Chess, gods and love...
http://classes.bnf.fr/echecs/feuille/amour/index.htm
Re: Chess variants 14th/15th century
11When a man has a theory // Can’t keep his mind on nothing else (By Ross)
mmfilesi wrote:The "astronomical chess"
http://www.mmfilesi.com/comentarios.php ... 5automatas
Compare this with Macrobius (Comentary aboy Scipio Dreams).
Yes, this is from one of the Evrart de Conty editions, Echecs amoureux. Conty wrote ca. 1398, the edition is from ca. 1467.
That's what I would like to know as precise as possible. How and when. The precise dating is of importance to compare it with the Italian Trionfi developments.a) In the poem, the queen moves like that the queen modern. It was probably by the influence of the powerful Catholic queen.
Well, interesting. But dating the events is very important ... and a precise dating seems in this case not possible, or?
It has the trivial aspect, that you can play this game with the same material, that you use for a usual chess game, 32 figures, 8x8-board, just by using the Queens as 3rd and 4th king.b) The chess of four season its a "Magic" Chess. Alonso X its was very interested in magic. He translated two works magic: the lapidary and Picatrix. (Magic: Orphism, Neoplatonism, astrology ...). In this chess wanted to show the relationship of the four humors and the Time (Hipocrátes. About the men).
No. It's not backgammon. Not is chess. It's a new game. The interesting thing is that playing with figures. And these figures (painted or sculpted) represented the neoplatonic cosmogony. But as not using the usual iconography, classic, planets, moon and sun. Representations of the zodiac are Arabic .... In any case, it is not important to the tarot, directly. It's just a sample of how a game can reflect the astronomical beliefs.Well, it's a running game, something like backgammon. Not chess.
The experts in the poem, considered its write in 1475 by Francesc de Castellví, Narcís Vinyoles and Mossen Fenollar.But dating the events is very important ... and a precise dating seems in this case not possible, or?
Alfonso X created a school of translators in Toledo. Was composed of Christians, Jews and Muslims. Alfonso X was very interested in astrology and alchemy. His translators prepared two books of magic (the lapidary and Picatrix). The lapidary is a set of magic cures on the powers of the stones, which are connected with the zodiac.In which aspect it is "magic"?
wiki:Marco Polo - In 1260, Niccolò and Maffeo were residing in Constantinople when they foresaw a political change; they liquidated their assets into jewels and moved away.[2] According to The Travels of Marco Polo, they passed through much of Asia, and met with the Kublai Khan.[4] Meanwhile, Marco Polo's mother died, and he was raised by an aunt and uncle.[3] Polo was well educated, and learned merchant subjects including foreign currency, appraising, and the handling of cargo ships,[3] although he learned little or no Latin.
In 1269, Niccolò and Maffeo returned to Venice, meeting Marco for the first time. In 1271, Marco Polo (at seventeen years of age), his father, and his uncle set off for Asia on the series of adventures that were later documented in Marco's book. They returned to Venice in 1295, 24 years later, with many riches and treasures. They had travelled almost 15,000 miles (24,140 km).
Jacopo da Cessole, a monk in the Dominican brotherhood. He was born in Cessole d'Asti around 1250 and died in Genoa around 1322. He lived in Lombardy and later in Genoa in San Domenico's convent as a Inquisition's Vicar. Generally there is not much known about him and the research fights with different names for the same man.Wiki:Franco-Mongol alliance: "The earliest contacts occurred after 1220, via infrequent messages from the Papacy or European monarchs, to Mongol leaders such as the Great Khan, and the Ilkhans in Mongol-conquered Iran. But the pattern of communications tended to repeat, with the Europeans asking the Mongols to convert to Western Christianity, and the Mongols simply responding with demands for submission and tribute. The Mongols had already conquered other Christian nations in their advance across Asia, including the Kingdom of Georgia, and Cilician Armenia. Hethum, the Armenian king, strongly encouraged other European monarchs to follow his example and submit to Mongol authority, but was only able to persuade his son-in-law, Prince Bohemond VI of the crusader state of Antioch, who submitted in 1260. The Mongols with their Christian vassals successfully destroyed both the Muslim Abbasid and Ayyubid dynasties, and then for the next few generations fought against the remaining Islamic power in the region, that of the Egyptian Mamluks. The Egyptians and Crusaders even briefly set aside their enmity in 1260, acknowledging that the Mongols were a greater threat. The Crusaders thus engaged in an unusual passive truce with the Muslims, allowing them to advance unhampered through Crusader territory to engage and defeat the Mongols at 1260's pivotal Battle of Ain Jalut.
