History of Ideas - the Hanged Man

[Ross G Caldwell]

From the Altar to the entrance left and right sides
Left of Altar Vices..............Right is Virtues. The are directly opposite each other.
Foolishness....................Prudence
Inconstancy..................Fortitude
Wrath..........................Temperance
Injustice.......................Justice
Infidelity.......................Faith
Envy............................Charity
Desperation..................Hope

All of them are nicely presented on the Christus Rex site -
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/giotto/virtues.html

Ross

 

[kwaw]

Patience and Shuffle

"Then someone asked why a man hanged in this game?" wrote the Compte de Gebelin in his Du Jeu Des Tarots, "Moreover, another did not fail to reply, it is the fit punishment for the inventor of the game..."

While not the point that Gebelin was trying to make, it is an opinion that we may suspect of accurately reflecting that of the ordinary tavern player and gambler, assuming their interpretations to be more informed by the diabolic liturgy of the preachers than of humanist pedagogues.

In his book Fiel Desengaño contra la ociosidad y los juegos (1603) Luque Fajardo informs us:

Respecting their inventor, who was supposed to be a certain countryman, there were three opinions; some said that he was a Frenchman, because the first Cards came from France into Spain; others that he was a Fleming, on account of the invention of the game of Cent, (los Cientos,) by the ladies of that province; and others that he was a native of Madrid, and that having there lost his all, he took his way toward Seville, with an intention of seeing that city: that at Orgaz, a place in the kingdom of Toledo, he learned and exercised the trade of a mason, where, in memory of his occupation and dexterity at it, he built a famous chimney: that he was afterward waiter at an inn in the Sierra Moreno, but some extraordinary accidents which befell him, obliged him to seek service in Peuaflor as a lamplighter, from whence he passed to Seville. After having become a sword cutler, he died there, being burnt for coining. This was the father and inventor of Cards, according to the Apocryphal memoirs of the gamblers, who often curse and renounce him.
Quoted by Singer in his Researches into the History of Playing Cards

While Fajardo is not speaking of the tarot (unknown in Spain) it is not unfeasible I think that tarot players may not also see in the figure of the hanged man that of the inventor of the game executed for coining or similar crime; in whom moralists no doubt would be quick to preach a prefigurement of the gamblers own end, who driven to destitution and with their morals perverted are led to crime and an eventual bad end. Further to the identity of “this monstrous pilgrim with his bag of disputes”, whose poison spreads through the Christian lands like a pernicious weed that provides neither shade nor shelter and never sacrifices its fruit, Fajardo notes (speaking of the standard Spanish deck of the period) this ‘book of the devil’ has 48 loose leafs, the same as the number of years Mahomet is said to have lived. In identifying the inventor with Saracens, the moralist is not so much making an objective historical observation as seeking to draw upon the anti-semitism fostered in his audience as a further means to demonise his object. The trope of a spreading poison linked with anti-Semitism was also used of course to link the Jews with the spread of the plague, (a connection also with Oedipus who brought plague upon his City).

Fajardo also spends a chapter with mainly social examples on the trope of the world turned upside down, a common medieval trope revived in the Spanish baroque period with often the concept of the world turned upside down linked to the vice of greed.

Kwaw

Interpretation by google:

This man is a cleric. A Sevillan cleric. His name is Francisco de Fajardo Luque and he published in Madrid, in 1603, a book called ‘Disappointed faithful against idleness and games’. This book he intends as "very useful for confessors and penitents, justices and all those charged with ridding the Christian Republic of vagabonds, players and cheats. A moral address that uses a the humanist artifice of the dialogue between Florino, a player and cheat who has repented and Laureano, his childhood friend, who had the wisdom to never play.

Florino tells stories, his experiences and his aberrations, and Laureano draws the (strongly Christian) lesson. The book is extremely rich in details on the game, especially in terms of vocabulary, to the point that the good cleric is suspected of having been unable to have derived his information from the confessional alone.

“...He therefore devotes seven chapters to the symbolism of the cards and game, four symbolic signs, three in the symbolism of the figures. Due to time constraints, I shall stick to the signs, as I have done since the beginning of this expose. But I would like first to a point, on a term, a concept. Indeed, whether signs or figures, Luque Fajardo regarded these as icons of genuine hieroglyphs. The word hiroglifico appears in the title of five out of seven chapters, and its use is common in the same text, usually with the adjective or the noun moral moralidad. These hieroglyphes, which he defines as "silent figures who speak only by their appearance and represenatation", however, must be interpreted, and the author does not deprive us. Indeed, he carries a veritable interpretative debauchery of which I cannot but give a very pale idea.

