Noblet - Atouts: Le Bateleur

kwaw

kwaw said:
And one of the synonyms of Tarocch, in the Milanese dialect, is tronco

http://www.google.co.uk/books?id=FH...o-francese+by+Eugenio+Cappelletti&output=html

Kwaw

jmd

The generations from Adam to Jesus are interesting... and the number of course similarly intriguing - but is there any suggestion of possible connection? I'd be interested to read possible suggested connections, for except for a couple of instances out of the 77, the two seem to be very disparate.

For example, even with only the atouts, is there part of the sequence of the generations that is reflected in the card design? I cannot see this, but am perhaps missing something out of the lives of the generations as held in local lore of the times.

kwaw

jmd said:
The generations from Adam to Jesus are interesting... and the number of course similarly intriguing - but is there any suggestion of possible connection? I'd be interested to read possible suggested connections, for except for a couple of instances out of the 77, the two seem to be very disparate.

For example, even with only the atouts, is there part of the sequence of the generations that is reflected in the card design? I cannot see this, but am perhaps missing something out of the lives of the generations as held in local lore of the times.

I haven't really looked but I doubt there is a 1:1 correspondence.
Perhaps if there are any parallels to be made, or if such were intended, it is to be found in a typological theme rather than a one-to-one correspondence? In the third septenary of trumps for example the theme of the providential hand of God in the shaping of history from the fall to the world to come? The fulfillment of prophesy in the person of christ or redemption of Eve?

I don't know, in other words.

Kwaw

mac22

kwaw said:
One of the names for a bateleurs magic wand was the baton or verge of jacob.

The word verge as well as rod, wand, stick also means a man's privy parts, as mentioned by Firemaiden in another thread.

The Verge/Baton of Jacob was also used to refer to the dowsing rod, and also the 'divining rod' of astrologers, also the name of an instrument like the astrolable for determining measurements from star positions. The Huegenot jeweller and travellor Chardin (1643-1713) refers to the rod of Jacob in connection with the astrolabe in his Book of travels in Persia and other places in the East:

quote:
"Pour ce qui est des instruments dont ils se servent dans leurs opérations, le principal est l’astrolabe, comme je l’ai observé, après lequel ils ont ces instruments si connus en mer, qu’on nomme le bâton de Jacob ; et c’est avec ces seuls instruments qu’ils prennent les élévations du pôle [latitudes] , on peut juger que leurs latitudes ne sauraient être des plus exactes.

google translation:
"As far as the instruments they use in their operations, the main thing is the astrolabe, as I have observed, after which they have known whether these instruments at sea, which is called the stick of Jacob, and it is only with these instruments to take elevations of the pole [latitude], we can judge that their world could not be more accurate."

Jacob's rod in a variety of legends is identified with a branch of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil that passed through the generations to the rod of Moses; for example see the history of the rod of Moses in chapter XXX of the Book of the Bee (that Diane O'Donovan made reference to in the thread on the astrolabe):

Chapter XXX of the Book of the Bee on the History of Moses Rod:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/bb/bb30.htm

Table of contents for the Book of the Bee translated by Wallace Budge:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/bb/

(The Book of the Bee is an historical/theological compilation containing numerous bible legends. It was written by Syrian Nestorian Solomon, Bishop of Bassora (c. 1222). It was written in Syriac. Wikipedia entry.)

Kwaw

As always great post ...and excellent references...thanks

Mac22

kwaw

Verge of Jacob~Orion

Jacob's Staff is also one of the names of the three stars that form the belt of Orion, the constellation identified with Jacob on some medieval star maps.

Kwaw

mac22

kwaw said:
Jacob's Staff is also one of the names of the three stars that form the belt of Orion, the constellation identified with Jacob on some medieval star maps.

Kwaw

Very Interesting. I never knew that.

Mac22

kwaw

kwaw said:
Jacob's Staff is also one of the names of the three stars that form the belt of Orion, the constellation identified with Jacob on some medieval star maps.

Kwaw

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

kwaw

kwaw said:
The Huegenot jeweller and travellor Chardin (1643-1713) refers to the rod of Jacob in connection with the astrolabe in his Book of travels in Persia and other places in the East:

quote:
"Pour ce qui est des instruments dont ils se servent dans leurs opérations, le principal est l’astrolabe, comme je l’ai observé, après lequel ils ont ces instruments si connus en mer, qu’on nomme le bâton de Jacob ; et c’est avec ces seuls instruments qu’ils prennent les élévations du pôle [latitudes] , on peut juger que leurs latitudes ne sauraient être des plus exactes.

google translation:
"As far as the instruments they use in their operations, the main thing is the astrolabe, as I have observed, after which they have known whether these instruments at sea, which is called the stick of Jacob, and it is only with these instruments to take elevations of the pole [latitude], we can judge that their world could not be more accurate."

Quote:
"The Jacob's staff, when used for astronomical observations, was also referred to as a radius astronomicus. With the demise of the cross-staff, in the modern era the name "Jacob's staff" is applied primarily to the device used to provide support for surveyor's instruments…

"….In surveying, the Jacob's staff is a single straight rod or staff, pointed and iron-shod at the bottom for penetrating the ground. It also has a socket joint at the top and is used, instead of a tripod, for supporting a compass or other instrument.s."

While the juggler's verge de jacob and the astronomers are two different instruments, it looks like the Heri juggler may have adapted an astronomers/surveyors verge for his (well... it looks a bit like a foreshortened rod without crosspiece):

http://www.tarothistory.com/images/heri.jpg

Kwaw
quote and public domain image from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob's_staff

kwaw

The Arts of Toledo

A conjurors wand such as used by a cup and balls player was called a verge de jacob (Jacob's Rod); and the word for rod 'verge' as well as being synonymous with baton or baguette is also the most common synonym in french for penis:

http://www.cnrtl.fr/synonymie/verge

So we have a literally illustrated pun on penis, or rather, cock. The significance being not only the play on words, but in the identification of the juggler as a player of words. Penis or cock, as in coq-à-l'âne, from 'rooster to the donkey' (or as we may say in the equivalent english idiom, cock and bull), an element of word play by buffoons in a farce, synonyms being bon mot, or jeu de mots - play of words. The word bateleur to is synonymous with baratin, a player of words, a bullshitter, a saltimbanque (mountebank), a juggler not only of things, but of words, a 'boniment'.

Un vieux saltimbanque qui, dans un boniment emphatique, annonce qu'il va faire un saut périlleux

Le charlatan est bruyant. Il vend ses recettes et ses drogues sur les places publiques, sur les champs de foire, aux carrefours des rues où s'attroupe la foule. Il appelle, il arrête les chalands. Sa rhétorique spéciale use de tous les moyens pour retenir, amuser, persuader; son boniment échevelé met à sa discrétion le client ébloui, étourdi, fasciné. