Did Shakespeare play tarot?

Fulgour

Hamlet

In 1998, Sky & Telescope magazine published an article by Donald W. Olson,
Marilynn S. Olson and Russell L. Doescher arguing that... Tycho Brahe's
supernova was also the same "star that's westward from the pole"
in Shakespeare's Hamlet. (quoted from Wikipedia)

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

Because there wasn't a sermon written about it,
and no tax record survives, it's frowned upon to
suppose Shakes and Tycho might ever've met...

But why not? And too, Bill Shakespeare might also
have owned a deck of cards. But need he say so?

Let us now do the "Oh if only!" lament, for alas...
there is no proof... without proof 'tis not proven.
 

Amleth

Fulgour said:
*
Act IV. Scene XII. Antony and Cleopatra

Antony: My good knave, Eros, now thy captain is
Even such a body: here I am Antony;
Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave.
I made these wars for Egypt; and the queen,
Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine,
Which whilst it was mine had annex’d unto ’t
A million more, now lost; she, Eros, has
Pack’d cards with Cæsar, and false-play’d my glory
Unto an enemy’s triumph.
...

Also, there's this from King John, Act 5 scene 2:

Have I not here the best cards for the game,
To win this easy match play'd for a crown?


The quote has wordplay, but if anybody denies that the quote includes a reference to card playing, I would like to know, how so?

There's painfully little "proof" of many things that are currently accepted, and considered mainstream, about Shakespeare. Most of the Shakespeare biography is based on reasonable assumptions - which is reasonable enough. :) There's probably less known of the Bard's early years, before he arrived in London, than is known of early tarot, the only exception being that the exact christening date for Shakespeare is known from surviving records, while the exact "date of birth" of tarot isn't known.

Also, the mainstream views on Shakespeare's sources are often based on allusions much more obscure than the explicit card mentions above. In Hamlet, for example, Hamlet says the following to Gertrude in the Closet Scene (Act 3 scene 4.)

Hamlet: Sense, sure you have
Else could you not have motion...


That's been accepted as having reference to the ideas of Aristotle, expressed in Aristotle's "Physics" book VII (which is a horrid thing to read, by the way.) Rather than inflict Aristotle quotes on innocent victims, I'll just say that Aristotle does connect sense and motion, the same as Hamlet does in his remark.

Hamlet's remark was accepted as a reference to Aristotle's ideas by Harold Jenkins, editor of the Arden Shakespeare Hamlet, (second series,) a book which stood as the leading popular publication of Hamlet for many years. Not that Jenkins thought Shakespeare had read Aristotle, rather that Shakespeare had learned the concepts somewhere, and made use of them. But there's obviously no explicit reference to Aristotle in what Hamlet says.

Now, given that mainstream Shakespeare scholars can accept Hamlet's remark, in the Closet Scene, as pertaining to Aristotle, based on a connection of "sense" and "motion," - with no explicit mention of Aristotle at all! - I would have to call it downright unreasonable not to accept Shakespeare's uses of the words "cards" etc. as being reference to card playing. It's a sure thing that he was referring to card playing, if equal standards apply for interpretation. The only question remaining, what cards? In various quotes from various plays, and especially in Hamlet, the card game looks like tarot to me.
 

Ross G Caldwell

Although playing tarot never became popular in England, there is no reason why some people might not have known it. Particularly Francophiles.

The earliest reference to tarot in England is in 1592, in a French conversation book by "G. De La Mothe" (usually known as G. Delamothe) called "The French Alphabet". It is a collection of phrases, and one phrase says:"A quel jeu voulez vous jouer? Voulez vous jouer aux Dames aux Des, aux Tarots, aux Eschets, etc." The English translation he provides is: "What game will you play? Will you play at tables, at Dyce, at Tarots, at Chesses, etc."

For a description of this book (but not the quote), see e.g. -
http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/add3.htm

"It is by someone calling himself G.(Guilliaum?) De la Mothe (= de la Motte). Who better than an English word-smith, who had just spent up to three or four years in France, to write such a book?

