ARTICLE I.
ALLEGORIES presented by the Cards of the Game of TAROT.
If this game, which has always been mute for all those who knew it, has developed in our eyes, it was not the effect of some deep meditations, nor of the desire to unravel its chaos: we did not give it a moments thought. Invited a few years ago to go to see a Lady of our acquaintance, Madam C d.H., [1] who had arrived from Germany or Switzerland, we found her occupied playing this game with some other people: "We're playing a game you probably don't know."
"That may be, what is it?"
"The game of Tarot."
"I had occasion to see it when I was extremely young, but I don't have any idea of it."
"It's a rhapsody of the most bizarre and extravagant figures: in this one, for example," taking care to choose one loaded with figures, and without any relation to its name, "it is the World."
As soon as I lay my eyes on it I see the allegory: everyone leaves their game to come and see this marvellous card in which I apprehend what they have never seen. Each of them asks me to explain one card after another. In a quarter of an hour, the game was played, explained, and declared Egyptian. Since it was not the play of our imagination, but the result of the discerned relations and sympathy of the game with all that we knew of Egyptian ideas, we promised ourselves to share it someday with the public; persuaded that it would find pleasant a discovery and gift of this nature, an Egyptian book that had escaped from barbarism, the ravages of time, fires accidental and deliberate, and the still greater disaster of ignorance.
That it has been able to triumph over all the ages and to pass down to us with a rare fidelity is surely down to the frivolous and lightweight nature of the book. Ignorance in regards to what it represented, as indeed we were ourselves until now, provided safe passage by which to cross the centuries quietly, without anyone thinking of making it disappear.
It was time to rediscover the allegories that it was destined to preserve and to reveal that among these wise people even games were founded on allegory, and that these wise scholars knew how to convert into an amusement the most useful knowledge and make of it just a game.
As we have said, the Game of Tarot is composed of 77 Cards, even a 78th, divided into trumps and 4 suits. So that our readers can follow us, we have made engravings of the trumps and the ace of each suit, which we name after the Spaniards, Spadille, Baste, and Ponte.
TRUMPS.
The T
RUMPS number XXII, and in general represent the temporal and spiritual Heads of Society, the physical Heads of Agriculture, the Cardinal Virtues, Marriage, Death and the resurrection or creation; the various games of fortune, the Sage and the Fool, Time which consumes all, etc. It is thus understood in advance that all these cards are as many allegorical figures relating to the whole of life, and susceptible to an infinity of combinations. We will examine them one by one, and try to decipher the particular allegory or riddle that each of them contains.
No. 0, Zero.
THE FOOL
One cannot ignore the F
OOL in this card, with his fool's sceptre and coat adorned with shells and bells. He walks very fast like the fool that he is, carrying his little bundle behind him, thinking thereby to escape from a tiger that bites his buttocks. As for the package, it is the emblem of his faults that he wishes not to see; and this tiger, that of his remorse which follows him galloping and leaping behind him.
It was a fine idea that Horace framed so well in gold, in fact it was not his, and had not escaped the Egyptians. It would be a vulgar idea, a commonplace; but taken from Nature still true, and presented with all the graces of which it is susceptible, this agreeable and wise poet seemed to have drawn from it his profound judgement.
As for this trump, we call it Z
ERO, though it is placed in the game after XXI, because it does not count when it is alone, and its only value is that which it gives to the others, precisely like our zero: thus showing that nothing exists without folly.
No. I.
THE CUP PLAYER, OR BATELEUR.
We start with the number I and proceed to XXI, as the current practice is to start with the least number and proceed to the highest. The Egyptians, however, commenced the count from the highest and proceeded to the lowest. Thus they sang the octave while going down, and not while going up like us. In the essay following this one the Egyptian custom is followed, and the greater account is shown thereby. Thus both approaches will be covered: ours most convenient when one wants to consider each card itself: and the other more useful in better conceiving the whole and their relationships.
