Face-card designations on JSTOR

[Teheuti]

Anyone have access to the research site JSTOR?

I found a reference to an article that says:

"In Cervantes' century, card-players were accustomed to invent humorous designations for the various face-cards of the deck. For example, the different sotas ..."

Would love to know more. You can either google part of the above quote or the piece that it is from "Caballo de Ginebra".

If you can find it, please give us a report.

Mary

 

[Scion]

Hey Mary!

I have access at the school where I teach. Next time I'm there I'll pull it up.

Scion

 

[spoonbender]

I have access to JournalStorage - I'll look in a little while if no one has by then.

 

[spoonbender]

Uhm, well, the article discusses a passage from Cervantes' Entremés de la Guarda Cuidadosa.

Soldado: Pues ven acá, sota-sacristán de Satanás.
Sacristan: Pues voy allá, caballo de Ginebra.
Soldado: Bueno: sota y caballo; no falta sino el rey para tomar las manos.

The word 'Ginebra' can be defined as 'Geneva', 'gin', 'confusion' and 'a game of cards', and was used by authors in all those senses. The city of Geneva was connected with heresy and confusion to the Spanish mind, and since it also means 'gin', the phrase caballo de Ginebra has the double meanings of 'heretical horse' and 'drunken horse'.

And then comes the interesting part, because there is also an evident allusion to card play. Sota means 'knave', and the caballo is a mounted horseman, the face-card next higher, corresponding in value to our queen. If we ask ourselves which of the four caballos is meant by caballo de Ginebra, says the author, it would seem probable that it signified caballo de copas, since, from early times, the suit called copas, 'goblets,' had been held to symbolize drunkenness.

In Cervantes' century, card-players were accustomed to invent humorous designations for the various face-cards of the deck. For example, the different sotas were named after prominent local prostitutes (because sota could apparently also mean 'prostitute'). And just as the names of individuals were bestowed upon playing-cards, so the names of playing-cards were given to individuals as abusive epithets (e.g. in Entremés de los apodos, an old doctor is called 'king of clubs,' and a young man 'knave of spades.')

The author concludes that the above is offered merely as a hypothesis, since it is difficult to recover the slang of another age and easy to see more in a phrase like this than it really contained.

Hope that helped! I found it pretty interesting myself... if you want to read the entire article, Mary, send me a PM.

Spoon

PS: The correct bibliographical reference is: Northup (G.T.). "Caballo de Ginebra." In: Modern Philology, 18 (1920), 3, pp. 157-161

 

[Teheuti]

In Cervantes' century, card-players were accustomed to invent humorous designations for the various face-cards of the deck. For example, the different sotas were named after prominent local prostitutes (because sota could apparently also mean 'prostitute'). And just as the names of individuals were bestowed upon playing-cards, so the names of playing-cards were given to individuals as abusive epithets (e.g. in Entremés de los apodos, an old doctor is called 'king of clubs,' and a young man 'knave of spades.')

Spoon -

Thank you so much for looking this up for me. What I find so interesting is that beans, dice, birds, wax, streams, leaves, numbers and literally thousands of things were known to be used for divination (see any list of the "mancies"), and yet playing cards and tarot, which from early on were historically associated with personality characteristics of specific people, were the one thing NOT used for divination. Somehow no one, before the mid-18th century, ever made the leap into thinking they might describe who a person would marry or have an affair with or have as an enemy. The anomaly in this is staggering!!!

Mary

 

[Teheuti]

Soldado: Bueno: sota y caballo; no falta sino el rey para tomar las manos.

My Spanish isn't very good: does this say something like "Well then, Page and Knight, lacking only the King to take the hands (reigns?)." Anyway, it's obviously a reference to the three court cards in a playing card deck.

Mary