European attitudes began changing in the mid-1260s, as the perception of the Mongols changed from that of enemies to be feared, to potential allies against the Muslims. The Mongols, once they understood the European motivations, capitalized on this, promising that if the Europeans cooperated with the Mongols, then if Jerusalem was reconquered, the Mongols would return it to the Christians. Attempts towards an alliance continued through negotiations with multiple leaders of the Mongol Ilkhanate in Iran, from its founder Hulagu through his descendants Abaqa, Arghun, Ghazan, and Öljaitü, but without success. The Mongols invaded Syria several times between 1281 and 1312, sometimes in attempts at joint operations with the Europeans; however, there were considerable logistical difficulties involved, which usually resulted in the forces arriving months apart, and being unable to satisfactorily combine their activities.
... and arrived precisely there (in Persia), where we might speculate, that the Tamerlane Chess already existed, at the Ilkhanat-court. The old Khan had died, the bride was taken by the son.Kublai Khan declined the Polos' requests to leave China. They became worried about returning home safely, believing that if Khan died, his enemies might turn against them because of their close involvement with the ruler. In 1292, Khan's great-nephew, then ruler of Persia, sent representatives to China in search of a potential wife, and they asked the Polos to accompany them, so they were permitted to return to Persia with the wedding party — which left that same year from Zaitun in southern China on a fleet of 14 junks. The party sailed to the port of Singapore, travelled north to Sumatra and around the southern tip of India, eventually crossing the Arabian Sea to Hormuz. The two-years voyage was a perilous one - of the six hundred people (not including the crew) in the convoy only eighteen had survived (including all three Polos). The Polos left the wedding party after reaching Hormuz and travelled overland to the port of Trebizond on the Black Sea, the present day Trabzon.
wiki: "Wirnt von Gravenberg, writing early in the thirteenth century, mentioned the Courier Game in his poem Wigalois, and expected his readers to know what he was talking about. Heinrich von Beringen, about a hundred years later, mentioned the introduction of the couriers as an improvement in chess. Kunrat von Ammenhausen, still in the first half of the fourteenth century, told how he had once in Constance seen a game with sixteen more men than in the "right chess": each side having a trull, two couriers, a counsellor, and four extra pawns. He added that he had never seen the game anywhere else, in Provence, France, or Kurwalhen" ... I tried to find the passage in the Wigalois and stayed without success.
Filippo Maria Visconti's deck ignored ...This might have been Conty's model and his considerations:
The basic field (2x8) was parted in a male and a female field ... so one reigned by Juno, and the other by Jupiter:
So we get:
Jup. Jup. Jup. Jup. Juno Juno Juno Juno
Jup. Jup. Jup. Jup. Juno Juno Juno Juno
As Jupiter was a planet, all Jupiter fields were filled with planets and additionally Minerva as the 8th god in the list.
The other 8 are then for Juno.
Jupiter naturally had to take the King position, Juno naturally had to take the Queen position.
The position of the bishops was given in traditional chess to the old, and Saturn was older than Zeus in mythology. On the female side we have Cybele (which is Rhea and Rhea was the wife of Kronos, which is identic with Saturn. So we have for the officer row:
? - ? - Saturn - Jupiter - Juno - Cybele - ? - ?
