2 of Cups : Mithraic Aeon

[Teheuti]

Hi Mary! I want to say "Thank You!" very much
for the effort (and enthusiasm) you've put forth~
I think you must be as excited about this as I am!

I love the RWS deck and its symbols. And, while I enjoy tracking down classical references I try to stay open to what a card means in the moment to a particular person in a reading. For instance, as I've noted in other discussions, I hear the truth spoken when someone tells me that the staff-with-snakes in this card is forcing the two people apart. I've heard this on three different occasions. The details of the staff, snake and winged lion then become key to what's driving them apart. This is the wonder of symbols - that their potential goes far beyond what has ever been said about them.

Mary

 

[kwaw]

As Waite says, the winged lions head is an emblem that appears on the 2 of cups of a few old decks, it is not original to the RWS. It is an emblem with various meanings and references in gnositic, masonic, alchemical and emblematic texts all of which Waite was no doubt aware of, though he didn't care to elucidate upon them in the PKT.

Its use on older decks might possibly relate to it being a remnant, like the Visconti ducal crown, of the heraldry of crests to be found on the early painted decks of the Italian and French nobility: a winged lion's head is one of the crests of the House of Savoy, connected by several marriages with the houses of Visconti and Sforza, who have an established and recorded historical connection with the production of cards.

Another interesting aspect of the card is the transference of the two crowns we see on the two figures, of flowers for him and laurel leaves for her, from those that are worn by the two woman on some TdM style lover VI cards. The flowers are a symbol of Natura, do they relate perhaps to where Waite says:

"...as a suggestion apart from all offices of divination - that desire which is not in Nature, but by which Nature is sanctified."

And the pattern on his costume, a four leaf clover possibly?

http://www.fourleafclover.com/4fact.html

Two cups, two serpents, two crowns: could the symbolism of the two types of crowns representing nature (flowers) and the celestial (laurel leaves) be reiterated by the winged (wings as symbols of heaven) lion (as symbol of earth or nature)?

As the two crowns in the TdM lover card identify each woman as either an aspect of Venus Natura (crown of flowers) or Venus Urania (crown of laurel leaves or flames), so the crown of leaves on the woman here, together with the winged lion's head as emblem of Mithras, connects the woman of the card with Venus Urania. Mithra/Mithras being identified with Venus Urania in the Histories of Herodotus:

Quote:

“As to the analogy instituted by Herodotus between Venus Urania and Mithras… I can only beg my readers to believe that it is one which comparative archaeology fully corroborates : aye! and philology too, I might add; for the Persian mihr, (a contraction for mithra) means: "Mithra," " love," and " sun." Just as in the autonomous coins of Dyrrachium, and in a temple at Acrocorin- thus (see Pausanias) we find Aphrodite, Eros, Helios, conjoined.”

End quote from The Journal of Philology VOL. I. June, 1854. 16

Allusions to references to be found in scholastic texts on early Christianity, Herodotus and magazines of philology, and the relationship of Mithras to two of Waites main interests, alchemy and masonry, indicate IMHO that any allusions to Mithras in this card shows the influence and direction of Waite upon the symbolism of this card of the minor deck.

Kwaw