“...Luque Fajardo, in fact, conceives of the hieroglyph like all men of his time. He perceives them as a mode of expression whose character is twofold. The first is the hieroglyph as both a mystery and a source of education, and the second aspect is the use of religion and morality as the mode of their exegesis. But the search for meaning is also lead by the words, not just on the pictures. Signs, says Luque Fajardo, are allegories and metaphors, but the very words which the designer has used are heavy with meaning.

“...That is why he began his lecture by examining symbolic of the word baraja... Luque Fajardo developed a metaphor from many classic Spanish authors of the sixteenth century, for example Sanchez de Badajoz that we have already met: the metaphor that equates Baraja was a book. A book disconnected, more accurately, a diabolical book, quite the opposite of a Bible. A book consisting of 48 pages, that is as many leaflets that Mohammed is supposed to have lived for years. A book therefore to be avoided. And more, from this number he presents interpretations to prove that the unfortunate fate of the players is reflected in this figure. It is a cipher, a code key that opens, alas! the door to the most absurd paraphrases.

“...Returning to the signs, pictograms. Florino begins by proposing the ‘plain-song interpretations’.... Laureano then provides counterpoint (the musical metaphors are in the text) with his own interpretation. Of the interpretations, the most common are twofold: the first is built on the schema of St. Bernardine of Siena, who is not, however, cited. The second establishes a correspondence between the suits and seasons. The St. Bernadino scheme is illustrated throughout a chapter, with an abundance of terrifying images. Thus, for example, the drink of the cups is compared to burning coals, a comparison drawn even more easily as the word also means copa 'brazier'. And this fire consumes heritages, destroys homes, threatening cities and the countryside. But cups are also used to gather the blood of the victims , injured and killed by swords, which give rise, in turn, to blasphemous evocations.

“...One chapter is devoted to the second interpretation,. The correspondence with the seasons is this: money / spring, cups / summer, swords / Fall, batons / winter. This interpretation, which says Florino is commonly received (but let us not forget the artifice of the dialogue), seems to be more original. Luque Fajardo still lists the suits according to the traditional order, which is explicit by their points, preferring here the inferior signs ... spoke of batons before speaking of swords.”

http://books.google.fr/books?id=ZOa...9-1&sig=15lj-Kl8T2Mv52MUD8Wa02RSmpw#PPA435,M1

 

[Ross G Caldwell]

Hi Kwaw,

"Then someone asked why a man hanged in this game?" wrote the Compte de Gebelin in his Du Jeu Des Tarots, "Moreover, another did not fail to reply, it is the fit punishment for the inventor of the game..."

While not the point that Gebelin was trying to make, it is an opinion that we may suspect of accurately reflecting that of the ordinary tavern player and gambler, assuming their interpretations to be more informed by the diabolic liturgy of the preachers than of humanist pedagogues.

Not go off-topic in addressing the other very interesting book you describe, here is something about Court de Gébelin's bit of tarot folklore (the way it sounds is as if he is repeating the response to a question he asked of someone) that was discussed here a few years ago -

"Then one wondered, why a hanged man in this game? and the opportunity was not missed to say, it is the just punishment for the Inventor of the Game, for having represented a Popess."

Interesting statement. De Gébelin reports it as if someone had told him this bit of "tarot lore" when he asked for an explanation of the Pendu.

I think this anecdote may reflect a historical incident, which happened in 1725 (within de Gébelin's lifetime), in Bologna. This is when the four "Papi", the four cards known in France as Papesse, Emperatrice, Empereur and Pape, were changed to "Mori" - Moors, moorish satraps.