The third part of The French Alphabet is a collection of over six hundred "sentences, similes, apothegmes and golden sayings of the most excellent French Authors, as well poets as orators", all translated into English (translators, of course, usually work into their native language, rather than from it). This would be a priceless collection for any playwright, whether interested in French or not, and appears closely to resemble the Promus and similar items among the Le Doux papers."

Shakespeare mentions cards and uses card metaphors many times. I'm with those who don't see a direct allusion to tarot cards, but there is no historical reason he couldn't have known about it.

Ross
 

Ross G Caldwell

BTW, the second mention of tarot cards in English that I know of is in an Italian-English dictionary written by John Florio, "A Worlde of Wordes", first published in 1598 and in a second edition in 1611.

Under "Tarocchi" in the first edition, it reads: "A kinde of playing cardes used in Italy, called terrestriall triumphes".
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/florio1598/436small.html

The second edition omits a reference to Italy and mentions the German-sounding name "tarocks" - "A kinde of playing cardes called Tarocks or Terrestriall triumphs".
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/florio/568small.html

Homepage:
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/florio/

Ross
 

Amleth

It's extremely interesting that an early mention of tarot comes from John Florio. I didn't know that about Florio, but in relation to the Shakespeare writings, the name of Florio is about the best a person could want. If a person had his choice, of all the names in England, you'd have trouble finding anybody better than Florio, in re tarot and Shakespeare.

It's possible to bring Florio and Shakespeare very close, although there's no surviving documentation of their actual acquaintance, as far as I know. Florio was a tutor to the Earl of Southampton, the aristocrat to whom Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, and Rape of Lucrece are dedicated. It puts Florio and Shakespeare only one person apart, through Southampton.

John Florio dedicated his Italian-English dictionary to Southampton, the “most Honorable Earl of Southampton, in whose pay and patronage I have lived some years.” Florio's employment for Southampton apparently began around 1591 or so, and the Shakespeare V & A dedication to Southampton was published in 1593.

Also, the title of Love's Labours Lost is generally accepted to have come from a line in either Florio's "First Fruits," or "Second Fruits" (I've forgotten which.) The quote being: "We need not speak so much of love, all books are full of love, with so many authors, that it were labor lost to speak of Love." It seems clear enough that Shakespeare was familiar with Florio's books, to take a play title from them. There are various other indications in the plays that the Bard knew Florio's writings. As another example, it's now taken for granted that Montaigne was a source for The Tempest, and Florio (among others) translated Montaigne.

The year 1598, for Florio's mention of tarot, is excellent in relation to the composition of Hamlet, since the First Quarto of the play was printed in 1603. That puts some 5 years between Florio's printed mention of tarot, and the apparent allusions to tarot by Shakespeare in Hamlet, in print, which is plenty of time.

The Antony and Cleopatra quote that Fulgour posted is good for timing, too. The first documented evidence of the existence of A & C is a Stationers' Register entry in 1608, which is ten years after the Florio mention of tarot. That gives a full decade for the Bard to be familiar enough with tarot to allude to it in A & C, based simply on Florio, and the known documentary record.

The King John remark about "cards" that I posted is closer for timing. The earliest document mentioning King John is a list of plays by Francis Meres in 1598. Same year as the Florio dictionary. Still, hardly impossible.

I'm sure there are other Shakespeare writings - as Ross points out - in which playing cards are mentioned, or implied, and some of them will likely pose a problem in relation to Florio's published statement defining tarot. There'll be cases where the play is earlier than 1598. I see no problem in that, since Florio must certainly have known of tarot long before he defined it in print, and it's possible to place Florio somewhere close to Shakespeare, through Southampton, as early as 1593. (And even failing that, the 1592 publication by Delamothe covers it.)

So it appears to me the timing of it all works nicely, for Shakespeare to allude to tarot in his writings. And as to a source, you'd hardly do better than Florio.

