Re: For tarot: Plato, Dante and no Fool

21
https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante ... atorio-30/

Purg. 30:

When the first heaven’s Seven—Stars
had halted
(those stars that never rise or set, that are
not veiled except when sin beclouds our vision;

[…] the Seven—Stars turned toward
that chariot as toward their peace, and one
of them, as if sent down from Heaven, hymned

aloud, ” Veni, sponsa, de Libano,”

three times, and all the others echoed him.
Just as the blessed, at the Final Summons,

will rise up—ready—each out of his grave,
singing, with new—clothed voices, Alleluia,

[…]
I have at times seen all the eastern sky
becoming rose as day began
and seen,
adorned in lovely blue, the rest of heaven;

and seen the sun’s face rise so veiled that it
was tempered by the mist and could permit
the eye to look at length upon it; so,

[…] outside and in the chariot,
a woman showed herself to me; above
a white veil, she was crowned with olive boughs;

her cape was green; her dress beneath, flame—red.
[…]I felt the mighty power of old love.

As soon as that deep force had struck my vision
(the power that, when I had not yet left
my boyhood,
had already transfixed me),
[…]
and even all our ancient mother lost
was not enough to keep my cheeks, though washed
with dew, from darkening again with tears.
[…]
My lowered eyes caught sight of the clear stream,
but when I saw myself reflected there,
such shame weighed on my brow, my eyes drew back

and toward the grass; […]

Re: For tarot: Plato, Dante and no Fool

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https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dant ... atorio-31/

Purg. 31:

“O you upon the holy stream’s far shore,”
[..]
Just as a crossbow that is drawn too taut
snaps both its cord and bow when it is shot,
and arrow meets its mark with feeble force,

so, caught beneath that heavy weight, I burst;
and I let tears and sighs pour forth; my voice
had lost its life along its passage out.
[…]
in evidence: it’s known by such a Judge!
But when the charge of sinfulness has burst
from one’s own cheek
, then in our court the whet—

stone turns and blunts our blade’s own cutting edge.
[…]
have done with all the tears you sowed, and listen:
so shall you hear how, unto other ends,
my buried flesh should have directed you.

Nature or art had never showed you any
beauty that matched the lovely limbs in which
I was enclosed—limbs scattered now in dust;

and if the highest beauty failed you through
my death, what mortal thing could then induce
you to desire it? For when the first

arrow of things deceptive struck you
, then
you surely should have lifted up your wings
to follow me, no longer such a thing.

No green young girl or other novelty—
such brief delight—should have weighed down your wings,
awaiting further shafts. The fledgling bird

must meet two or three blows before he learns,
but any full-fledged bird is proof against
the net that has been spread or arrow, aimed.”
[…]
and still uncertain of itself, my vision

[…]
Such self-indictment seized my heart that I
collapsed, my senses slack
; […]

She’d plunged me, up to my throat, in the river,

and, drawing me behind her, she now crossed,
light as a gondola, along the surface.
[…]
That done, she drew me out and led me, bathed,

into the dance of the four lovely women;
and each one placed her arm above my head.

“Here we are nymphs; in heaven, stars;
before
she had descended to the world, we were
assigned, as her handmaids, to Beatrice;

we’ll be your guides unto her eyes; but it
will be the three beyond, who see more deeply,

who’ll help you penetrate her joyous light.”

So, singing, they began; then, leading me
[…]
A thousand longings burning more than flames
compelled my eyes to watch
[…]

Just like the sun within a mirror, so
the double-natured creature gleamed within,
now showing one, and now the other guise.


Consider, reader, if I did not wonder
when I saw something that displayed no movement
though its reflected image kept on changing.


And while, full of astonishment and gladness,
my soul tasted that food which, even as
it quenches hunger, spurs the appetite,

the other three, whose stance showed them to be
the members of a higher troop,
advanced—
and, to their chant, they danced angelically.
[…]
Out of your grace, do us this grace; unveil
your lips to him, so that he may discern
the second beauty you have kept concealed.”


O splendor of eternal living light,
who’s ever grown so pale beneath Parnassus’
shade or has drunk so deeply from its fountain,


that he’d not seem to have his mind confounded,
trying to render you as you appeared
where heaven’s harmony was your pale likeness—
your face, seen through the air, unveiled completely?

Re: For tarot: Plato, Dante and no Fool

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https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante ... torio-32/
Purg. 32:

My eyes were so insistent, so intent
on finding satisfaction for their ten—
year thirst that every other sense was spent.

And to each side, my eyes were walled in by
indifference to all else (with its old net,
the holy smile so drew them to itself),

when I was forced to turn my eyes leftward
by those three goddesses because I heard
them warning me: “You stare too fixedly.

