the fifth “age of man,” i.e. the 40s

...And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part...

The fifth decade of life is a bit late for our King of Batons’ physical appearance. For that decade, however, I am immediately reminded of Polonius, the king’s adviser in Hamlet He is full of “wise saws” for his son Laertes, in the form of a list of maxims he is to follow while studying in Paris (1.3.58ff)). And he is quite “severe” with his daughter Ophelia, forbidding her to have anything to do with Hamlet (1.3.101ff).

Etteilla’s word list for the King of Batons expands precisely on this type of characterization.

ETTEILLA, KING OF BATONS, UPRIGHT: Man of the Country, Good and Strict Man, Well Intentioned Man, Honest Man—Conscientiousness, Integrity.—Man Who Pursues Agriculture, Laborer, Farmer. REVERSED: Good and Severe Man.—Leniency, Austerity, Tolerance, Condescension.

This list corresponds well to Polonius’s qualities as admired by Claudius and Gertrude. Gertrude refers to him as “the good old man” (4.1.10) and he is indeed conscientious, however misguided, in his service to the King. We don’t know about his life outside of court. Elsinore Castle itself seems to be in the country, since the players have traveled there from “the city.” But Polonius does not mention agriculture.

Polonius also fits some of the Reverseds. He is condescending to all, except those he serves. But while severe, he also has some sympathy for Hamlet: “If this be madness, yet there is a method in’t” (2.2.205f) and “How pregnant sometimes his replies are” (2.2.208f). He also thinks he understands Hamlet: “And truly in my youth I suffered much extremity of love, very near this" (2.2.189f),

In his memory of suffering "much extremity of love," he betrays the sexual tension we see in the King's green baton and in the Charioteer. Polonius expresses this tension in his attitude toward the young people in his reach. To maintain his dignity, Polonius tends to reduce them--Hamlet, Ophelia, Laertes--to a negative propensity for sexual behavior, a characteristic he identifies with his own youth but with some hold on him now. He maintains control of sexuality in his rational world by means of severity toward others that he suspects of his proclivity.

Polonius's character appears in Shakespeare source, the French narrative by Belleforest, but I don’t know how developed he is there.

In France, a Polonius-type may have been seen as younger; I don't know. As I say, Polonius doesn’t physically look like the man on the Noblet. I don’t know of any young kings or near-kings in Shakespeare who capture the conventional goodness, pomposity, and tensions of the man on the card. I will keep looking in French drama for a closer fit. For the present, Polonius is close enough.

QUEEN OF CUPS



She most resembles the Popess, I think. She stares at her cup in the way that the Popess looks at her book--or a fortune-teller into her crystal ball. This Queen’s sticklike (and snakelike) scepter or wand further connects her both to the Empress and the Magician. The Sola-Busca’s Queen of Coins, Elena—Helen of Troy--also has a wand, or maybe it is just a comb. But it is not Helen that the Queen of Cups is like, but rather Priam of Troy’s daughter Cressida, the priestess of Apollo, who channels visions of Troy’s future.

Shakespeare included Cassandra in one of his plays, Troilus and Cressida. In a trancelike voice she predicts the fall of Troy unless Helen is given back to the Greeks (2.2.112); but nobody pays any attention. She is cursed: her predictions are always right but never believed. This character is of course not Shakespeare’s invention; she is in the Iliad, among many other accounts of the Trojan War. The most accessible in Latin was Seneca’s Trojan Women. There were also Euripides’ Trojan Women, Hecuba (translated by then into Latin), and Polyxena.

In the Sola-Busca, Polyxena is the Queen of Cups. She, like Cassandra, is a daughter of Priam, his youngest and most beautiful. Achilles fell helplessly in love with her, even telling her the secret of his vulnerability. The place both of Achilles’ first passion for her and of his death was the temple of Apollo. Since Cassandra was a priestess of Apollo, perhaps the Sola-Busca merged the two characters, as its Polyxena looks like one of Apollo’s prophetesses—they stared at colored pebbles in water before uttering their prophecies—than Priam’s youngest daughter.