The first of all the Trumps in ascending order, or the last descending, is the C
UP P
LAYER. We recognise him at his table covered with dice, goblets, knives, and balls, etc., by his staff of Jacob or rod of the Magi, by the ball which he holds between two fingers and will make disappear. He is called the B
ATELEUR by the cardmakers: it is the common name of the people of this estate: is it necessary to say that it comes from
baste, stick?
At the head of all the estates, he indicates that life is but a dream, a vanishing act: that it is like a perpetual game of chance or random assembly of a thousand circumstances beyond our control and which inevitably influences any general administration.
Between the Fool and the Bateleur, Man is not well.
No. II, III, IV, V.
HEADS OF SOCIETY
Numbers II and III represent two women: Numbers IV and V, their husbands: they are the temporal and spiritual Heads of Society.
KING AND QUEEN.
No IV represents the K
ING, and III the Q
UEEN. They both have the attributes of the Eagle on a shield and a sceptre topped by a taudified globe or crowned with a cross, called a Tau, the sign par excellence.
The King is seen in profile, the Queen full face: they are both sat on a throne. The Queen wears a trailing dress, the back of her throne is high: the King is in [something like] a gondola or shell chair, legs crossed. His crown is semi-circular and topped by a pearl with a cross. That of the Queen ends in a point. The King carries an Order of Chivalry.
HIGH PRIEST AND HIGH PRIESTESS.
No V represents the Head of the Hierophants or the H
IGH P
RIEST: No II the H
IGH P
RIESTESS or his wife: we know that among the Egyptians, the Heads of the Priesthood were married. If these cards were of modern invention, one wouldn't see a High Priestess, let alone one under the name of P
OPESSE, as German cardmakers have ridiculously named her.
The High Priestess sits in an armchair: she wears a long habit with a species of veil which falls from behind her head and crosses over her stomach: she has a double crown with two horns like that of Isis: she holds an open book on her knees; two scarves decorated with crosses form an X across her chest.
The High Priest is in a long habit with a large cloak fastened with a clasp: he wears the triple tiara: with one hand he leans on a sceptre with a triple cross: and with the other hand he blesses with two fingers extended two figures we see at his knees.
The Italian or German cardmakers who reduced this game to their own understanding made these two characters to whom the ancients gave the names of Father and Mother, similar to our Abbot and Abbess, eastern words meaning the same thing, they made them, say I, a Pope and Popesse.
As for the triple-cross sceptre, it is an emblem absolutely Egyptian: we see it on the Table of Isis, under the letter TT; an invaluable monument that we have already had engraved in all its extent in order to give it someday to the public. It has to do with the triple phallus that was paraded in the famous festival of Pamylies, where they rejoiced to have found Osiris, and where it was the symbol of the regeneration of plants and all of Nature.
No. VII.
OSIRIS TRIUMPHANT.
OSIRIS advances next; he appears in the form of a triumphant King, with a sceptre in hand and crown on his head: he is in his warrior's chariot, drawn by two white horses. No one is unaware that Osiris was the great divinity of the Egyptians, the same as that of all the Sabean peoples, or that the sun is the physical symbol of this supreme invisible deity made manifest in this masterpiece of nature. Lost during the winter: he reappears in the spring with a new brilliance, having triumphed over all who made war on him.
No. VI.
MARRIAGE.
A young man and a young woman pledge themselves their mutual faith: a priest blesses them, Cupid is about to pierce them with his arrows. The cardmakers call this card the [male] LOVER. They seem to have added themselves this Cupid with his bow and arrows, to render the tableau more meaningful in their eyes.
We see in the Antiquities of B
OISSARD [
T III. Pl. XXXVI], a monument of the same nature, a depiction of marital union; but it is made up only of three figures.
The lover and beloved who pledge themselves their faith: [the figure of] Love between them serves as both witness and priest.