For the officer row we have to search in the planets, which have more distance to earth: so Mars and sun as seen in the Chaldean row. For the female side we the older gods (pawns are seen as children), 2 brothers of Zeus and Juno: Neptun and Pluto. So we have this possibilities ...
Rook - Knight - Bishop - King - Queen - Bishop - Knight - Rook
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Apollo - Mars - Saturn - Jupiter - Juno - Cybele - Pluto - Neptun
Apollo - Mars - Saturn - Jupiter - Juno - Cybele - Neptun - Pluto
Mars - Apollo - Saturn - Jupiter - Juno - Cybele - Pluto - Neptun
Mars - Apollo - Saturn - Jupiter - Juno - Cybele - Neptun - Pluto
... whereby one has to state, that more than one of these might fit the ideas, which are generated by the chess figures of Cessolis.
So I first take a look at the other 8 figures.
I've from Cessolis
Farmer - Smith - Barber - Merchant (= left side)
- Physician - Innkeeper - Doorkeeper - Messenger (= right side)
and from Conty
Venus-Mercury-Diana-Minerva for one side
and
Aesculapius-Bacchus-Vulcan-Pan for the other
Vulcan would be best placed as a Smith, but this is difficult, as he's not a planet god
Mercury might be the Merchant, but also the Messenger and he's a planet god
Aesculapius should be the Physician
Bacchus should be the Innkeeper
Pan might be the poor man (the Cessolis-messenger is sometimes a poor man)
... and generally there's the problem, that we have between the Cessolis professions only men, but in the planets group 3 female gods (if we include Minerva).
Between all this possibilities I come to the conclusion, that the following is most plausible:
Apollo - Mars - Saturn - Jupiter - Juno - Cybele - Pluto - Neptun
Diana - Venus - Minerva - Mercury - Asclepius - Bacchus - Vulcam - Pan
or in pairs, from left to right
Rook - Apollo - Diana - Farmer
Knight - Mars - Venus - Smith
Bishop - Saturn - Minerva - Barber
King - Jupiter - Mercury - Merchant
Queen - Juno - Asclepius - Physician
Bishop - Cybele - Bacchus - Innkeeper
Knight - Pluto - Vulcan - Doorkeeper
Rook - Neptun - Pan - Messenger ("poor man" typus)
Argumentation:
Apollo - Diana is necessarily a pair (and Diane has as their children farmers), as Mars and Venus are a pair (and Venus is wife of a smith, i.e. Vulcan). Minerva is connected to philosophy and wisdom and this somehow fits with Saturn-Kronos as old man or Father Time. The Barber and his cutting tools fits with Kronos, though hardly with Minerva. Mercury makes a good merchant.
Asclepius gives a good physician, Bacchus a good innkeeper. Vulcan would be better as the smith, but a vulcano is a door to the underworld ("doorkeeper") and the underworld is the place of Pluto. Pan - if seen as "poor man" - fits with the messenger.
Mars and Pluto gives good knights, Apollo and Neptun are chariot driver (in some Cessolis pictures the rook is designed as chariot driver, though in others as a second knight or a peaceful man at horse different to the the knight, who is usually on a horse, but dressed in armour). In some Asean chess variations the rook is seen as ship, so naturally good connected to Neptun.
So it works ... Conty's 16 gods might have had their relations to the chess of the time. But naturally, he connects two different worlds, which originally were not connected, so the whole show has some weakness.
In 1463, the Venetian Senate, seeking allies against the Turks, sent Lazzaro Querini as its first ambassador to Tabriz, but he was unable to persuade Uzun Hassan to attack the Turks. Hassan sent his own envoys to Venice in return. In 1471, Querini returned to Venice with Hazzan’s ambassador Murad. The Venetian Senate voted to send another to Persia, choosing Caterino Zeno after two other men declined. Zeno, whose wife was the niece of Uzun Hassan’s wife, was able to persuade Hassan to attack the Turks. Hassan was successful at first, but there were no simultaneous attack by any of the western powers.
