kwaw said:
Our Ephesian Juggler I tend to see as 'old adam' (unregenerate Man) himself:
Ephesian, Ephesus
Boon companion and roisterer but used less generously by Shakespeare, whom the apostle Paul warned to beware the ‘sleight [1596, jugglery] of men’, not to fall back into ‘lasciviousness’ and ‘lusts’ but to ‘put on the new man’ (Eph 4).
Ephesus, setting for this bawdy play (comedy of errors), much resembles Epidamnus, scene fo Plautus’s
The Twin Menaechmi, one of the sources of the sources of CE: there live the worst devotees of sensual pleasure and drunkards; flatterers, tricksters; harlots. All who come get damned or damaged (damno devortitur). In Ephesus too there ‘jugglers...Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind, / soul killing witches that deform the body ... prating mountebanks / And many such like libertines of sin...
Jugglers are fornicators; (dar) whorehouse working sorcerers...witches are bawds and hermaphrodites that deform, usually castrate, the body...
... Unaware he is being mistaken for his dissolute twin, Antipholus describes Ephesus as a place of wanton sexualty... to conclude’Lapland sorcerers inhabit here’...Dropio then asks, ‘What, have you got the picture of Old Adam new apparelled?’ Has he become the
Old Adam (unregenerate human nature –
OED) new apparelled? Has he, as the apostle Paul said ‘put on the new Man’?
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...waTIBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3
Ephesians 4:14 That we be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
In Greek:
Ephesians 4:14 ινα μηκετι ωμεν νηπιοι κλυδωνιζομενοι και περιφερομενοι παντι ανεμω της διδασκαλιας εν τη κυβεια των ανθρωπων εν πανουργια προς την μεθοδειαν της πλανης
The Greek word translated as ‘sleight’ in KJ is κυβεια ~ kubeia from kubos, a cube, ie a die for playing; gambling, used figuratively for artifice, fraud, to sleight (juggle). The 21 points of a die, steps of a ladder, to heaven or to hell.
Thus 'Old Adam' ~ 'Ephesian Juggler'; thus our juggler represents not the lowest estate of man in a ranks of man, but an everyman, all man as damned man, fallen man; our pilgrim must beware the jugglery of men, shake of the old Adam and 'put on the new man' (charioteer), shake of the man of vice (juggler) and become a man of Virtue and a worthy citizen of the city of God.
Ephesians 4:15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, Christ:
Ephesians 4:16 From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.
Understanding the nature of the two loves (VI), the wise man becomes the New Man, the triumphal prince,(VII) worthy citizen and groom of the celestial city, the bride (XXI) - thus through the tarot is woven the theme of the hierogamos, the sacred marriage, a tale of two loves, cupiditas and caritas; of two venuses, or two cities.
It is a tale of fall (XV) and restoration (XXI), of the beginning of judgment - exile and death (XVI) and final judgement - resurrection into eternal life through God's caritas (xx). It is salvation through love, a procession from Old Adam to New Adam - from a worthless man (bagatelle) to a worthy citizen (parvus mundum).