Another Shakespeare character with the same prophetic power is the widow Margaret in Richard III, who predicts, in the form of a curse, all the woe that will befall those listening to her. She is merely laughed at (1.3.195ff)

In Hamlet, the closest equivalent is Ophelia after she goes mad; she is not making predictions, just seeing more deeply into reality, in mad-sounding utterances. First she says, “They say the owl was a baker’s daughter” (4.5.42f), which means: “In the legend, a baker’s daughter didn’t give bread to Jesus, because her father had told her not to give out their shop’s goods for free, and thereby was turned into an owl; likewise calamity has happened because of my own uncharitableness to Hamlet.” (See Marion Woodman’s The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter.) Then, when distributing flowers to the King, Queen, and her brother, she gives rue to Claudius and herself, the herb of regret for one’s actions (4.5.179); her action was to betray Hamlet, causing his strange behavior, that resulted in his being sent away.

In general, then, the Queen of Cups corresponds in Shakespeare to women who see deeper into reality than those around her; they speak truth, but are often thought only mad.

This truth-telling is reflected in Etteilla’s list, along with, in the Reversed, her fate in the world:

ETTEILLA, QUEEN OF CUPS: Fair Woman—Honest Woman, Virtue, Wisdom, Honesty. REVERSED: A Woman of Distinguished Rank, Honest Woman.—Vice, Dishonesty, Depravity, Dissoluteness, Corruption, Scandal.

Waite, in the Uprights, adds, “a loving intelligence, hence a woman of vision.” Waite’s word “love,” I think, comes from her suit, comparable to Hearts. It is his last word, “vision” that I would emphasize. Ophelia combines both in her mad utterances. Jodorowsky’s descriptions (p. 241), “familial love, kindness, a good mother” and “a charitable individual inspired by faith,” which for him combines Cups with the Pope, seem to me too weak and conventional.

The PMB Queen of Cups (below right) might reflect Jodorowsky’s description, and some of the words in the Etteilla list: Her green sleeves suggest fertility; her red foot is perhaps meant to be interpreted as seductive. But the d’Este (below left), with her intent stare at—even into—the cup, is more along the lines of the Noblet.



In Etteilla’s Reverseds, the witches of Macbeth, perhaps fit; they tell the truth, but do such in such a villainous way that they will be misinterpreted and give the perpetrator of evil false reassurance. Gertrude, the adulterous beauty whom three men sought to possess, fits a few of these words of the Reverseds. But she is closer in character to the Queen of Coins, as I will try to show.

KING OF CUPS

The King of Cups, holding his cup out, is a hale-fellow-well-met, kind and with a sense of humor. He might also be a drunkard and quite untrustworthy. Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle, his father’s murderer, comes to mind. Everyone at court, not only Hamlet's mother, dotes on him as his brother's worthy successor. Hamlet considers him a drunkard, a weakling, and probably, after his visit with the Ghost, a murderer. Another character who fits the card is Falstaff in the Henry IV plays Here is Jodorowsky:

This is a big-hearted man (or woman), his cup is open, and he generously gives conscious love; the joy of living, and the serenity of mastered emotions....If he becomes negative, the King of Cups will pour his hatred over his family and upon the world. He could be an alcoholic, a narcissistic pervert, a hypocrite, or a pathologically jealous individual; or he could represent false advertising. (p. 341)

Visually I think he resembles the Pope. Falstaff is a kind of Pope in his domain, with plenty of self-serving but unhypocritical wisdom to dispense, not to mention joie de vivre.



The connection to drink is represented in a Belgian version that replaces the Pope card is by one with Bacchus sitting on a wine cask. The 16th century King of Cups is the religious one, gesturing to heaven.



The PMB’s King of Cups, in contrast, is a young, sensitive prince. That’s a different Shakespeare character altogether: Hamlet on a good day, or the melancholy Duke in Twelfth Night,, who says, “If music be the food of love, play on.” The Sola-Busca has an obscure “LUCIO CECILIO R” (R means “Rex”) as its King of Cups. The image would seem to be of another sensitive prince. Bacchus is represented in its King of Batons, named "(L?)EVIO PLAUTO" but identifiable by his lions. “Levio,” Tarotpedia tells us, is Libero, one of the names of Bacchus. “Plauto,” I think, is another of his names: chthonic Bacchus was the same as Pluto (my argument is at viewtopic.php?f=12&t=530&start=40#p9058). His pose on the card is more reminiscent of the King of Batons in the Noblet than that of Cups.

