L'Amoureaux - How May It Be Read?

Let's start off with the Noblet card by the Flornoys:



This is what Flornoy says:

... this is the trump of the Lover. Here is the first passion, the one which raises the curtain on life....

Amongst the many ways to read this card this is still one of the most poignant to me.

It seems that a lot of people (this sometimes includes me) read this card as involving choice, but the presense of the cupid directly contradicts this interpretation (doesn't it?). If the cupid fires his arrow, the idea of "choice" is thrown out the door. Nobody gets to choose who they fall in love with, or when.

I suppose that it may be more about endings and beginings- about how our attitudes can change (against our will) and how these changes cause us to move on, to leave people and find new people (not just lovers) to fill the void.

Here, the male figure seems to be saying farewell to one woman. Some see one of the women as being his mother, and this is certainly a possibility- but with TdM, it is not entirely clear what the age of either woman is. I believe that the title implies that at least one of the women is young.

I think that Flornoy's interpretation of the "first passion" is spot on. But what does such a thing even mean to someone who has had many loves? Is it a card of renewal? Is it calling on a person to meditate about their first love- the feelings of that time?

I normally read the trumps as representing really large ideas. Archetypal ideas, and nothing is more universal to the human experience than the first love. Such an idea means different things to different people. One could argue that a person who falls in love at age 100 is experiencing the first true love of their life. I am a measley 38, so I can't say one way or the other...

-tb

I agree with you thinbuddha, the cherub puts a perspective on the card which is hard to ignore, although I have also read it as choice at times, and marriage too. I like Flornoy's short excerpt because it's saying that this is probably the first shock in life and that life is all about love. The guy looks in two minds, but then cupid hasn't fired yet, wouldn't it be good to see a 'before' and 'after' that happening?

In a reading where someone has already known this feeling and has had many loves perhaps it could be cautionary, or maybe its saying 'this is the one'. Perhaps there is love.... and then there is LOVE, only known when cupid does his thing and as you say that could be at any time of life. What we as individuals know as love up until now in our lives is all we know, maybe there is more to it than we have yet experienced.

One interpretation I've seen for this card is that it represents a choice between virtue and vice. The woman wearing the enticing wreath of flowers is supposed to represent vice, while the woman representing virtue wears a laurel wreath, hinting at the eventual victory of virtue over vice.

It's a difficult choice for the man. He's looking in the direction of virtue, but at the same time he's reaching out with one hand toward vice. Meanwhile, blind cupid is pointing his arrow at the man, but there is no indication which of the two he will ultimately fall in love with.

I read this card in different ways, depending on the specific reading. Sometimes I'll read it simply as the beginning of a romantic relationship, an engagement, or marriage. Other times, I'll read it as the need to choose and make a serious commitment, the kind of commitment that requires you put your whole heart into it.

Alan

Ah yes, thanks Alan for the Vice and Virtue aspect.

I wonder if cupid being blindfolded, gives us different impressions for reading as well. Blindfolded (as in the Noblet), leaves the arrow to find its own way and so Cupid seems to have less choice himself! I thought I would show a couple of other cards. The Mitelli is one of my favourite Love cards as it shows Cupid holding a burning heart. Hopefully, each different depiction helps to create different viewpoints for reading this card.


Mitelli............................................Vieville

...

The Choice of Hercules

Alan Ross said:

One interpretation I've seen for this card is that it represents a choice between virtue and vice. The woman wearing the enticing wreath of flowers is supposed to represent vice, while the woman representing virtue wears a laurel wreath, hinting at the eventual victory of virtue over vice.

Click to expand...

From an historical point of view, there are no doubts that the card represents the choise between Virtue (Pallas) and Pleasure (Venus).
Paolo Veronese 1590
Annibale Carracci 1596

I think I first learned of this from a post by JMD.

Cupid is not present in most paintings about this subject. When he appears, his role is that of the servant of Venus. Since, in the original tale, Hercules in the end chooses Virtue, the presence of Cupid might have been misleading, as from ThinBuddha's observation. It is interesting that in the TdM card Cupid appears with such evidence.

There is quite a bit of relevant historical sources related to this card to draw from when finding various applicable correlations to flesh out the original allegory if one wishes to use the 22 Trumps as a divinatory device.

Trumps VI through XIII (sans virtues) originally simply represented the cycle of life.






Time and Fortune are center, the hub around which life rotates. In some ways we can say Father Time is the turner of the wheel. On the up swing of the Wheel we have Love/Pleasure/Youth (VI) and Fame/Success/Honor (VII) on the down swing of the Wheel is Defamation/Failure/Dishonor (XII) and Death (XIII).

