Tarot History Forum

Excellent work, Steve. This time I waited and didn't do my own. I have plenty of other things to work on (right now, it's a transcription of Bidev's 26 typed pages of an unpublished paper). I would only say:

instead of "cord" (much less "rope", which you use once), I would say "string". According to http://www.wordreference.com/fren/corde, "corde" applied to musical instruments is a string.

instead of "so-called", for "dites" I would just keeping saying "said". "So-called" has the intimation of "mistakenly called", which of course is not what is meant.

I certainly wasn't aware that Shakespeare used Pythagorean number theory! That is pretty sophisticated, his knowing that One is not strictly speaking a number.

mikeh wrote:Excellent work, Steve. This time I waited and didn't do my own. I have plenty of other things to work on (right now, it's a transcription of Bidev's 26 typed pages of an unpublished paper). I would only say:

instead of "cord" (much less "rope", which you use once), I would say "string". According to http://www.wordreference.com/fren/corde, "corde" applied to musical instruments is a string.

instead of "so-called", for "dites" I would just keeping saying "said". "So-called" has the intimation of "mistakenly called", which of course is not what is meant.

I certainly wasn't aware that Shakespeare used Pythagorean number theory! That is pretty sophisticated, his knowing that One is not strictly speaking a number.

Thanks, yes I originally went for cord, but then considered that string would be better in context of instrument, and changed most to string but failed to catch them all. I have now edited post and changed them, also the couple of instances of 'so-called' to 'said'. It's still in the rough, I'll pass an editorial eye over it when I have time.

These last two interpretation exercises were fairly easy because of the formulaic (albeit somewhat wordy) nature and defining context, and reference to such works as Taylor's Theoretic Arithmetic and some online video, slide or otherwise illustrated demonstrations of monochord construction and usage, made them pretty straightforward to understand -- not sure the next will be so straightforward.

Shakespeare also refers to the music of the spheres and to pythagorean belief in transmigration. Uses musical terms here and there such as diapasson and sesquicle. In his days remember the monochord was still a practical teaching device in some schools, for music theory and mathematical ratios. Not all his number references are pythagorean, Sonnet 12 for example refers to a clock, 52 to the year and 60 to minutes. If one excludes sonnet 136 from the counting (as self-referentially is suggested) then the number of sonnets is triangular with a base of 17 (and there is a turn of subject after 17, 1 to 17 are formulated around concept of procreation). See Number symbolism in Shakespeare's Sonnets 8 and 128 by Fred Blick.

Thanks Steve and Mikeh

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Busy day ...

I've tried to take in consideration the critics made to my first version of my essay.

The article has been corrected in this perspective.

It's actual form can be seen at the following link :

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1s1L ... 16nKjI/pub

Focus is mainly made on the arithmological sequence of the Pentagonal Number 22 = 1+4+7+10

Thanks for your feedbacks

About Gosselin's pythagorean presentation of proportions and musicals intervals.

See for an exhaustive study :
Nicomaque de Gerase
https://ia600709.us.archive.org/27/item ... hmetic.pdf


Book 1 Chapters XVIII to XXIII pp 214-229

Book II
Chapters I to V pp 230-236
Chapters XIX to XXIX pp 259-286

It seems like he discusses music only, or at least particularly, in book II, Ch. XXVI, pp. 276-278, and maybe the beginning of the next chapter-and also, introductorily, in Book I Ch. 5, pp. 188-189.

Pentagonal numbers are in book II, Ch. X, pp. 243-244.

That is quite a book; the translator's introduction to Nichomachus's "Introduction" is 177 pages in itself!