Here is Etteilla

ETTEILLA, KING OF CUPS, UPRIGHT: Fair Man, Honest Man, Integrity, Equity, Art, Science. REVERSED: Distinguished Man, Honest Man.—Dishonest Man.—Exaction, Misappropriation of Public Funds, Injustice, Bandit, Swindler, Rogue.—Vice, Corruption, Scandal.

In the Uprights we see Claudius as he would wish to be represented, indeed as he is seen by most of the characters until the end of the play. The Reverseds suggest his secret nature of the opposite kind. Falstaff, while possessing much integrity and honesty in his speeches, is literally a bandit, in the affair of the Gadshill robbery (I Henry IV 1.2.138ff).

These characters, Claudius and Falstaff, are complex ones that reflect both sides of the Etteilla list. There are also less complex characters who represent only the Uprights. Simonides in Pericles Prince of Tyre comes to mind, Pericles' genial father-in-law, whom even his poorest subjects acclaim for his good government. But on the whole such conventionality is not very interesting or memorable in Shakespeare.

QUEEN OF COINS



In Coins, I finally get to Hamlet’s mother, Queen Gertrude. She has been so dazzled by two brothers’ wealth and sophistication (both of them, in different ways) that she has not, until too late, seen the downside of her relationships, that neither is really there, as we say, for her son.. She is like the Empress, with her baton at the same angle as the Empress’s scepter and a round object held by the other hand. The main difference is that the Queen holds her object at eye level and looks at it closely. She is less clueless than the Empress. But does she see more than skin-deep?

ETTEILLA, QUEEN OF COINS, UPRIGHT: A Dark Woman, Opulence, Wealth, Prosperous, Luxury, Magnificence.—Self-Confidence, Reliability, Trust, Certainty, Affirmation.—Security, Boldness, Liberty, Candor. REVERSED: Untrustworthy, Doubtful, Unsure, Doubt, Indecision, Uncertainty.— Fear, Dread, Fright, Timidity, Apprehension, Wavering, Hesitation.—Undecided, Indecisive, Puzzled, A Person Held in Suspense.

Gertrude fits mainly the Uprights here, although “fear, dread, fright” only apply to her around Hamlet after he kills Polonius in front of her and then ignores his deed so as to continue lecturing her. She is unfortunately not a woman who is puzzled very often. She takes things at face value until too late. Jodorowsky makes several comments that fit her personality:

The Queen of Pentacles clings to her money, her position, her health, and her assets...Her risk is not seeing farther than the end of her nose, of fixing her material security without thinking to invest it, to resist taking another step forward, or to consider other aspects of reality.

Jodorowsky also has a nice passage in which he imagines the Queen of Coins speaking to us. It ends with something Gertrude could have said:

If there is past, it is right here. And right here is where my entire future is. Country, fortune, possessions, practical mind: if I were not there, who would be the cement of the kingdom? I am the guardian of the treasure; I am the dog that defends the sun buried in her heart at the cost of her life.

Claudius describes Gertrude as

...our sometime sister, now our queen,
The imperial jointress to this warlike state,(1.2.9f)

.
By marrying him, she has chosen him as king; she is the link between the past and the future, as the wife of both the former and the present king of Denmark; she is the symbol of the kingdom itself, which the king marries in marrying her. To Hamlet she is the epitomy of betrayal. But in the end she does defend Hamlet, the sun in her heart, at the cost of her life, by intercepting the poisoned drink her husband offers to him and drinking it herself. Here is the first interchange.