Uzun-Hassan met the Ottomans in battle near Erzincan in 1471 and at Tercan in 1473. He was defeated by Mehmed II at Battle of Otluk Beli in the late summer of 1473.
In 1473, Giosafat Barbaro was selected as another Venetian ambassador to Persia, due to his experience in the Crimean, Muscoy, and Tartary. Although Barbaro got on well with Uzun Hassan, he was unable to persuade the ruler to attack the Ottomans again. Shortly afterwards, Hassan’s son Ogurlu Mohamed, rose in rebellion, seizing the city of Schiras.
After another Venetian ambassador, Ambroglio Contrinari arrived in Persia, Uzun Hassan decided that Contrinari would return to Venice with a report, while Giosafat Barbaro would stay. Barbaro was the last Venetian ambassador to leave Persia, after Uzun Hassan died in 1478. While Hassan’s sons fought each other for the throne, Barbaro hired an Armenian guide and escaped.
... was used as rook by Marco Gerolamo Vida in Italy, so the Tarot Chess hypothesis has made a point there.Marco Gerolamo Vida:
begin 16th century, chess poem with gods, Mercury against Apollo
http://books.google.com/books?id=IGMIAA ... q=&f=false
Of special interest, as the games placed elephants as rooks (usually they're positioned at the bishop's place) and this is in Italy. The bishop place is used for archers.
"And many an Indian Elephant appears, each on his back a frowning castle bears"
"To flank both armies to the Towers belong, Each by an Elephant is born along."
in the poem line 40 - 70
"Lo magnifich mossen Narcis Vinyoles", as he was called in his late works, died in Valencia in 1517, at an age estimated between 70 and 75 years. He was a relevant politician and writer in Valencia in the last quarter of the 15th.century. An important side of Vinyoles's personality is his literary productions.
The mentioned poem "Scachs d'amor" should be one of the earliest, if not the first, for several reasons which we shall discuss later. Then there appear a certain number of poems, some of them trivial, satyrical or amatory, but others increasingly connected with religious themes, as in the literary contest in honour of the Virgin Mary, St. Catherina of Siena, St. Cristopher, etc. When he was a prominent politician, he wrote in a more grave manner ...
... Vinyoles, when translating the "Suplementum chronicarum" into the Castilian, explicitly abjures from Catalan as "a barbaric language." Still today, Catalonian scholars regard Vinyoles as betraying his own cultural roots, and it explains why the research on Vinyoles works is relatively rare.]
This is relevant to the dating of the "Scachs d'amor" manuscript, which seems to belong to the early youth of Vinyoles. First, because it is a manuscript and not a printed book, and the first printed book - "Obres e trobes en llaor de la Verge Maria", by Lambertus Palmart - appears in Valencia around 1474 (containing, by the way, poems of Fenollar, Castellví and Vinyoles). Secondly, because the literary play, where Vinyoles acts as Venus, does not look appropriate to the high politician Vinyoles was during his late years. Thirdly, because the manuscript does not mention the title of "mossen" when referring to Vinyoles and this title is, on the contrary, given to Fenollar alone. Castellvi, at least, has a "don" preceding his name, but Vinyoles is referred to with his name alone. Vinyoles appears with the title "lo magnifich" in 1488, in a literary contest in honour of Saint Cristopher. Taken together, these facts point to a probable dating of the manuscript which should be set in the decades of 1470 or 1490 at the latest. In any case, in all probability, the "Scachs d'amor" manuscript must be older than Vicent's printed chess book of 1495
One cannot see, for which reason this strong Italian connection existed. No journeys to Italy are recorded.The literary production of Vinyoles suggests in the whole a strong Italian connection.