"The replacement of the 'Papi' by 'Mori' came about in 1725 by the intervention of the Papal Legate, Cardinal Ruffo. At that time, Bologna, although very proud of its ancient liberties, fell within the Papal States, but, by an agreement of 1447, enjoyed considerable autonomy. In 1725 Canon Luigi Montieri of Bologna produced a geographical Tarocchino pack: the body of each trump card gave geographical information ... What annoyed the Legate, Cardinal Ruffo, was that on the Matto Bologna was described as having a "mixed government" (governo misto). Ruffo ordered Montieri's pack publicly burned; Montieri and everyone concerned with its production were arrested. However the Legate quickly came to realise that to proceed against them on this ground would arous deep resentment in the city. He therefore had the prisoners rapidly released, and, to save face, demanded instead that the four 'Papi' be replaced by four Moorish satraps, and the Angel by a Lady (Dama). The first change was accepted, though the second was ignored, and Montieri's pack was reissued with the Moors instead of 'Papi'; moreover, Moors were henceforth used in all Bolognese Tarot packs."

(Dummett and McLeod, "History of Games Played with the Tarot Pack" (Mellen Press, 2004) pp. 263-264)

The Papi, including the Papesse, could be construed to have offended the Legate, and the offenders were imprisoned over the issue, and the cards ordered burned - so de Gébelin's account could represent somebody else's version of the same story. It could have been "big news" among tarocchi players, and the story got around that the Popess had offended the Pope, and the maker was punished.

http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=51730
post 48

On the other hand, it could be that story/legend of the maker who was beheaded for the same reason (making a Popess) (in Prague?)

Ross

 

[DoctorArcanus]

About the manuscript posted by Ross, I have very few corrections (in bold) to propose to his excellent translation:

"Then after these follow the Hunchback, the Traitor, Death, and the Devil. By the hunchback, who is none other than time, it is shown that all these are vain and transitory, thus it is the sum of folly to love them and desire them so intensely that nothing else is considered, since in a short time old age is reached, with all of the miseries accompanying it, and then one begins to know the deceptions of the assassin world, placed before the eyes by the traitor, but having acted on the hardest neck (most stubbornly?), and bad habit , he finds it difficult to be able to hold back at all from nefarious errors, comes upon unforeseen death, in the horror of which, the devil, that is to say the cause of all this, brings him away terrified and desperate. And this is the miserable end of human action, I say, of those who are so immersed in vain and lascivious delights which the world promises, and can give, following madness for a guide, and having no regard to his end, or of God, from whom only are born and depend the greatest goods, and perfect and everlasting happiness."

About the transcription of the manuscript, I think it reads: "il diavolo, che di tutto cio è stato cagione".

I am sorry, but I don't have time now to go into more depth about this, though I think it is of the greatest interest.
I thank Ross for pointing me to this thread via PM.

Marco

 

[Ross G Caldwell]

About the manuscript posted by Ross, I have very few corrections (in bold) to propose to his excellent translation:

"Then after these follow the Hunchback, the Traitor, Death, and the Devil. By the hunchback, who is none other than time, it is shown that all these are vain and transitory, thus it is the sum of folly to love them and desire them so intensely that nothing else is considered, since in a short time old age is reached, with all of the miseries accompanying it, and then one begins to know the deceptions of the assassin world, placed before the eyes by the traitor, but having acted on the hardest neck (most stubbornly?), and bad habit , he finds it difficult to be able to hold back at all from nefarious errors, comes upon unforeseen death, in the horror of which, the devil, that is to say the cause of all this, brings him away terrified and desperate. And this is the miserable end of human action, I say, of those who are so immersed in vain and lascivious delights which the world promises, and can give, following madness for a guide, and having no regard to his end, or of God, from whom only are born and depend the greatest goods, and perfect and everlasting happiness."

About the transcription of the manuscript, I think it reads: "il diavolo, che di tutto cio è stato cagione".

I am sorry, but I don't have time now to go into more depth about this, though I think it is of the greatest interest.
I thank Ross for pointing me to this thread via PM.

Marco

Thank you VERY much for those corrections Marco! I'm glad I asked you. I see where I misunderstood, as well as forgetting to translate "azioni umane".

Our author makes a series of secondary readings to narrate his story. Schematized, he has Hunchback-Time-Old Age-(implied wisdom of coming to know the) Assassin World-Traitor-Evildoer-Desperate Man-Death (is just death)-Devil (who takes evil man). After this begins what he considers the second part of the trumps - the part where the just soul, by the grace of God, escapes the Devil's clutches and raises his eyes to a vision of increasing celestial glory.