And the condition that afflicts the sight
when eyes have just been struck by the sun’s force

left me without my vision for a time.

But when my sight became accustomed to
lesser sensations (that is, lesser than
the mighty force that made my eyes retreat),

I saw the glorious army: it had wheeled
around and to the right; it had turned east;
it faced the seven flames and faced the sun.

[…]—tasting fruit that is forbidden
and then afflicts the belly that has eaten!

[...]

Re: For tarot: Plato, Dante and no Fool

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https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante ... torio-32/
Purg. 32 continued:

So, round the robust tree, the others shouted;
and the two-natured animal: “Thus is
the seed of every righteous man preserved.”
[…]
Just like our plants that, when the great light falls
on earth, mixed with the light that shines behind
the stars of the celestial Fishes
, swell

with buds—each plant renews its coloring
before the sun has yoked its steeds beneath
another constellation: so the tree,

whose boughs—before—had been so solitary,

was now renewed, showing a tint that was
less than the rose, more than the violet.
[…]

Re: For tarot: Plato, Dante and no Fool

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https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante ... torio-32/
Purg. 32 continued:

Then did the ground between the two wheels seem
to me to open; from the earth, a dragon
emerged;
it drove its tail up through the chariot;
[…]
Just like a fortress set on a steep slope,
securely seated there, ungirt, a whore,
whose eyes were quick to rove, appeared to me;

and I saw at her side, erect, a giant,
who seemed to serve as her custodian;
and they—again, again—embraced each other.
[…]

Re: For tarot: Plato, Dante and no Fool

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https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dant ... atorio-33/

Purg. 33:

[…] Beatrice
was changed; she listened, grieving little less
than Mary when,
beneath the Cross, she wept.

But when the seven virgins had completed
their psalm,
[…]

Then she set all the seven nymphs in front
of her […]

“Pray come more quickly,”
she said to me, “so that you are more ready
to listen to me should I speak to you.”

As soon as I, responding to my duty,
had joined her, she said: “Brother, why not try,
since now you’re at my side, to query me?”
[..]
Know that the vessel which the serpent broke
was and is not; but he whose fault it is
may rest assured—God’s vengeance fears no hindrance.
[…]
And what I tell, as dark as Sphinx and Themis,
may leave you less convinced because—like these—
it tires the intellect with quandaries;

but soon events themselves will be the Naiads
that clarify this obstinate enigma

but without injury to grain or herds.
[…]
I’d also have you bear my words within you—
if not inscribed, at least outlined—just as
the pilgrim’s staff is brought back wreathed with palm.”
[..]
In front of them I seemed to see Euphrates
and Tigris issuing from one same spring

and then, as friends do, separating slowly.
[…]
From that most holy wave I now returned
to Beatrice; remade, as new trees are
renewed when they bring forth new boughs, I was

pure and prepared to climb unto the stars.

Re: For tarot: Plato, Dante and no Fool

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Addendum: What perhaps does not speak for itself is the reference to the biblical Song of Songs (” Veni, sponsa, de Libano,”), which is THE mystical text in medieaval / Renaissance times, speaking about the via unitiva, the union of the soul with God. I don't want to spoil your own delight: my proposition is to read the Song of Songs alongside the Tarot de Marseille cards from the Tower card onwards - believe your eyes, don't forget, it is about a union, a mystical union.

Re: For tarot: Plato, Dante and no Fool

29
Thanks, Ross for your hint:
Ross Caldwell wrote: 28 May 2022, 11:18 Speaking of Dante, in 2015 Damion Searls presented an argument that his birthday was 26 May. Sorry I forgot to post on the day!

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/201 ... centenary/
The article you point at https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/201 ... entenary/ is really worth reading. There are several elements which might be important for card history (assuming that Dante is one of the relevant sources):

Obviously, the whole issue of the importance of his Gemini zodiac sign –in my eyes relevant for Minchiate—is displayed:
And we know that Dante was a Gemini. When the character of Dante enters the heavenly sphere, in Paradiso, he arrives in that constellation, “pregnant with holy power which is the source / of all of whatever genius may be mine.” It was in the company of these stars that “I drew my first breath of Tuscan air” (Canto 22, lines 112–117, tr. Mark Musa). From there in the heavens, the poet looked down and saw the whole theater of our earthly existence, compared, in one of his perfect metaphors, to a place that beats the life out of us: “As I circled with the eternal Twins, I saw revealed, from hills to river mouths, the threshing-floor that makes us so ferocious” (22.151–154). It is from the perspective of a Gemini that Dante observes our world.

