About The Lover meanings.

Barleywine

Abrac said:
Could the woman be Venus? Venus (Goddess of love) and Cupid (her son) are frequently depicted together in art and mythology. The woman in the Lovers isn't a beauty as you'd expect Venus to be, but the tarot artists that created a lot of the early woodcut images aren't known for their artistic refinement.
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Interesting comment since, in the realignment of the astrological correspondences to the Major Arcana that I did as an experiment, I switched in Venus for Gemini, since I figured she might as well be doing the honors rather than her son. Venus in astrology has to do with values as well as love, so maybe the man's values are being put to the test.
 

FLizarraga

I think one of the problems with this card is that there are at least two working versions of it in Marseille-pattern decks, let alone more modern ones:

1) The couple with the Cupid/Angel figure, which is what the oldest Tarot in existence, the Visconti-Sforza, has; and

2) The Lover, with the young man flanked by two female figures.

So there simply can't be universal meanings for this card outside of a specific frame of reference. Just my two cents.
 

Barleywine

Last night I was thinking of an entirely different chain of events.

If the Pope is sometimes considered the "marriage card," the man in the Lover could be saying "What did I just do?", the Chariot would show him moving out, Justice is the divorce proceedings, in the Hermit we see him single again, the Wheel of Fortune has him trying his luck in the bar scene, in Fortitude he meets a dominatrix who ties him up (Hanged Man) and Death is the final scene in this drama.

Of course, the Church didn't permit divorce, so this fanciful story would never have materialized. :D
 

BSwett

Barleywine said:
Last night I was thinking of an entirely different chain of events.

If the Pope is sometimes considered the "marriage card," the man in the Lover could be saying "What did I just do?", the Chariot would show him moving out, Justice is the divorce proceedings, in the Hermit we see him single again, the Wheel of Fortune has him trying his luck in the bar scene, in Fortitude he meets a dominatrix who ties him up (Hanged Man) and Death is the final scene in this drama.

Of course, the Church didn't permit divorce, so this fanciful story would never have materialized. :D
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That's a fantastic story. I'm sticking to it! ;-)
 
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