A Walk in the Wood...cuts, the Marseilles

nicky said:

My TdM has her title as High Priestess.

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poor translation, wouldn't Papess be more accurate ?
A translated TdM sounds a bit weird to me - note I wouldn't appreciate a french RW neither (and truth is that I don't appreciate a lot RW anyway) - but even if translated then the translated terms shall be kept as close as possible to the original, "La Papesse" definitely does not translate to the high priestess, neither a Pope shall be named a "high priest", it's a shift in the concepts that tends to fit the Tdm into the Rider Waite : from an historical point of view it sounds like translating "Napoleon" into "George W. Bush".
Are the Deniers translated to Coins or Pentacles in your deck ?

Re. the Papess in the early decks. There's a thread that specifically discusses who/what she may be.

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=70257

Read post 4 from Rosanne, then continue........ it's an eye-opener



As to the title of High Priestess in a TdM deck, my copy of the Angel Tarot, a Stuart kaplan one, also has the Rider waite titles - I ignore them. They do not belong with a Marseille deck.

Bee

Bertrand said:

Are the Deniers translated to Coins or Pentacles in your deck ?

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Diamonds

I agree conversus, its a poor show when a Marseilles deck labels the Papesse that way. Off course the labels were added at some time during history... but that's another thread...

'High Priestess' conjures a whole different feel to the card to that of 'Papesse' so it a good idea to get out of the habit of calling the card that.

Edited as I've just read Bertrand's excellent post!

I don't know much about the church but I have a hard time imagining there was a female pope. And that is regardless of the fact that the man wears a dress...

I assume that is what Papesse translates to?

Read the thread and as far as I can tell there is no real determination as to who the card may represent... lots of interesting guesses though


The deniers are coins in my deck.

Isn't there some story about the Female Pope?

(Don't mind me, I'm just nicky's bodyguard )

\m/ Kat

Just wait till my deck gets here...I can't wait to continuing posting

thorhammer said:

Isn't there some story about the Female Pope?

(Don't mind me, I'm just nicky's bodyguard )

\m/ Kat

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I think you mean the possibility that there was a Pope Joan. It generates a lot of interest, and a few believers, but has generally been discounted. There are other threads here which discuss this. Try searching for, Joan or Pope Joan.


Bee

Hello,

The "Papesse Jeanne" may have been at a certain time in history seen as historical fact rather than myth, even accredited by the Church until the XVIth century according to Wikipedia.
Ross has several very interesting posts on the subject of the Papesse on his blog
http://ludustriumphorum.blogspot.com/ (search for popess)

Concerning the name "hight priestess" and "high priest", as far as I know "M. Le C. de M." in Court de Gébelin 1781's "Monde Primitif" appears to be the source for these names (grande prêtresse and grand prêtre), curiously the "Typhon" calling for the Devil didn't get as much success, neither did the "house of Plutus" for the "Maison Dieu" or "Foudre" which became later called "tower". Note that no actual Tarot deck prior to this text used any of these new names.
Tarock.info has a neat version of Court de Gébelin (and C de M) tarot texts.

Bertrand

None of these cards had titles. I was lucky enough to have the curator at the Pierpont Morgan take me into a small viewing room last year and see two of them as they are not displayed. (YaY me) (I had to share that as it was very very cool and he was a sweetheart to do it). Sooooooo that said, does it matter what they are called, beyond being able to identify them. If these are understood to be part of a game, which maybe I am wrong here, would the Papesse be easily taken as a trick if she is a comedic type figure ... assuming a female pope is either a parody of the church. Would that lessen her message if one is using divination with this deck? Was this deck the prototype of decks used for the masses? Would the possibility of the card being made to include Sister Manfreda done for the Visconti family translate to the card playing public?

At this rate I should be through with the pack by 2012.