This picture is entitled 'F
IDEI S
IMULACRUM', depicting marital faith: the characters are called by the beautiful names T
RUTH, H
ONOUR and L
OVE. It is needless to say that Truth designates the woman here rather than the man, not only because the gender of word is feminine, but because constant Fidelity is more essential in the woman. This precious monument was raised by T. Fundanius Eromenus or
the kind, to his very dear wife
Poppée Demetrie and their beloved daughter
Manilia Eromenis.
Plate V.
No. VIII. XI. XII. XIII.
The four Cardinal VIRTUES.
The figures that we have gathered in this plate relate to the four Cardinal Virtues.
No. XI. This one represents F
ORCE. It is a woman who has become the mistress of a lion, and who opens its mouth with the same facility as if she were opening that of a little spaniel. She has on her head the hat of a shepherdess.
No. XIII T
EMPERANCE [rectified: XIV]. A winged woman pours water from one vase into another to temper the liquor that it contains.
No. VIII J
USTICE. She is a queen, she is A
STREA seated on her throne, holding a dagger in one hand and scales in the other.
No. XII P
RUDENCE is one of the four Cardinal Virtues: could the Egyptians forget her in these paintings of human life? Nevertheless, we do not find her in this game. We see in her place under No XII, between Force and Temperance, a man hanging by the feet: but why hung like this? It is the work of a miserable and presumptuous card maker who did not understand the beauty of the allegory contained within this card, took it upon himself to correct it and thereby entirely disfigured it.
Prudence can only be represented in a way recognizable to the eyes by a man standing, who having one foot laid, advances the other and holds it suspended while looking for the place where he can safely place it. The title of this card was thus the man with the suspended foot,
pede suspenso: the card maker, not knowing what it meant, made him a man hanged by the feet.
Then we asked, why a hanged man in this game? And we have not failed to say, this is the just punishment of the inventor of the game, for having represented a Popesse.
But placed between Force, Temperance and Justice, who can fail to see that it is Prudence that is wanted and that must have been represented originally?
Plate VI.
No. VIIII. ou IX.
The SAGE or the Seeker of Truth and the Just.
No IX represents a venerable philosopher in a long mantle, a hood over his shoulders: he walks bent over his stick and holds a lantern in his left hand. He is the sage seeking justice and virtue.
So we imagined from this Egyptian painting the story of Diogenes who with a lantern in hand goes looking for a man in midday. Witty words, especially epigrammatic, are for all time: and Diogenes was a man to put this image in motion.
The cardmakers made this Sage a Hermit. That is rather well observed: philosophers live willingly apart where they are hardly touched by the frivolity of the times. Heraclites was considered mad in the eyes of his fellow citizens: in the East, moreover, to indulge in speculative sciences or to become
hermetized is almost one and the same thing. The Egyptian hermits are as beyond reproach in this respect as those of India and the monks of Siam: they were or are all as many Druids.
No. XIX.
THE SUN.
On this plate we have gathered all the cards relating to light: thus after the dull lantern of the Hermit, we will review the Sun, the Moon and the brilliant Sirius or sparkling Dog Star, all figuring in this game with various emblems.
The S
UN is represented here as the physical Father of Humanity and all of Nature: it illuminates men in society, it presides over their Cities: gold tears and pearls are distilled from its rays: thus is depicted the happy influences of this celestial body.
This Game of Tarots is here in perfect conformity with the doctrines of the Egyptians, as we will see in more detail in the following article.
No. XVIII.
THE MOON.
Thus the M
OON following the Sun is also accompanied by tears of gold and pearls, to mark that it also contributes for its part to the advantages of the earth.
PAUSANIAS teaches us in his description of
Phocis that, according to the Egyptians, it was the
TEARS of ISIS that flooded the waters of the Nile every year and thus rendered fertile the lands of Egypt. Reports of this country also speak about a D
ROP or tear which falls from the moon at the moment when the waters of the Nile swell.
