Le Mat

jmd

The 'title' of cowardice ('lacheter') is of course recent... perhaps 'fear' ('peur') is more adequate - or even, with the representations here given, phobia...

I could not post a larger one, but hope to scan another image of the same next week. The one especially on Notre Dame de Paris is so similar as to be astounding (save that, as with most of the depictions, they are mirror images).

Of all images, the three I was expecting problems finding were the Fov, the Bateleur and the Pendu (having initially already known of the Tower)... only the Pendu remains!
 

firemaiden

These are modern titles? How modern?

lacheter -- to release, let go...
lache -coward...
 

jmd

The 'titles' are modern in the sense that the Cathedrals themselves only carry the image, not any appelations...

Earlier on in this thread, ihcoyc mentions that it may have been Eliphas Levi who placed the Fov as penultimate card.

I suspect this is not the case, but rather that it arose out of possible rules for the game of Tarot. Certainly as I was taught as a child to order one's cards in one's hand, if one had the Fov (the 'Excuse'), then it needed to be placed between, if one had these, Atouts XX & XXI. I suspect, by the way, that this simply arose as a symbolic reminder that it was not to be kept as last card in one's hand, or it would be lost.

I thus again strongly suspect that Levi 'merely' followed an established (gaming) ordered pattern, to which he also then added the letters of the Hebrew alphabet in sequence - either from another source, or of his own accord.

For what it's worth, it may be noteworthy to mention that DeGebelin, in his 1781 text (as does too, for that matter, the Comte de Mellet in his essay in the same work), may have been the first to allocate the card the number zero, though simultaneously mentioning that the card is placed after card XXI in the sequence.

On a different note, I again mention the 'obvious' in that the Fou/Mat remains un-numbered in traditional Marseille-type decks.

His position at the end of the sequence, and yet standing outside the sequence altogether, is also well reflected on as various meditations on pilgrimage and the like may have been carried out.

Certainly, reflections on Christ as poor man, as thought of during mediaeval times (and both earlier and later, for that matter), would have been inspiring. Also, for that matter, reflections on the state of those who contemplate the higher realms, oblivious to the physical realm they temporarily inhabit.

For this, one need go no further than Plato's Theaetetus 174-175 in which the lover of wisdom (ie, philo-sophia) is described as 'ignorant, not only of what he is doing, but he hardly knows whether he is a man or animal; he is searching into the essence of man, and busy in enquiring what belongs to such a nature to do or suffer different from any other'. A little further on (within the same referred-to section), Plato further describes him thus:
  • 'his awkwardness is fearful, and gives the impression of imbecility. When he is reviled, he has nothing personal to say in answer to the civilities of his adversaries [...] therefore he is laughed at for his sheepishness; and when others are being praised and glorified, in the simplicity of his heart he cannot help going into fits of laughter, so he seems to be a downright idiot. [...] in all these cases [a few others were mentioned] our philosopher is derided by the vulgar, partly because he is thought to despise them, and also because he is ignorant of what is before him, and always at a loss.'
If I were to have imagined an image from the description thus given, our Fou would certainly have been amongst the possibilities - here not as the basest of man, but of the highest calibre!
 

tmgrl2

Thank you for bumping this thread forward again, jmd...I sat here on a quiet Sunday morning reflecting on Le Mat, The Fool....
and reading what everyone has to say...I have been listening to a series of tapes on various philosophers and philosophies..Plato was a few months ago...and I have always felt, more so as I get older, that the more I learn,the less I know...

An interesting reflection about the Fool came to me in the form of a man we have seen around our town for the 27 years I have lived here. He is very thin, somewhat slight of build, looks "weathered ,taught of muscle, somewhat Lincolnesque facial features...angular, bony.

He walks. He walks everywhere. We never see him in stores. We have never seen him driving, although I have seen him walking with a small sack of groceries? We see him at all hours of the day, walking...sometimes, I start at one point in town,shop and on my way home, he is almost into town...so he has walked miles in one direction while I have been about my business. He always wears dark blue jeans, with a long-sleeved shirt tucked in. The shirt is a solid woodsy color..sometimes, black, sometimes green. It's as if he only owns a set or two of clothes.

Where does he live? Sometimes we don't see him for months at a time. It's not necessarily that he goes away in winter, because when he reappears, it could be any season that we see him walking almost anywhere. The other day I saw him for the first time carrying something other than a sack. He had a portable leaf blower on his back, and was walking in my wooded neighborhood, but there is little to "blow"right now. He has a flat affect. If I pass him in walking and say "hi" ne nods his head and gives me an almost smile.