QUEEN. The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.
HAMLET. Good madam.
KING. Gertrude, do not drink.
QUEEN. I will, my lord. I pray you pardon me. She drinks.
KING. [aside]. It is the poison’d cup. It is too late.
HAMLET. I dare not drink yet, madam—by and by.
QUEEN. Come, let me wipe thy face. (5.2.292ff)

And a few lines later:

HAMLET. How does the Queen?
KING. She swoons to see them bleed.
QUEEN. No, no, the drink, the drink! O my dear Hamlet!
The drink, the drink! I am poison’d. Dies.5.2.314ff)

It is a matter of dispute whether Gertrude suspects that the drink is poison before she takes it, hoping thereby to save Hamlet’s life. The Arbor edition (p. 412) has not only “She drinks” but also “and offers the cup to Hamlet” (which I omitted above). If she is offering the cup to Hamlet, she must not suspect that it is poisoned. But this additional stage direction is not in either of the versions of the play that were combined in the Arbor edition. The 2nd Quarto has “Shee drinkes” only, leaving out the offer to Hamlet and also Hamlet’s reply, “I dare not drink yet, madam” (http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Anne ... 1/scene/17). The Folio version does have Hamlet’s refusal of the drink but no stage directions. Take your pick. In any case, it is clear that by the end she knows that she has trusted the wrong man.

Gertrude exists in Shakespeare's source, the Belleforest tale, in about the same adulterous and blind way that she exists in the play. (The image of blindness is prominent in both: in Belleforest she laments how women's infidelities have bandaged their eyes (bade les yeux); Hamlet accuses Gertrude of playing 'hoodman-blind" (3.4.77) (Jenkins' introduction to 1982 Arbor Hamlet, p. 94). In Belleforest, however, the hero triumphs, and neither he nor the Queen dies.



The PMB Queen of Coins is fairly undifferentiated; she simply holds her coin. The Sola-Busca is more interesting: she is Helen of Troy, looking in her mirror. Helen is another "jointress," as her fate and the fate of empires are intertwined. Like the Empress and Queen of Coins, she enjoys luxury and the art of making herself desirable. Whether the stick in her hand makes her an enchantress is an issue I will sidestep.

KING OF COINS

The suit of Coins was associated with wealth. By the end of the 16th century, wealth was less highly regarded than it was before, due to the Catholic Reformation’s repudiation of the Renaissance Popes’ splendor, which had aroused the resentment of so many northerners. Also, the Protestant countries were increasingly producing men of wealth, especially the Netherlands. And the monarch who probably devoted more of his wealth to the defense of Catholicism than any other, Emperor Charles V (who had the gold of the Americas at his disposal), accomplished little with it, fighting the Protestants in Germany to a draw. He resigned as Emperor and became a hermit, while his brother negotiated a truce that granted Protestants a refuge with the princes friendly to them. But the wars or religion continued in France and the Low Countries. Then in the 17th century another Emperor followed in Charles's footsteps, resulting in the even worse destruction of the Thirty Years' War.

The change in attitude toward wealth is perhaps visible when we contrast the Noblet with its Renaissance equivalent, starting with the PMB. There we have, first, a complacent soul who looks as though he has finally come into his inheritance, a Galeazzo Maria Sforza after his father finally dies. But the d’Este card is more ambiguous: is he looking at his money proudly or ruefully? The Sola-Busca would seem to be a complacent ruler again. But his name is Philip, i.e. Philip of Macedon, who as Plutarch tells it had the wealth of Greece, as well as the coast of Asia Minor and the Black Sea, pouring into his coffers; yet he died of an assassin’s sword, with the encouragement of his wife.

The 16th century card, as though unsure how to proceed, merely has its King hold up his coin.



When we get to the Noblet, we see a King of Coins looking more melancholy than he should if he were enjoying the fruits of his wealth. I can hear him asking himself: Was it all worth it?



With his legs crossed and his suit-object low on his body, he physically resembles the Emperor. In addition, both are out of doors. A comparison with Charles V at the end of his life would not be inappropriate. He spent much of his adult life on the field of battle. This use of money was not only futile but also led to immense loss of life. Even the Pope was not spared, in the infamous “sack of Rome” conducted by the Emperor’s troops (supposedly without his orders), which held the Pope prisoner and destroyed much of the splendor of Renaissance Rome. At the same time, all his warfare was intended as noble, self-sacrificing defense of the Catholic faith against its detractors.