At the bottom of this tableau, we see a crayfish or crab, either to mark the retrograde motion of the Moon, or to indicate that it is when the Sun and the Moon emerge from the sign of Cancer that the flood caused by their tears arrives, with the rising of the Dog Star that we see in the following tableau.
It may even be the two reasons are united: it is not uncommon to draw conclusions from a crowd of consequences which form a mass which would be too confusing to untangle.
Two towers occupy the middle of the card, one at each side to indicate the two famous Pillars of Hercules, beyond the bounds of which these two great luminaries never pass.
Between the two pillars are two dogs that seem to bark at the Moon and to guard it: perfectly Egyptian ideas. In the unique allegories of these people, the Tropics are compared with two palaces each one guarded by a dog, which like faithful gatekeepers, held these celestial bodies in the midst of heaven without allowing them to slip towards one pole or the other.
These are not the illusions of ordinary pundits.
CLEMENT, himself an Egyptian, since he came from Alexandria, and consequently ought to know what he was talking about, assures us in his Tapestries [2], that the Egyptians represented the T
ROPICS under the figure of two D
OGS, which, like gatekeepers or faithful guardians, prevented the Sun and Moon from penetrating further and going to the poles.
No. XVII.
THE DOG STAR.
Here we have before us a tableau no less allegorical, and absolutely Egyptian; it is called the S
TAR. We can see, indeed, a brilliant star surrounded by seven smaller stars. A woman bending on one knee who holds two jars upside down and from which two rivers run occupies the bottom of the card. Next to this woman is a butterfly on a flower.
It is purely Egyptian.
This Star, par excellence, is the Dog Star or Sirius: a star that rises when the Sun leaves the sign of Cancer, in which the preceding tableau finishes, and which this Star immediately follows.
The seven stars that surround it and that seem to form its court are the planets: it is in a way their Queen, since the beginning of the year is fixed by the moment of its rising; they seem to come to receive its orders that they may regulate their courses by it.
The lady below, very attentive in this moment to spread the water of her jars, is the Queen of Heaven, I
SIS, to whose benevolence was attributed the flooding of the Nile, which starts with the rising of the Dog Star; thus this rising announced the inundation. For this reason, the Dog Star was dedicated to Isis, as her symbol par excellence.
As the beginning of the year also opened with the rising of this Star, they called it
SOTH-IS, the opening of the year; and it is under this name that it was dedicated to Isis.
Finally, the Flower and the B
UTTERFLY which it supports were the emblems of regeneration and resurrection: they indicated at the same time that thanks to the beneficence of Isis, with the rising of the Dog Star, the bare fields of Egypt would be covered in a new harvest.
Plate VIII.
No. XIII.
DEATH.
No XIII represents D
EATH: it reaps People, Kings and Queens, the Great and the Small, nothing resists its murderous scythe.
It is not surprising that it is placed under this number; the number thirteen was always regarded as unfortunate. There must have been some great misfortune on such a day very long ago that the memory influenced all the ancient nations about it. Could it be a continuation of this memory that the thirteen Hebrew tribes were never counted more than twelve?
Let us add that it is not surprising either that the Egyptians would insert death in a game which ought to arouse only pleasant ideas: this game was a game of war, so death must enter into it: thus the game of chess finishes by
checkmate, that is to say by
shāh māt, the death of the King. Moreover, we have occasion to recall in the calendar, that in the feasts, these wise and reflective people paraded a skeleton under the name of
Maneros, no doubt in order to urge the guests not to kill themselves by gluttony. Everyone has their own manner of looking at things, and tastes should never be disputed.
No. XV.
TYPHON.
No XV represents a famous Egyptian character, T
YPHON, brother of Osiris and Isis, the principle of evil, the great Demon of Hell: he has the wings of a bat, feet and hands of a harpie; on his head, ugly stag horns: they made him as ugly and as devilish as could be. At his feet are two little devils with long ears, large tails, their hands tied behind their back: they are bound to the pedestal of Typhon by a rope to their necks: he never lets go of those who are his; he loves well those who are his.
