venicebard
Warning: I work from an old concordance, hence line-numbers will have to be adjusted down for many editions. (I post this here rather than under historical research so as not to step on toes.)
Beginning with tree-names but expanding quickly into related symbols, study of Shakespeare's use of bardic symbolism -- the best evidence for which would presumably be juxtaposition of symbols relating to the same letter of the bardic (tree-)alphabet -- has already exceeded my initial expectation, else I'd have commenced this study a decade ago. Relevance to tarot resides in the demonstrable fact (as I see it) that Tarot of Marseilles embodies a marriage of Brito-Irish (Gnostic Christian) bardic tradition with Jewish Merkabah 'mysticism' (actually gnosis) to produce TdM from the former and Kabbalah from the latter.
First off, I find no 'fir' in his plays, but 'pine' is plentiful, and almost always associated with height. (I will document later, as I must post in dribs and drabs.) This would be I LeBateleur, as ailm has come to mean 'pine', not 'fir'. It is gratifying to me to see that the underlying symbolic meaning -- that which lifts, overcoming gravity (by levitation) -- resides in 'pine' as well. For A is the Egyptian vulture or eagle in hieroglyphics, silver fir originally in the tree-alphabet (as evidenced by its shape in runic), and the ox that turns the pump for irrigation in Semitic.
Aspen, E's tree and II LaPapesse by bardic numbering, is always used for its property of quivering sensitivity: 2 Hen. IV ii 4 (117), Hostess (to Falstaff) says she shakes "an 'twere an aspen leaf," and in Titus Andronicus ii 4 (44) lily hands "Tremble, like aspen leaves, upon a lute, And make the silken strings delight to kiss them," associating it thus with the conjoining or mating sanctioned by the heh added to Abram marking the Covenant -- and heh being 5 in Hebrew, the hand (of 5 fingers) given in matrimony in the Name (to mark the conjoining of 2, its bardic number).
I-Yew or 3 is associated with graveyards and death (and death-dealing longbows, of course). This trump and the preceding one are more obscured in symbolic meaning than the rest, because 2-aspen represents the sensitivity of the sexual organ (pledged along with the hand, in the Name), and 3-yew casts the Empress as the hag of death and old age -- what limits or rules life's duration.
Furze, O or ayin and IIII L'Empereur, is, oddly, just a prickly, common thing (here perhaps one need pursue a substitute, as with pine, so I will return later to this seeming gap).
Birch, B, or V LePape, the blessing or 'clean slate' (white bark) of infancy (birch's small stature, and that of the children the mother's arm presents to be blessed in the trump), appears but once, yet in proper context: Meas. for Meas. i 3 (24) has the Duke say, "Now, as fond fathers, Having bound up the threatening twigs of birch, Only to stick it in their children's sight For terror, not to use, in time the rod Becomes more mocked than fear'd." Birch besoms were used to switch (cleanse or 'bless') naughty children (whose evil spirits, collected therein, were used by witches).
The vine M ("mm" or sweetness), VI L'Amoureux, is well represented, as that which clings to the elm ["Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine," Com. of Errors ii 2 (176)], as "merry cheerer of the heart" [Hen. V v 2 (41)], as growing to the sun (of the future Elizabeth I) in Hen. VIII [v 5 (50)], and in invoking Bacchus [song in Anthony and Cleo., ii 7 (120)].
The obscure tree that is P or 7, peith the water elder or whitten or guelder rose (perhaps bush cranberry, for its relation to the crane of whose skin the bag was made that held the alphabet, in British lore), I did not find; but the reed, which is bardic Ng and takes the place of P in ogham, is present, and as it has several references and I must soon skedaddle, I shall pick up with the reed tomorrow.
Beginning with tree-names but expanding quickly into related symbols, study of Shakespeare's use of bardic symbolism -- the best evidence for which would presumably be juxtaposition of symbols relating to the same letter of the bardic (tree-)alphabet -- has already exceeded my initial expectation, else I'd have commenced this study a decade ago. Relevance to tarot resides in the demonstrable fact (as I see it) that Tarot of Marseilles embodies a marriage of Brito-Irish (Gnostic Christian) bardic tradition with Jewish Merkabah 'mysticism' (actually gnosis) to produce TdM from the former and Kabbalah from the latter.
First off, I find no 'fir' in his plays, but 'pine' is plentiful, and almost always associated with height. (I will document later, as I must post in dribs and drabs.) This would be I LeBateleur, as ailm has come to mean 'pine', not 'fir'. It is gratifying to me to see that the underlying symbolic meaning -- that which lifts, overcoming gravity (by levitation) -- resides in 'pine' as well. For A is the Egyptian vulture or eagle in hieroglyphics, silver fir originally in the tree-alphabet (as evidenced by its shape in runic), and the ox that turns the pump for irrigation in Semitic.
Aspen, E's tree and II LaPapesse by bardic numbering, is always used for its property of quivering sensitivity: 2 Hen. IV ii 4 (117), Hostess (to Falstaff) says she shakes "an 'twere an aspen leaf," and in Titus Andronicus ii 4 (44) lily hands "Tremble, like aspen leaves, upon a lute, And make the silken strings delight to kiss them," associating it thus with the conjoining or mating sanctioned by the heh added to Abram marking the Covenant -- and heh being 5 in Hebrew, the hand (of 5 fingers) given in matrimony in the Name (to mark the conjoining of 2, its bardic number).
I-Yew or 3 is associated with graveyards and death (and death-dealing longbows, of course). This trump and the preceding one are more obscured in symbolic meaning than the rest, because 2-aspen represents the sensitivity of the sexual organ (pledged along with the hand, in the Name), and 3-yew casts the Empress as the hag of death and old age -- what limits or rules life's duration.
Furze, O or ayin and IIII L'Empereur, is, oddly, just a prickly, common thing (here perhaps one need pursue a substitute, as with pine, so I will return later to this seeming gap).
Birch, B, or V LePape, the blessing or 'clean slate' (white bark) of infancy (birch's small stature, and that of the children the mother's arm presents to be blessed in the trump), appears but once, yet in proper context: Meas. for Meas. i 3 (24) has the Duke say, "Now, as fond fathers, Having bound up the threatening twigs of birch, Only to stick it in their children's sight For terror, not to use, in time the rod Becomes more mocked than fear'd." Birch besoms were used to switch (cleanse or 'bless') naughty children (whose evil spirits, collected therein, were used by witches).
The vine M ("mm" or sweetness), VI L'Amoureux, is well represented, as that which clings to the elm ["Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine," Com. of Errors ii 2 (176)], as "merry cheerer of the heart" [Hen. V v 2 (41)], as growing to the sun (of the future Elizabeth I) in Hen. VIII [v 5 (50)], and in invoking Bacchus [song in Anthony and Cleo., ii 7 (120)].
The obscure tree that is P or 7, peith the water elder or whitten or guelder rose (perhaps bush cranberry, for its relation to the crane of whose skin the bag was made that held the alphabet, in British lore), I did not find; but the reed, which is bardic Ng and takes the place of P in ogham, is present, and as it has several references and I must soon skedaddle, I shall pick up with the reed tomorrow.