Over the years, my husband and I have created an identity for him. We figure he can't work regularly. We don't know if he works at all, or where if any place, he lives, since his garb, his not driving and probably not owning a car, suggest perhaps he has little money or perhaps a disability, but there is a wisdom about him. I have never heard him speak. He is always alone. He has lived all these years...somewhere on the fringes of nowhere. On Long Island, if you don't have a car, it is difficult to get around...there are some free buses and some main train lines into the city.

Anyhow, we named him at least 20 years ago. We call him
Walker. Now, as a think about his name...I think of Strider /Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings...Stride : to walk.
I somehow have the Fool in my inner imagery bank as one who walks all lands, who needs little, who doesn't work, who pops up and disappears, who may be wise or may be a fool...or perhaps we are the fools and this man has learned a simpler way of existence...or perhaps is ill and has a certain "cowardice" about engaging with society and life and people in general.

Then, I started looking up Le Mat and Le Fou in my French dictionary. No luck, just the modern definitions...certainly to get at some origin we need all the ancient references given here, so I went to the English side and looked up "fool."

There at the very bottom in the section of idioms, I saw:

Tu m'as vraiment fait marcher
You really had me fooled

And, of course, as we know..."marcher" means "to walk"

Don't know what this all means, but our Walker somehow reminds me of the Fool Card...lives nowhere, appears everywhere, goes about alone, on foot, wears the same clothes, is wise? or not? Sometimes when I see him, I think: "Perhaps the joke is on me, as I scurry around working to make money to live a more frenetic life. Maybe I'm the fool and this man has it really figured out."

terri
 

jmd

Wonderful reflections...

In the thread The Fool and the Magician, I also make mention of the 'marcher' - though in a different context.

To have the only card in which the person walks, and that this very expression ('faire marcher') has to colloquial meaning of being fooled, is worth noting - so thank-you (again).

I mention it here for the sake of cross-reference :)
 

tmgrl2

ty, jmd...I just read the entire thread...I probably never would have made the connection with "walking" as I did this morning, except for the fact that I had just seen "Walker" again recently in our neighborhood. Then I opened up this bumped thread and somehow, thinking about Umbrae's words on the Fool in the articles at the beginning of AT which I hadn't read for awhile, it came together for me about this man...

The dictionary reference was definitely some kind of synchronicity that I decided to look up the English "fool," and find the idiom with a form of the verb "marcher." My knowledge of French is quite literal. But it felt so right to see this Walker as Le Mat in my own modern world of living Tarot.

Also liked the references to Le Bateleur with his feet firmly planted. That is one of my favorite elements in the TdM Bateleur.

Also, looking at the Trumps in my Camoin deck..the only ones who appear to possibly be walking are: Le Mat (Right facing on card - Future?) L'Hermite (Left facing - Past?) and Death (Right facing) Le Mat, the card with no number, Death, the card with no name and L'Hermite ?? IX....Actually, only Le Mat and Death actually appear to be walking...L'Hermite may be standing since robes cover his feet.

terri

ty, jmd, for all the cross-referencing..I am trying to study as well a reflect and meditate on the cards...I think your RW Three of Cups yesterday, set me on my trip with Walker as Le Mat this morning.
With the "walking" idiom I have another inner reference that I like for Le Mat.
 

roppo

I've just read through this thread and got much overwhelmed, impressed, and having said that, now I have some thoughts... Anyone ever pointed out the similarity between our Walker and St Roch? I always believed St Roch is a powerful candidate for the Fool and wrote an article for that (this time in English)

http://www7.ocn.ne.jp/~elfindog/egstroch.htm

I do hope European friends would be kind enough to search more St Roch iconography and report it
 

tmgrl2

roppo...very cool reference!

Re the "walker" reference....just this week, my granddaughter sent me the farewell address from a teacher at her school, Lawrenceville Academy. Within the speech the teacher quoted a translation of a piece of work of Antonio Machado, a Spanish poet who died in 1939 and who wrote 99 little poems that remind one of the Tao Te Ching. How interesting it appeared just after my post on Walker as Le Mat... Here is the translation:


Walker, your traces are
the path, and nothing else,
walker, there is no path,
we make the path by walking.
By walking we make the track,
and when we turn our eyes back
we see the path that nobody
will ever retrace again.
Walker, there is no path,
but wakes on the surface of the sea.