Well, there's more, but for other threads on other cards (usually they are in a group like this, and it is unhelpful to separate the figures since the context of the author's narrative of the trumps is lost).

Ross

 

[kwaw]

Hi Kwaw,



Not go off-topic in addressing the other very interesting book you describe, here is something about Court de Gébelin's bit of tarot folklore (the way it sounds is as if he is repeating the response to a question he asked of someone) that was discussed here a few years ago -

Yes I remember it, and such explanation may well be true of Gebelin's variation of the tale.

I think the gamblers 'legend of a bad end' for the inventor of cards was a widepsread commonplace which occasions such as the 'papi incident' or 'prague beheading' may have fueled, and have added to its many variations, but are far too late to be accounted a cause; rather I suspect it was a widespread legend with regional and periodic variations that at root was probably related to a 'diabolic liturgy' mode of moralist's 'anti-gambling' mode of interpretation.

Kwaw

 

[kwaw]

The association with Odin has to rely on when translations of the Poetic Edda came out (vv. 138-139 - "I know that I hung by the windy tree..."). AFAIK, they are all in the 20th century.

I don't know when the first French translation was made (or even if there is one).

Anglo saxons credited the invention of letters to Mercury, as for example in the 10th century Anglo-Saxon dialogue of Soloman and Saturn where we find the question: "Tell me who first invented letters?" To which the reply is "I tell thee, Mercurius the Giant." The Anglo-Saxons identified Mercury with Woden 'controller of the runes' (in one version of the dialogue Solomon uses the runic letters of the pater noster as a battle charm), and to Hermes Trismegistus.*

The 10th century anglo-saxons dialogue between Solomon and Saturnus is the earliest extent of many versions of the legend that can be found in many languages throughout Europe as a dialogue between Solomon and Marcolphus. Marcolphus, a name which according to Israel Abraham is the Hebrew for Mercury, is the trickster fool who always outwits the wise Solomon: "Finally, in some versions of the legend, when Solomon realizes he has been hoodwinked, he orders Marcolf to be hanged. Inverting the notion of Solomon as wise, the king offers him this boon: Marcolf gets to pick the tree he’s to be hanged from. Surprisingly, though he searches high and low, “never more could Marcolf find a tree that he would choose to hang on.”

http://www.csun.edu/~sk36711/WWW/engl630AL/reports/peluso.htm

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=926&letter=S


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_and_Saturn

http://www.authorama.com/delight-10.html

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...g=ZkEjaX4QIiL4S7sgr9Uiq1IEayU&hl=en#PPA304,M1

Kwaw

*Valerie Flint in The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe p.390 finds the association of Mercurius with Hermes Trismegistus made by Cross and Hill in The prose of the Solomon and Saturn and Adrian and Ritheus (1982 p.122-123) unconvincing, on the grounds of such an association being achronistic for the period. But the conflation of Mercury and Hermes Trismegistus can be found earlier, as in Isidore for example.

ps: The earliest translation of the havamal of which I am aware, in which the odin hanging lines occur, is the 1665 trilingual translation of Resenius, that included Edda, Havamal and Voluspa.

 

[kwaw]

(in one version of the dialogue Solomon uses the runic letters of the pater noster as a battle charm)

All this power, Solomon tells Saturn, is accessible to the man who knows the
words of the Prayer. With this preface and this promise, Solomon turns to the Pater Noster as the performer of the “Nine Herbs Charm” turned to the natural world.

When the magician of the “Nine Herbs Charm” gathered herbs for his unbeatable, all-purpose remedy, he called their names out one by one. In naming his herbs, the “Nine Herbs” performer personifi ed them, and at the same time he asserted his control over the nine stalwart warriors who would defeat the nine poisons that threatened the physical health of human beings.

Solomon also asserts his power with his voice. Indeed, by uttering the names
of the letters of the prayer he brings them to life. The source of his power is a written Pater Noster, but what is particularly interesting about this is not the fact that it is a written text, nor that it is written in runes (though these runes, like the ones Woden saw on the ground when he suffered on the tree of the world, will be seen to have tremendous power), nor even that it is a prayer (the Pater Noster does not function as a prayer in this poem), but the way Solomon gives individual life to each of its runic and Roman letters. Wrenching each letter from its Pater Noster context, separating each signifi er from its normal alphabetic function, the great magician hypostasizes his units of power as he utters their names. One by one, the named letters become warriors ready to serve the will of Solomon.

