Did Shakespeare play tarot?

[Ross G Caldwell]

In fact, it is extremely less likely, that the images suggested in the play dialogue - in detail - would have been at hand, during the course of writing ONE play, if they were from scattered sources. You have the probability backwards.

I haven't considered your evidence in detail, but if you are going to argue *specifically* for a V-S pack around 1600 in southern England - in an academic way - I would at least try to find a possible source, somewhere Shakespeare might have encountered it.

This is an extraordinary claim, and will interest historians of playing cards, so be extremely careful. If it is done carelessly, it will be ignored.

These packs were copied; many were surely given as gifts. When and where, nobody knows for sure. This is for future research. But there are no such cards in England now, and I think none ever originated there (in an auction or something) - but I don't know.

Hercules with a club wearing the Nemean lion's skin was the *back* of an edition of Italian tarot cards around 1600.

Ross

 

[baba-prague]

In fact, many tarot card images are NOT common. You are mistaken about that..

For example, Judgement, Justice, Strength, The Hermit are all very common indeed (The Pope, Death and the Devil - well that goes without saying doesn't it?). Many of the other images are also easy to find - of course not all are - I said "many" not "all". If you can point me to Shakespeare talking about a man being hung from one foot I'd be seriously interested - but Hercules? That's no proof of anything except that Shakespeare lived in a city and walked around with his eyes open!

As for "Flying castles"? Oh come on, motifs involving small castles being carried or even worn (as a crown on the head usually) are also commonplace across Europe - very much so. It's hardly a rare symbol. The quote you make from Hamlet does not talk specifically about small boys (cherubim?) carrying castles in any case - that's your own inference, which you are perfectly entitled to.

And why on earth would I lie about emblem books? I would have thought most of the regulars on this part of the forum are perfectly familiar with much emblem book imagery. I actually own a very nice emblem book - though it's an early Victorian reprint sadly.

The point is that the references you quote from Shakespeare are not specific - and so most of them could equally well be argued to have been influenced by other imagery common at the time. I'm sorry, and I know it would be very nice to imagine Shakespeare being influenced by tarot, but while we can speculate - and it's fun to do so - there does not appear to be any real evidence. It's just a pleasant and interesting speculation unless or until that evidence can be found. But in any case can't we just enjoy it on that level? It's a nice enough idea to play around with.

 

[Fulgour]

the play's the thing

Did Shakespeare play tarot?

The question cannot be proven, or disproven, because
even if proof existed the proof itself would be suspect.

The style of proof we are dogmatically presented with
is that of consensus and only the source is of interest.

No one is right or wrong. It is a matter of sources to be
recognised, weighed, considered... then neatly stacked.

*

I believe "Mercutio" in Romeo & Juliet, is actually, Marlowe.
A loving personal imaginative tribute, to a departed friend.
There's no proof so my belief is foolish. there's the rub!

 

[le pendu]

Moderator's Note:

Many interesting points have been raised in this thread, some of them have increased the "heat" a bit, so please remember to be courteous and respectful. I'd like to see these issues discussed without having to use the "edit" button.

thanks!

 

[Fulgour]

I like the idea of Shakespeare having personal access
to a wide variety of Tarot decks, and can imagine he
might have liked the Visconti-Sforza best of them all.

It would have been easily possible for a 'copy' of this
to have come over, or even a copy of a copy of it...
kept in the private collection of a Shakespeare friend.

James I of England (James VI of Scotland) was highly
interested in all things open-minded and imaginative~
and he loved to see things in action, viz Indigo Jones.

 

[Teheuti]

I'll get back to specifics. The following are specifics of why I think Shakespeare knew tarot.

It's a great list of parallels, Amleth. However, these images were common for the period. All the Visconti images can readily be seen among 15th century Northern Italian art, as I discovered on a trip there with Brian Williams, an artist who attended college in Padua and specialized in designing historically-influenced decks. The motifs appear throughout the literature - especially in Dante and Petrarch and most of the images from Death-on match period illustrations of the Book of Revelations. Still, I admire the work you've done on this and think that it adds to our understanding about how well understood and well-used these images were during that time - even in England.

Mary

 

[baba-prague]

Oh scratch that post, it's probably only stirring. I rather like the idea of "Indigo Jones" in any case

 

[baba-prague]

All the Visconti images can readily be seen among 15th century Northern Italian art,

Exactly. And of course most of the motifs and imagery (not the exact pictures of course, but in essence the same content) was common across much of Europe, not just Italy. There was a great deal of cultural influence shared between European countries.

It's nevertheless very charming to imagine Will Shakespeare playing tarot - and he may well have done so.

 

[Major Tom]

It's nevertheless very charming to imagine Will Shakespeare playing tarot - and he may well have done so.

Indeed. It's enough for me to know that it was possible.

 

[John Meador]

Some curiosities gathered from the net

re: John Dee & Shakspur
http://www.physorg.com/news9102.html

14 of Shakespeare's plays have Italian settings in which he put detailed knowledge of the country to good use.

And then I stole all courtesy from heaven,
And dress'd myself in such humility
That I did pluck allegiance from men's hearts,
Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths,
Even in the presence of the crowned king.
Thus did I keep my person fresh and new;
My presence, like a robe pontifical,
Ne'er seen but wonder'd at: and so my state,
Seldom but sumptuous, showed like a feast
And won by rareness such solemnity.
The skipping king, he ambled up and down
With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits,
Soon kindled and soon burnt; carded his state,
Mingled his royalty with capering fools
- Henry IV, part 1 | Act 3, Scene 2

Shakespeare was the first to refer to a pack of cards as a deck - in Henry VI, 1593:
"But whiles he thought to steale the single Ten, The King was slyly finger'd from the Deck."

CARD - the taper on which the points of the compass are marked under the mariner's needle
http://www.onlineshakespeare.com/glossaryal.htm

Abstract:
"This article examines Shakespeare's dramatic engagement with the game of chess and the established decorum of chess play. Focusing on the interrupted game in 5.1 of The Tempest, William Poole shows how Shakespeare's scene participates in a literary tradition that associates this aristocratic pastime with gambling, seduction, cheating, violence, class conflict, and civil disorder. Miranda and Ferdinand's dialogue over the chess board is contextualized through an analysis of chess games and chess metaphors in various medieval and early modern texts, including works by de Cessolis, Chaucer, Caxton, Greene, Chapman, Middleton, and Massinger and Fletcher. Poole also links the lovers' game with instances of marital discord elsewhere in Shakespeare's canon."
Poole, William "False Play: Shakespeare and Chess"
Shakespeare Quarterly - Volume 55, Number 1, Spring 2004, pp. 50-70
The Johns Hopkins University Press
http://muse.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/access.cgi?uri=/journals/shakespeare_quarterly/v055/55.1poole.html

As Prospero points out in The Tempest, the best games should be difficult to play 'lest too light winning make the prize light':

“Essentially the sonnet cycle is a big game, and that also irritates some modern critics and scholars who don’t like to see lyric poetry reduced, as they would see it, to mere game,” he added.
http://pr.tennessee.edu/alumnus/alumarticle.asp?id=595
http://www.utm.edu/staff/ngraves/shakespeare/
http://www.utm.edu/staff/ngraves/shakespeare/Gameboard.htm

'He'll be hang'd yet,
Though every drop of water swear against it
And gape at widest to glut him.'
(the Boatswain will be hanged yet even though every drop of water swears that he will drown),
-The Tempest Act 1, Scene 1 (Line 64).

-John