Bringing in astrology like this isn’t arbitrary, because astrology was the infrastructure for Dante’s poems. Rhyming macrocosm with microcosm, the positions of the stars with our personal fates, was central in both popular and intellectual culture, and of special importance to Dante, who created a whole universe corresponding to our fates. […]

Having entered Gemini in Canto 22 of Paradiso, Dante leaves it in Canto 27, with a second look back to Earth that matches the first—“More of this puny threshing-ground of ours / I would have seen, had not the sun moved on” (27.85-86). Since the numerology of the cantos is significant throughout the poem, this is taken to mean that Dante was born between the 22nd and 27th of May. His time in Gemini—that is, from late Canto 22 through mid-Canto 27—is also described in terms suggesting gestation: when he departs, he is “drawn forth from Leda’s lovely nest” (27.98)—which means Leda’s womb, the nest of her sons, the twins Castor and Pollux, who personify Gemini.
Note that “It is from the perspective of a Gemini that Dante observes our world. […] with a second look back to Earth that matches the first” means that Dante takes on a bird’s eye perspective on earth, better: an eagle’s eye perspective on earth. Dante is highly flying like an eagle –being the king bird or the emperor bird—in the sign of Gemini. This is important for understanding why the last four zodiac cards in Minchiate form the tetramorph: Human Figure (Aquarius), Lion (Leo), Bull (Taurus), Eagle (Dante in the sign of Gemini), leading the respective triumphal procession in Dante’s Paradise.

Note furthermore that “Rhyming macrocosm with microcosm” is also reflected in the Steele Sermon, where “mundus parvus” is equivalent to microcosm, and “mundus cioe dio padre” is macrocosm.

That the importance of the Gemini for Dante’s commedia was also perceived by others is clearly shown on the available maps for the commedia. I give several pictural examples below, watch out for “gemini” or “gemelli” in the zodiac sphere (the first two are better read here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo_Caetani):

Image
Image
Image




The article continues with
Those three intervening days, I mean cantos, are when the poet is quizzed on Faith by the spirit of St. Peter (the 24th), on Hope by St. James (the 25th), and on Charity or Love by St. John (the 26th).

Love, as always in Dante, is the culmination, […]
Note that the three Christian virtues are part of interrogations in the celestial paradise, whereas the four classic ones are not (in the triumphal procession of the earthy paradise in the last cantos of the Purgatory, this difference is also made). These three Christian virtues are in a certain sense beyond this world -- to be known “by heart” in the celestial paradise, as the interrogations show. Prudence in the sense of spiritual Wisdom (and not in the sense of scientific knowledge or ordered mind) is also heavily discussed in the Paradise, so it is also beyond earth. The Minchiate deck displays these four after the casa del Dio, with Love as the culmination, as always in Dante.

Re: For tarot: Plato, Dante and no Fool

30
I see that Dante's order of theological virtues is the traditional one of Faith, Hope, Charity. Minchiate, however, has Hope first. That order, which I think goes back at least to the time of the Cary-Yale (because of the similarity of the Hope card to the Visconti-Sforza Star card, the first of the celestials), is first seen, that I know of, in dal Ponte's funerary monument, from the 1420s in Florence (below is from the dal Ponte exhibition catalog from 2016). I posted it a while back on THF, I don't know where, but here it is again (from my blog at http://rothschildcards.blogspot.com/)
Image


I have long regarded dal Ponte, or at least his workshop, as a progenitor, or at least ancestor, of the Florentine Trionfi, by way of the Rothschild cards (my blog is 2015). Possible connections to Lo Scheggia and Apollonio di Giovanni are worth exploring.

I see now that there is a new thread on dal Ponte. Well, I am trying to catch up on my reading, so maybe I'll go there next. I've been out of the loop for a while, owing to some pressing matters, and may have to disappear again.

While I am here, however, there is one more thing in the current thread I want to add.
vh0610 wrote: 09 Jan 2022, 21:15 Addendum to my last response to mikeh:

Your reference to the drummer boy of Tarocchini still prevailed a while in my mind - and I looked at the card again, for instance in this very forum in viewtopic.php?t=383&start=90.

What I consider to be important after I while is, that the drummer boy as a fool carries as well a feathered hat/crown as stultitia in the Visconti-Sforza deck -- and as well in Giotto's Scrovegni chapel or in the Casa Minerbi in Ferrara. There is some iconographic knowlegde carried over?
While vh0610 did expand on the drummer boy, notably regarding his stick, another iconographic element that the drummer boy and other Fools have in common (as much outside the Tarot as inside) is the wind instrument, no longer a bagpipes, but still requiring the breath.