ᛈ(P), the fi rst letter of the Prayer, is given animate life and overpowering strength and also strikes the devil.

ᛏ (T), as John P. Hermann points out (1976), acts in a way that finds a precise counterpart in Prudentius’ Psychomachia. The T rune stabs the tongue of the fi end, twists his throat, and breaks his jaw.

ᛖ (E), to whom Solomon attributes a wish always to stand firm against all
devils, also injures him. Solomon confers high rank, a capability to feel emotion, and a considerable degree of physical strength upon the next letter.

ᚱ (R), the prince of book-letters, angrily seeks the devil, seizes him by the hair, breaks his shanks on the rocks, and forces him to seek refuge in helines Roman N and O together, “twins of the church” (who seem in their “two-ness” to be at least distantly related to chervil and fennel, the “very mighty two” of “Nine Herbs”), attack the devil.

With ᛋ (S), both the Christian Sun/Son associations and the acts of Prudentius’ Sobrietas are called upon.

ᛋ , the prince of angels and staff of glory, grabs the fiend by his feet, breaks his jaw on the hard stones, and strews his teeth among the hordes that inhabit helines With this detail and its completion of the call to life of the letters that spell out PATERNOSTER (each letter is hypostasized just once), there is a temporary lull of violent action. The thane of Satan, very still, hides himself for a time in the shadows.

The action begins again when another “mighty two,”

ᛢ (Q) and U (U), which do go together in the Latin equivalents of English WH words, join forces. The two “bold folk-leaders,” equipped with “light spears, long shafts” (here variation comes into play, providing another kind of doubling), do not hold back their “blows, severe strokes.”

ᛁ (I), ᛚ (L), and the angry Á (C) follow, girded for war, and the poet
now takes the shape of a letter as his stimulus for descriptive characterization. The curved C carries bitter terror and forces the devil underground.

Two more letters, ᚠ(F) and ᛗ (M), set fire to the devil’s hair, again recalling Prudentius’ great allegory of spiritual battle, and finally ᛄ (G), sent by God as a comfort to men, follows after ᛞ (D), full of magic power, and the two join
with .“fire,” for which no runic symbol is given, perhaps because Á , the logograph for “torch” or “fi re,” has already been used. This sequence ends with the Roman letter H, which takes on the character of a warrior equipped by an angel, and with Solomon’s assertion of the letter-warrior’s power to throw the devil up to high heaven with his blows, strike him until his bones glitter, his veins bleed, and his fighting rage gushes forth.

End quote from King Solomon’s Magic: The Power of a Written Text by Marie Nelson published in Oral Tradition 5:1 (1990) p.20-36

NB: The complete article was at one time available without subscription to an online service but I cannot find an address for such at the moment, if anyone comes across a current link can they please share it.

Kwaw

 

[mjhurst]

Hi, Kwaw,

The complete article was at one time available without subscription to an online service but I cannot find an address for such at the moment, if anyone comes across a current link can they please share it.

http://journal.oraltradition.org/files/articles/5i/3_nelson.pdf

mjh

 

[Cartomancer]

So my question is - What is the history of meanings and analogies that have been associated with the Tarot image of the Hanged Man? How have these ideas evolved over time? For instance, what is the first mention of a possible relationship to the Odin myth?

Mary

The Hanged Man is a portrayal of Jesus on the constellation Cygnus, the Northern Cross or Swan. The reason the Hanged Man is pictured upside down is because much of the year when Cygnus is above the horizon in the northern sky it is in an upside down position during the hours it is likely to be observed. The Hanged Man has been known as the card of the cross and many of the meanings associated with it are about the crucifixion. The similarities and analogies between the Hanged Man, Jesus, and resurrection are many. Orpheus was seen in the stars of the swan. Lohengrin, a knight of the Holy Grail and character in German Arthurian literature was seen in a boat pulled by swans. Zeus changed himself into a swan. The myths of Odin are connected with the swan as well. Odin's daughters, the Valkyries, were sometimes called Swan Maidens for they could turn themselves into swans and sometimes they returned to earth as swans to find streams to bathe in. Odin gave Brynhild a swan-feather dress to journey down into Midgard. - Lance C.