No. XVI.
House of God, or the Castle of Plutus.
This time we have here a lesson against avarice. This tableau represents a tower which is called the
HOUSE OF G
OD, that is to say the House par excellence; it is a tower filled with gold, the Castle of Plutus: it falls in ruins and its worshippers fall crushed under its debris.
For this ensemble, can we ignore the story of the Egyptian prince whom H
ERODOTUS speaks about called
RHAMPSINIT who, after having had a large stone tower constructed to house his treasures, and to which only he had the key, noticed however that they diminished before his eyes, without anyone passing through the only door that existed in this edifice.
To discover such clever thieves, the Prince set traps around the jars that contained his riches. The thieves were the two sons of the architect who served Rhampsinit. He had secured a stone in such a manner that they could remove it and steal at will without fear of apprehension. He taught his secret to his children who used it wonderfully as we can see. They robbed the Prince, and then they threw themselves to the bottom of the tower: and so they are represented here.
It is truly the most beautiful moment in the story. One will find in Herodotus the rest of this clever tale. How one of the two brothers was captured in a trap: how he urged his brother to cut off his head: how their mother insisted that her son bring back the body of his brother: how he went with goatskin flasks loaded on an ass to the guards of the corpse and of the palace: how, after they had taken his goatskin flasks in spite of his cunning tears, and they had fallen into a drunken sleep, he shaved off the right sides of all their beards, and took the body of his brother from them: how the King extremely astonished, urged his daughter to ask each of her suiters the finest trick that they had done: how this bright young man went to the beautiful daughter, and told her all that he had done: how the beautiful daughter wanted to arrest him, but seized only upon a false arm: how, to complete this great adventure, and to bring it to a happy end, the King promised his daughter to the ingenious young man who had tricked them so well, as being the person worthiest of it, and this was carried out to the great satisfaction of all.
I do not know if Herodotus took this tale for real history, but people able to invent similar romances or Milesian Fables could very well invent any game.
This writer brings back another fact that proves what we said in the story of the calendar, that the statues of giants paraded in various festivals usually designate the seasons. He says that Rhampsinit, the same prince we have just spoken about, erected at the north and the south of the Temple of Vulcan two statues twenty-five cubits high, one called
Summer and the other
Winter. They worshipped the one, but made sacrifices, on the contrary, to the latter: it is thus like the savages who recognise and love the good principle but only sacrifice to the evil.
No. X.
The Wheel of Fortune.
The last number on this plate is the W
HEEL of F
ORTUNE. Here human characters, in the shape of monkeys, dogs, rabbits, etc., rise in turn on this wheel to which they are attached. It seems that it is a satire against fortune, and against those that it elevates quickly and lets fall with the same speed.
Plate VIII.
No. XX.
Card badly named the LAST JUDGMENT.
This tableau represents an angel sounding a trumpet: we also see as if rising from the earth an old man, a woman and a naked child.
The cardmakers having lost the meanings of these tableaus, and still more all together, saw the last Judgement here; and to make it more recognizable added some sort of tombs. Remove these tombs and this tableau also serves to designate the creation, happening in time, at the beginning of time, as indicated by number XXI.
No. XXI.
TIME, badly named the WORLD.
This tableau, which the cardmakers have called the World because they regarded it as the origin of all, represents TIME. We cannot misunderstand it as a whole.
In the centre is the Goddess of Time, with her fluttering veil which serves her as a belt or
Peplum, as the ancients called it. She is posed as if running, like Time, and in a circle that represents the revolutions of Time; as well as the egg from which everything emerged in Time.
At the four corners of the tableau are the emblems of the four seasons, which form the revolutions of the year, the same that made up the four heads of the Cherubim.
These emblems are the Eagle, the Lion, the Ox, and the young Man:
The Eagle represents Spring when the birds return.
The Lion, Summer when the sun is blazing.
The Ox, Autumn when we plough and sow.
The young Man, Winter, when we meet in society.