The German printer of the Lucena chess book 1497 in Salamanca, Leonard Hutz, had worked till 1496 in Valencia, where he in 1493 also made a book for Bernat Fenollar - this is interpreted as a "relevant connection" between the literary circle of Valencia and chess in Salamanca.Luis Ramírez de Lucena (c. 1465 – c.1530) was a leading Spanish chess player. He wrote the oldest existing printed book on chess, Repetición de Amores y Arte de Ajedrez con ci Iuegos de Partido, published in Salamanca in 1497. The book contains analysis of eleven chess openings but contains many elementary errors that led chess historian Harold Murray to suggest that it was prepared in a hurry. The book was written when the rules of chess were taking their modern form (see Origins of modern chess), and some of the 150 positions in the book are of the old game and some of the new. Fewer than a dozen copies of the book exist.
When explaining the rules of the game, Lucena makes a careful distinction between the new way of playing chess, which he calls "de la dama", and the ancestral rules, which he refers to as "el viejo" (the old one). All 150 chess problems are classified in two equal groups — 75 belonging to modern chess, and 75 to medieval chess.
The book is dedicated to the son of Isabella and Fernando and probably made for the marriage with the Habsburg princess Margareta. The prince had gotten for his marriage the university of Salamanca, where the book was produced. (In Germany a playing card deck is known, which probably was made for the same occasion). Unluckily the prince died from having too much sexual intercourse with his bride (official explanation). Others speak of poison, a Jewish physician was executed."I intended to carefully produce this book, because I desired that the prince might find rest from his noble thoughts and holy occupations, and alleviate his fatigue with the enjoyment."
Well, this is an astonishing hypothesis, and probably too exotic to be true.Thus, in 1495, a double wedding was agreed upon between Spain and the Hapsburg Emperor. This marital alliance recommended that Prince John marry Margaret of Austria, daughter of the Emperor Maximilian and that the "infanta " Juana should wed the son and heir of the emperor, the Archduke Philip, heir of the Low Countries via his mother Mana Caroline, the duchess of Bourgogne. In 1496, shortly after this agreement, the youngest daughter of the Spanish monarchy, Catalina, was promised to the Prince of Wales. Years later, she became the first wife of Henry VIII.
On October 20, 1496, there took place in Flanders the wedding ceremony between Juana and Philip. After this, Margaret, sister of Philip, travelled to Spain to marry Prince John, brother of Juana. Margaret sailed in the same fleet of 20 vessels and 3000 men which had previously taken Juana to Flanders. The voyage was tempestuous, as Columbus, who had already returned from his second expedition overseas predicted. But the biggest political tempest was yet to come.
Prince John appears suddenly at the forefront of this story in 1497, when he receives his fiance in Santander. With unprecedented splendour, the wedding ceremony took place on April 3, 1497 in Burgos. Almost in a fairy tale fashion, everything seemed promising for the couple. Among many other presents, Prince John received as dowry the university city of Salamanca, the very place Lucena wrote his book praising love, chess and Prince John.
Meanwhile, Prince Manuel of Portugal remained hesitant to fulfill Isabella’s request regarding the expulsion of all Jews from Portugal. Finally, however, he surrendered to political pressure and accepted this condition. Afterward, in a quiet and discrete ceremony, the marriage took place at the end of September 1497, in Valencia de Alcantara, near the border.
By contrast, during those same days, Salamanca exultantly celebrated the arrival of Prince John, who received the city as his dowry on September 28, 1497, for which there exists an impressive description of the atmosphere penned by a direct witness, the Italian Pedro Martir de Anglena. (16)
However, as fate would have it, Prince John suddenly fell ill of a mysterious disease and, after three days of agony, died in Salamanca on October 4, 1497. There is no clear explanation for this illness and the official version of several historians is rather absurd. Their explanation offers how the lovemaking between John and Margaret was so passionate and intense that most of the court physicians became alarmed, and suggested a temporary separation of the couple. In contrary fashion, theologians rejected this idea with the sentence — "Quos Deus coniuxit homo non separet". As the story goes, the result was the physical exhaustion of the prince and his death.