In Shakespeare, I have a double candidate for the Noblet King of Coins, a combination of both principal protagonists in the Merchant of Venice. One is the Christian merchant Antonio; the other is the Jewish moneylender Shylock. Each hates the other. Antonio despises and persecutes Jews whenever he can. As Shylock says

He hates our sacred nation, and he rails,
Even there where merchants most do congregate,
On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift,
Which he calls interest. Cursed be my tribe,
If I forgive him! (1.2.49ff).

And when Antonio wins against Shylock’s legal case, thanks to some legal maneuvers by the judge, his demand in recompense is that Shylock convert to Christianity. Thenceforth Shylock is legally a Christian, cut off from his former livelihood, family, associates, and religious tradition. Shylock, on his side, despising Antonio for his Anti-Semitic persecutions, wanted his “pound of flesh” as his just revenge, especially since that penalty was agreed upon in advance by both parties, should Antonio not pay back his loan on time. Thus we have the clash of wills between two men who put profits and contracts before people, i.e. justice before mercy. At the same time the play, superficially at least, puts Antonio in the better light: his loan was altruistic, to help his young friend marry well, and even the penalty he imposes on Shylock is for his own salvation. Likewise in Catholic countries wealth was sometimes respected if it was used well, e.g. devoted to the Church, as in the case of Charles V.

These characters existed before Shakespeare, in a 1378 story by Giovanni Fiorentino, which in some version appeared in the 16th century in Alexandre Silvayn’s Histoires Tragiques (Editor's Introduction in the Riverside Shakespeare). I do not know how they were portrayed.

Such an interpretation of the card does not fit one way of seeing the suit of Coins. From that perspective, it is a “good” suit, along with Cups, as opposed to Batons and Swords, which are “bad.” Wealth was seen as a good thing in the Renaissance and in the 20th century. But wealth also could be an expression of the sin of Avarice. The 15th century had seen such works as Bosch’s “Death of the Miser” (c 1488). Now, after the Catholic Reformation, the French will soon (1668) have their own "Miser" ("L'Avare") by Moliere, about a Christian moneylender. Wealth amassed for oneself is out. One example of its power to blind people is in the Queen of Coins, if my projection onto her of Hamlet’s mother is justified. And now in the King of Coins we have it again, this time as a man who uses money as a source of power over others, giving others the choice either to betray their principles or die.

ETTEILLA, KING OF COINS, UPRIGHT: A Dark Man, Shopkeeper, Merchant, Banker, Stockbroker, Calculator, Speculator.—Physics, Mathematics, Science—Teacher [British: Master], Professor. REVERSED: Vice, Flaw, Weakness, Defective, Faulty Conformation, Misshapen Nature.—Dissoluteness, Ugliness, Deformity.—Corruption.—Arrogance.

Etteilla clearly labels the professions, at least in the first set of Uprights, and the Reverseds spell out the downside. There is hardly anything positive to counteract it.

Etteilla, writing near the end of the 18th century, does have “Physics, Mathematics, Science” and “Teacher, Professor” as words that might be thought of as positive. But in the 17th century, science and quackery were hard to distinguish Copernicus and Kepler, as even they saw themselves, were applying Pythagorean precepts to the heavens. In particular, there was a breed of experimenters known as alchemists, who sought to learn the secret of changing lead into gold--or perhaps it was something in manure into the universal elixer. Isaac Newton would spend more time in that profession than on mathematics and physics. In England, Ben Jonson wrote The Alchemist making fun of their pretensions. Shakespeare, in the character of Prospero (cognate with “prosperity”) in The Tempest, constructed a more positive Renaissance magus. He is another possible correspondence to the King of Coins, in this case an abused genius using his arts to tame nature while teaching men humility.

On this card Jodorowsky isn't historically helpful. He says the obvious about the card: "Perhaps he could be an industrialist, a businessman, or a well-to-do farmer" (p. 344). At the end he adds the negatives: "Fraud, dirty money, and stock speculation," along with "arms dealer or seller of toxic products." In between, he talks vaguely about the second coin on the card, the one floating in the air to the figure's right, as on the Knight of Coins. I know of no such coin on any historical "Marseille" style King of Coins. The issue of justice vs. mercy, with which both Antonio and Shylock have their problems, doesn't come up.

I will attempt a summary and tentative conclusion in my next post or so in this series.