VI and XIII are opposites. Love (betrothal) was traditionally one's 'coming of age', the beginning of one's life as an adult, so the card represents life and life's pleasures in general. The opposite is Death. This pairing of Love and Death as the 'bookends of life' was a common theme in later renaissance/early modern allegory.

VII and XII are opposites. The triumphal parades were a great honor for the citizens of Renaissance Italy. Only successful and well known citizen were aloud the honor of riding in the parade. The XII image is taken from Italian Renaissance 'shame paintings' which were used as a way to dishonor and defame citizens.

Traditionally four figures ride the wheel (in the TdM the fourth is unseen, and unnamed). We can compare these figures to the four cards.

• VI - Regnabo - I Shall Reign.
  
• VII - Regno - I Reign.
  
• XII - Regnavi - I Reigned for a While.
  
• XIII - Sum Sine Regno - I Shall Reign Never More

There is a strong parallel between the Lovers card image, and the representations of April or May in the later medieval calendars. We of course can usefully add this traditional association to our 'toolbox'. We can extend the association further - youth / spring / morning / the early phase of any endeavor or project. We can borrow the traditional association of Spring with Elemental Aire, and the rich associations found there - the sanguine temperament, warm & moist, quick response & short duration, etc..

The associations of Love to the goddess of love, Venus, and her planetary namesake can supply us with a treasure trove of traditional associations from types of jobs, to herbs, stones, and animals.

The link between the Lovers and Spring, and the Lover and Venus opens up the connection to the celestial house of Taurus, the fixed sign of Spring, ruled by Venus. Though I doubt intentional, this relation to the four fixed signs and the four cycle of life cards makes a very tidy and workable fit.

• Spring = Taurus = Ruled by Venus = Love (VI)
  
• Summer = Leo = Ruled by Sun (Apollo) = Chariot (VII)
  
• Fall = Scorpio = Ruled by Mars = Ruler of Traitors according to W. Lilly (XII)
  
• Winter = Aquarius = Ruled by Saturn = Death (XIII)

an aside on the Cupid

A great deal has been, and can be, and will be said regarding the issues of CHOICE and the project of Individuation associated with this card : the Herculean choice between virtue and vice ; the timid option of a young man for his Bride over life with his Mother, etc.

In this context we should be willing to expand the interpretive net (Melanchollic's fabulous toolbox) to include all crossroad experiences. When we make choices, commitments [whether to a life-partner, a career, a hobby, a point-of-view], we say yes to something and often say no to others, somethings we don't notice at all as we walk past them in hot pursuit of the beloved. These kind of choices have consequences. It is of these consequences that our futures are built.

The Cupid suggests the real possibility that sometime we do not choose LOVE so much as LOVE chooses us. The consequences to such choosing, such love are just as real, just as significant, however much they not be in our control.

CED

I am curious as to why in all cards the central male figure is bare legged. I have gone through Kaplan to find exceptions to this and can find none. This figure definitely does not have hose on- and all paintings of this kind of long doublet was worn with leggings. Has he already made his choice? There seems to be something that I cannot quite grasp in this anomaly. Even the Fool has (torn) hose as do all other court cards for instance.
~Rosanne

I've never put much significants on the second figure on the Marseille card, nor see the card as being representative of "choice". The Marseilles is the only single pattern that has the second figure among the known early decks, both painted and woodcut. Furthermore, to assume the second figure (who is clearly older, and may be a man) is a rival to the first woman, is simply jumping to conclusions.

As a general rule, I've found it more useful to work from a general meaning for the trumps, based on the probable allegory as presented in all the various patterns, and the European allegorical tradition in general, and then make informed correlations as they apply to the specifics of the querent's question. A lot of readers do just the opposite, they make specific meaning, sometimes drawn from small design details from a specific deck, then use these to make generalizations about the querent's situation.

Frankly, it doesn't seem very useful to have any card represent 'choice'. In a divination scenario it is a fairly useless concept. If the card represents the querent, then the fact that they are consulting a reader pretty much guarantees they are trying to decide a coarse of action,

"Should I ask Lucy for a date (or not)?

If the card represents the quesited, here Lucy, it would be a bit cheeky to answer, "She has a choice!" A girl always has a choice.

And in some questions, the concept just doesn't work.




Of the various early Love cards, my favorite is from a 16th century deck which is housed in the Museo delle Arti e delle Tradizioni Popolari in Rome. (Kaplan II, pp. 287-288.) Two Cupids hover overhead. Two musicians serenade, as a couple embrace.