In either case, a much more credible theory of poisoning as revenge against the crown for its policy of prosecuting Jews is possible to discern from the overall scenario. Caro Baroja ("Los judios en la Espana Moderna y Contemporanea", Madrid 1978. II. page 181) relates that the archives of Navarra and those of the Cathedral of Toledo contain documents supporting the theory of poisoning. In fact, the prince’s Jewish physician, a Portuguese named Ribas Altas, was sentenced to death and burned a few days thereafter. Also to be remembered is the prediction of Rodrigo de Basurto, a "converso" and professor of astrology in Salamanca, who made statements about the prince's death before the royal visit. (J. E. Gillet "Propalladia" Filadelfia, 1961.Ill, p. 630. Ruiz de Vergara, "Historia" I, 229-30 Cfr. Gilman, note 9, p. 273).
This gives grounds for speculation, the primary question being whether Lucena was as aware of the conspiracy as Basurto seems to have been. Certainly, Lucena knew Basurto, who was one of his professors. Moreover, on March 8, 1497, the same printers of Lucena's book also printed Basurto's "Praxis prognosticandi", which suggests probable connections among this group of conversos. Lucena may have been informed about the political background of royal marriages due to his father’s active participation in their negotiation. If so, the sarcastic "Repeticion de amores" may have been conceived as an oblique satire of the prince’s marriage, and the dedication of the chess book, replete with exaggerated flattery and 150 chess problems, a symbolic checkmate against a crown that Jews like Lucena had no reason to love.
I overlooked, that the information was later given in a footnote:One cannot see, for which reason this strong Italian connection existed. No journeys to Italy are recorded.The literary production of Vinyoles suggests in the whole a strong Italian connection.
"Brianda" [wife of Vonyoles] "was the daughter of Berenguer de Santangel, brother of Luis. The eldest brother of Brianda, also named Luis, was abbot at St. John of Fiore in Naples in 1511. This branch of the Santangel clan lived in Naples for several years, which explains the Italian connections of Vinyoles. As a matter of fact, Vinyoles spoke not only Catalan, Castillian and Latin, but also Italian, in which he was fluent enough to write verses. One of his poems in the competition in honour of the Virgin Mary of 1474 was in "lingua toscana", beginning with the verse "Dilecta da Dio, obediente ançilla". In the contest in honour of the Inmaculate Conception (1486), there is another "Tuscan" poem of Vinyoles, beginning with the verse "Non po sentire lo insensibili morto". So, we can establish yet another relevant link, connecting the Valencian chess circle with southern Italy. This may explain why the Vicent book, with problems of modern chess, was known by Cardan (18) and Salvio (19) as late as the 17th. century. It also explains the Valencian influence, so far completely neglected by scholars, in Italian chess works as important as the famous "Scacchia Ludus" of Vida, where Greek gods also appear playing chess in verses. The rapid spread of the new way of playing chess in Italy can be more easily explained through these links than through the book of Lucena, which remains unmentioned by the later authors from Damiano on."
... a version with 16 acts, a version with 21 acts and a version with 22 acts.There are two versions of the play. One is called a Comedy and has 16 acts; the other is considered a Tragic Comedy and has 21 acts.
Although most scholars admit that an earlier version by an unknown author already existed, the first known edition is credited to be the Comedy published in Burgos by printer Fadrique Aleman in 1499 with the title Comedia de Calisto y Melibea (Comedy of Calisto and Melibea). It is preserved in the Hispanic Society of New York. On its first page it states: "nuevamente revista y enmendada con la adición de los argumentos de cada un auto en principio", alluding to a Prínceps Edition prior to 1499.
Some scholars wish to explain this discrepancy about the 1499 date, considering the version published in 1500 in Toledo to be the first edition; however, there is no positive proof of this, and there are some contradictications:
* 1. Acrostic verses are not in themselves proof enough that the 1500’s edition is the "Prínceps Edition".
* 2.If the 1499 version was published after the Toledo version, it should contain as stated, additional material, whereas some of the verses are actually omitted.
* 3.The phrase “fernando de royas acabo la comedia” means that a previous version existed and that Fernando de Rojas completed it by adding additional material.