Thank you very much, Ross! There's no absolute proof, but the more I learn, the better it looks, for Shakespeare knowing tarot.
 

baba-prague

Amleth said:
I'm sure there are other Shakespeare writings - as Ross points out - in which playing cards are mentioned, or implied,

The easiest way to search for this is of course to use a concordance - there are several good Shakespeare concordances on the web. Here for example is the result of a search for "card" (it excludes "cards" which needs to be done as a separate search. You could try other related search terms too):

http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/search/search-results.php

(as this is php the link may not work - but just put "card" in the search box at the top righthand corner - bear in mind that you will get words like "cardinal" and "discarded" as well - unless you use the advanced search).

Again though, none of these necessarily refer to tarot, simply to unspecified card games.

On a quick search, the book on this subject that seems to be recommended is:
"Games and sports in Shakespeare (F F Communications) "

by Paul G Brewster
ISBN: B0006AVV48
Publisher: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia - 1959
Format: Unknown Binding

Unfortunately out of print, but some libraries should have it.

Hope that helps!
 

Ross G Caldwell

Amleth said:
So it appears to me the timing of it all works nicely, for Shakespeare to allude to tarot in his writings. And as to a source, you'd hardly do better than Florio.

It was also during the century of tarot's greatest popularity in France (c. 1550-1650), so it is well nigh impossible that some Englishmen didn't play it.

Why didn't it catch on, develop a national variant like Switzerland, Germany or Austria? Hard to say. One thing I've noticed is that it seems tarot only ever became popular in Catholic countries (excluding Spain, notably), so that might indicate the answer and a direction for research.

Thank you very much, Ross! There's no absolute proof, but the more I learn, the better it looks, for Shakespeare knowing tarot.

Glad those references helped. Thanks for the suggestion that Shakespeare and Florio knowing one another is plausible. One way to research might be to look at references to "triumphs" in Shakespeare. Does he refer to Triumphs at all, maybe in Julius Caesar? Triumph cards were often on a classical theme.

For the second part of your suggestion, that Shakespeare might be referring specifically to a copy of the Visconti Sforza cards, that is distantly possible, since Italian and English nobles would have exchanged gifts, and one such gift could have been a copy of a V-S tarot. But it would be very hard to prove unless you found such a reference in someone's inventory.

More likely, if you make a plausible case for tarot-card inspired imagery in Shakespeare, it would refer to a different kind of trumps that had some themes in common with V-S cards.

My feeling is that the imagery of the trumps is present in so many other media, that unless there is a specific reason to believe Shakespeare is referring to a tarot card (like a man hanged by one foot for treason, which I suspect was not a common practice in England), it is more likely that he is referring to something else.

It would be news if you could make a case for it though!

Ross
 

Sophie

Ross G Caldwell said:
Why didn't it catch on, develop a national variant like Switzerland, Germany or Austria? Hard to say. One thing I've noticed is that it seems tarot only ever became popular in Catholic countries (excluding Spain, notably), so that might indicate the answer and a direction for research.
What about Geneva? Several Protestant card-makers from France went there and created their own decks - the SSK shows at least a couple (from memory - it is is storage right now - and I know they were made much later than Shakespeare's day, as Calvin outlawed all card games). And Germany is half-Protestant - do you know if the Tarot was only popular in the Catholic states?

I think, though, that Shakespeare almost certainly knew about tarot - he knew French and Italian culture pretty well, and was intimate with several Italians and Frenchmen. He lived the kind of life that would have exposed him to all sorts of games. So even if tarot didn't become popular in England, I doubt Shakespeare would not have known it. Of course, the origin of his word imagery is very diverse - tarot would only be one among many! And we can't really prove it, I think, unless we find something of his pointing towards cards (as opposed to emblem books or other) as a firm source. But it's not an idle speculation, IMO.
 

Amleth

Ross G Caldwell said:
Why didn't it catch on, [in England] develop a national variant like Switzerland, Germany or Austria? Hard to say. One thing I've noticed is that it seems tarot only ever became popular in Catholic countries (excluding Spain, notably), ...

Just a quick thought, could it merely be because the Pope card was unacceptable in Elizabethan England? Or does that seem too simplistic?