How I love this piece of verse and how "odd" that it appeared a day after my post...

terri
 

smleite

Maybe this is already known by most of you, and maybe it was already discussed here, I didn’t perform a search on it. But I couldn’t resist to post a link to a painting by the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch, called “The Pedlar”, also known as The Vagabond, The Prodigal Son, or, as I read in a French book, Le Pélerin (The Pilgrim). No words are needed; all is in the picture (even the dog, even the spoon attached to the bag…). By the time this was painted, a French book which name I can’t remember, dated from the 14th century and centred on the spiritual concept of “the soul’s journey”, had just been translated into Dutch. The link shows also another very interesting painting by Bosch…

http://www.theartnewspaper.com/artcritic/level1/reviewarchive/2001/sept_5_01_main.html

I would also like to post this excepts from Plato’s Phaedrus:

"...in reality the greatest blessings come by way of madness, indeed of madness that is heaven sent."

“In proportion as prophecy is higher and more perfect than divination . . . in the same proportion . . . is madness superior to the sane mind, for the one is only of human, but the other of divine origin”.

Sorry if these themes were already focused here, because I was just being lazy, not searching for them.
 

tmgrl2

Diana said:
Umbrae: I have looked this up in so many different books. Some authors seem pretty certain of the meanings (but then they all seem to disagree!), and others give all the meanings and say "we don't know".

The word Mat could come from the Arabic meaning "Death". As many tarologues put in relation the Bateleur, The Arcane Sans Nom (XIII) and the Mat, this could be a pointer to that. Those who believe in the Saracen origin of Tarot, seem to believe in this theory.

Then there are those who say it comes from the chess expression, check-mate, which in French is "Echec et Mat".

Then there are others who say it just quite simply comes from the Italian (Venetian?) "Matto" which means "Mad". (Pollux? Is that correct?)

Then there are others who prefer to avoid the question, and call this card Le Fou (which doesn't really translate as The Fool, it's more like the Village Idiot.)

However, in French we also have "Le Fou du Roi", (The Court Jester). In some of the Marseilles decks, Le Mat wears a hat that is similar to a Court Jester.

I think the ambiguity of his name is very appropriate. It fits in so beautifully, that one would like to suspect that it was done on purpose. :)

For the Fool has no constraints, has no rules nor laws, lives outside of any human structure. His only reference is himself. He doesn't even want a name. He just IS. He has no past, no future. He is beyond light and darkness. He doesn't really belong in the Tarot. Perhaps it is Tarot that belongs to the Mat.

In my mind, I cannot talk of the Mat without talking of the Bateleur at the same time. But I think that's a topic more suitable for the Using Tarot Cards forum, or the Talking Tarot forum.

Not only do I think of the Bateleur, but I too am always reminded of card XIII - the card without a name, and Le Mat is the card without a number.

Maybe the Tarot was just a bunch of ordinary playing cards to start out with. Personally I doubt it, but have no proof. However, if they were, someone soon realised that they could do something extraordinary with them. Maybe it was Le Mat himself? Or was it the Bateleur just before he turned to gold? Before he became.........

Bumped up this thread...I was looking up some elements on Le Mat and in Klea's book Au Fil D'Arcane...there was a bit on the Title of the card: (My summary translation from French):

Klea gives several anagrams in French with letters LeMat...meaning in English, respectively, Elamt/ elan( force, enthusiasm) metal (coin or metal), tel am (such soul) or te mal (bad tone or sound or bad luck to you)...She indicates that phonetically , it is related to Maat, Egyptian goddess who judged the souls of the dead to help decide if they should access a higher plane or return to the Underworld. In arabic, Mat means "death, " and so, as in chess, where "Echec et Mat" means "checkmate" perhaps it means "The King is dead." From Spanish "Matar" it can mean "stop" or "kill" (hence, Matador). In ancient French, Mat can mean "beaten" or "battered" (battu) or distressed (afflige)...Forgive me for not including the accents in the French..if my keyboard has them, I don't know how to use them

Some of these have been mentioned throughout this thread, but thought I might add Klea's piece here as a tag to Diana's post.

And so, the Fool, who lives on the boundaries, who has no number....could be (LOL, as tmgrl types some of this) an enthusiastic force, perhaps even a goddess who decides who goes to heaven and who goes to hell, who may appear "beaten, tattered and distressed"--like his clothing in the TdM and other decks---and who, in his travels from village to village, may be the bearer of the news..."The King is Dead!" .....and, of course, with a new king...a new regime, a new ??Court Jester? as well?
....change wears me down...as a harbinger of change...does the Fool bring death, bad news, change, distress, or is he merely a trickster whose message may be merely news?

rambling thoughts after reading this translation.

terri

(edited spelling 6/11/04)