The Toledo 1500 edition contains 16 acts, and also some stanzas with acrostic verses such as “el bachjller fernando de royas acabo la comedia de calysto y melybea y fve nascjdo en la puebla de montalvan”, which means “the graduate Fernando de Rojas finished the Comedy of Calisto and Melibea and was born in the city of Montalbán.” (This is the reason it is believed that Rojas was the original author of the play.)
A similar edition appeared with minor changes "Comedia de Calisto y Melibea", Sevilla, 1501
A new edition entitled Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea (Tragic Comedy of Calisto and Melibea) (Sevilla: Jacobo Cromberger) appeared in 1502. This version contained 5 additional acts, bringing the total to 21.
Another edition with the title Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea (Tragic Comedy of Calisto and Melibea) (Valencia: ) appeared in 1514. This version contained those 5 additional acts, with the total of 21.
In 1526 a version was published in Toledo that included an extra act called the Acto de Traso, named after one of the characters who appears in that act. It became Act XIX of the work, bring the total number of acts to 22. According to the 1965 edition of the play edited by M. Criado de Val and G.D. Trotter, "Its literary value does not have the intensity necessary to grant it a permanent place in the structure of the book, although various ancient editions of the play include it."
Melibea (in Celestina) actually seems to be Meliboia or Chloris in the Niobe-storyCallisto was a nymph (or, according to some sources, the daughter of Lycaon) who was associated with the goddess of the hunt, Artemis. Young women who were devoted to the goddess hunted with her regularly, and remained virgins, like Artemis herself. Callisto had upheld these ideals faithfully, and she quickly became Artemis' favorite.
While Callisto spent her days and nights with Artemis' other followers, she caught the eye of Zeus. Knowing that the maiden had taken a vow of chastity, Zeus resorted to deception to get at Callisto. He came to her disguised as Artemis, and the young huntress let down her guard. Seizing the opportunity Zeus raped her.
Callisto became pregnant, and tried desperately to conceal her condition form the goddess. After all, she had, in a way, broken her vow to the goddess and she feared her anger. Callisto had been successful for a time, but then a day came when all of the young women who followed Artemis disrobed to bathe together in a spring. By now Callisto was beginning to show, and once she was naked her secret was revealed. Artemis was furious and she banished the young woman from her fold. Callisto wandered off to have her child alone.
Hera decided that this was the time to exact her revenge. She gripped Callisto's hair and threw her to the ground where the new mother was transformed into a bear. The hunter became the hunted. The child that Callisto had by Zeus was spirited away by Hermes to be raised by his mother, Maia. He was named Arcas, meaning "bear," and he grew up to be a fine hunter himself. Some sources have the bear captured and taken to Callisto's own father, Lycaon.
According to some sources Artemis herself killed the bear that was once Callisto, but it is usually accepted that when Arcas was out hunting as a young man he encountered the bear. Callisto recognized the handsome youth as the son she could not raise herself. Forgetting her present form, she tried to come near him, but her loving mother's arms were now strong, furry paws, and her once soothing voice was now a rumbling growl. The bear scared Arcas, and he took aim at her with his spear. Zeus took pity on his former victim and intervened. He placed Callisto in the sky as the constellation Ursa Major, or "great bear," and then took Arcas and placed him in the sky near his mother as Ursa Minor, the "little bear."
Hera was not pleased with this arrangement, especially since Callisto was another of her husband's infidelities. She went to her nurse, Tethys, the wife of Oceanus, and beseeched her to punish Callisto and Arcas. Tethys decided to deprive the pair of water, and so the great bear and the little bear are cursed to circle in the skies, never to dip below the horizon for a refreshing bath or a cool drink. Here the peoples of ancient Greece explained why the two constellations are circumpolar, visible all year round.
Lycaon, called father of Callisto in Greek mythologyMeliboea was one of Niobe and Amphion's fourteen children (the Niobids), and the only one (or one of two) spared when Artemis and Apollo killed the Niobids in retribution for Niobe's insult to their mother Leto, bragging that she had many children and Leto had only two. Meliboea was so frightened by the ordeal, she turned permanently pale, changing her name to Chloris ("pale one"). This Chloris is referred to in Homer's Odyssey (book 11, lines 281-296).
She was later to marry to Neleus and become queen in Pylos. They had several sons including Nestor, Alastor and Chromius and a daughter Pero. Chloris also had a son, Poriclymenus while married to Neleus, though by some accounts Poriclymenus's father was Poseidon (who was himself Neleus's father). Poseidon gave Poriclymenus the ability to transform into any animal. Other children include Taurus, Asterius, Pylaon, Deimachus, Eurybius, Phrasius, Eurymenes, Evagoras and Epilaus.
Odysseus is said to have encountered Chloris on his journey to Hades (Homer's Odyssey, 11, 281).
Pelasgos, called father of LycaonLycaon was the cruel king of Arcadia, son of Pelasgus and Meliboea, who tested Zeus by serving him a dish of a slaughtered and dismembered child. In return for this gruesome deed Zeus transformed Lycaon into the form of a wolf, and killed Lycaon's fifty sons by lightning bolts, except possibly Nyctimus, who was then the slaughered child, and instead became restored to life[1].
In Astronomica Hyginus describes the victim of Lycaon as being Arcas, son of Jupiter (Zeus) and Callisto, the daughter of Lycaon. When saved and restored to life, Arcas was brought up to be a hunter by mistake hunting himself and his mother (for the moment transmogrified to a bear) into a temple where the entrance was punished by death, both saved by Zeus to constitute the constellations Arctophylax [= Boötes, who is a shephard] and Greater Bear[2].
Ursa Minor and Ursa Major were related by the Greeks to the myth of Callisto and Arcas. However, in a variant of the story, in which it is Boötes that represents Arcas, Ursa Minor was considered to represent a dog. This is the older tradition which sensibly explains both the length of the tail and the obsolete alternate name of Cynosura (the dog's tail) for Polaris, the North Star.[2]
Previously, Ursa Minor was considered to be just seven close stars, mythologically regarded as sisters. In early Greek mythology, the seven stars of the Little Dipper were considered to be the Hesperides, daughters of Atlas. Together with the nearby constellations of Boötes, Ursa Major, and Draco, it may have formed the origin of the myth of the apples of the Hesperides, which forms part of the Labours of Hercules
I think, you've at least partly the right idea.mmfilesi wrote:Great analisys, thanks, Huck.
Another trhead interesting.
Cessolis > Hofämterspiel
First line from left to right.
1. rocks, the governors > 10 Hofmeister
2. knights, War Leaders > 9 Marschalk
3. judges and assessors (advisors) > 8 Capplan(1), Hofmeistryn, Kantzler
4. queen > Königin
5. king > König
6. judges and assessors (advisors) > 8 Capplan(1), Hofmeistryn, Kantzler
7. knights, War Leaders > 9 Marschalk
8. rocks, the governors > 10 Hofmeister
1. Cessolis don includes eclesiastic in her game, because he is a eclesiastic. The Church cant go dawn the king (güelfos, gibelinos polemic).
Second line from left to right.
1. players, the ribald and the porters and messengers > 1 narr (the players), 2 bott
2. guards > 5 Schutz
3. Bartenders and waiters > 7 Schenk, Kuchenmeister + 5 Koch
4. doctors and pharmacists > 8 Artzt
5. cloth merchants and bankers >
6. jworkers in wool, as weavers, dyers and clippers; to skinners, butchers and butchers, to shoemakers and tanners and finally the scribes or notaries. > 3 Hofsneider + 7 Truchses
7. carpenter and craftsman (blacksmiths, stonemasons...) > 2 Hefneryn
8. Farmers > 2 Jeger, Pfister + 3 Vischner
The relationship is not exact, is evident. Cessolis wanted to describe the society and the author of the deck only the court. But it suggests the author of the deck could be inspire Cessolis.
I do not know if I have explained in my English prehistoric ?