Le Diable XV - belly and knees

tedglart

Does anyone have any ideas about the face on the Devil's stomach and especially about the eyes on his knees? The sticking-out tongue, I suppose, resembles a penis protruding from the vagina-like open mouth. So a sign of disrespect? Or simple coarseness? But even that seems odd when he has his hand raised in friendly greeting. Why advertise his disrespect when he wants to draw us in? Though I suppose the card is full of bisexual mixed messages. The face on the stomach makes him "two-faced" or duplicitous, and someone with his "eyes in his belly" suffers from greed. But what does it mean to have eyes on/in your knees? Eyes don't fold like knees, so do they force him to walk with straight legs and thus prevent him from kneeling to pray. So something about refusing to show reverence, maybe. Or is there a French verbal pun lurking somewhere in this arrangement that I wouldn't know about?
 

tedglart

Abrac, many thanks. Beautiful picture and very thought-provoking. The dragon head tattoos on his shoulders also call to mind the armour worn by the prince who drives the chariot on card VII. I seem to remember some passage from a Roman historian who talked about the Britons painting themselves blue and fighting naked with their tongues out as a sign of, what, disrespect. The All Blacks rugby team from New Zealand also do a pre-match ritual dance in front of their opposition during which they demonstrate their fiercenss by sticking out their tongues. Is it a symbolic threat to eat up and swallow the opposition? Tongues are also sensitive, usually protected inside the mouth. If we dare to expose our naked vulnerability, does this show how fearless and confident we are? The rugby dance mentioned above also features bulging eyeballs.

The area around the 3rd chakra (the solar plexus chakra) is usually considered as the source of our courage or aggressiveness or vital energy - the Chinese apparently regard it as the fiery source of consciousness - so I can understand the lion tattoo on the Pictish warrior's stomach. On the Devil this could suggest brutality or simply physical appetite or greed for food, our energy source. But I still can't understand the association of the knees with the demon faces tattooed on Pictish warrior. Goats have odd knees, don't they? They bend backwards, I believe. And the Devil is usually associated with goats. But I thought that had something to do with the vagina-like vertical oval of their eyes. "Goatishness" is lasciviousness in Shakespeare. So why not show goat eyes on the knees rather than human eyes? I feel there has to be a simple explanation somewhere. Maybe I should look in a dictionary of symbols in the entry about "knees".
 

tedglart

Abrac, I have just started to follow the thread you suggested and there is a lot of material to digest. Still nothing definitive about the eyes on the knees, but there are lots of historical/mythological precedents to explore. Thanks again.
 

Abrac

I'm sorry I can't be of more help. I confess I didn't read everything on that thread as it's not a subject I'm terribly interested in, at the moment anyway; but I thought there might be something helpful. I looked through some of my symbolism dictionaries last night and they mostly said knees represent power and submission, for example the expression "bringing someone to their knees" as an act of submission. "Uprightness" symbolizes strength or authority. No mention of eyes or anything really helpful as far as the Devil goes.
 

tedglart

After checking several other older threads on this issue, there is the possibility that the creators of the tarot image of the Devil may not have known themselves what was intended by eyes on knees. They may simply be copying a statue or illustration of a Hindu deity that struck them as diabolic simply because it was not Christian. Apart from the usual 7 major chakras that are now familiar to our culture, the knees also apparently contain chakras or energy centres. The knees are certainly powerful centres of physical and hence sexual vitality. Injured athletes and arthiritis sufferers know this. "Genus" is the Latin word for "knee", and this obviously shares some linguistic connection to a word like "genetics", which is concerned with sex and procreation. To have eyes on the knees may therefore carry the suggestion that the Devil's identity is more in his lower body than in his head. But I should read something about Hindu iconography to get more insight into this.
 

tedglart

And of course many cultures believe in the "evil eye". Sauron in "Lord of the Rings" is a modern example. The more eyes on his body, the more evil he is, I suppose. And most spiders have 4 pairs of eyes.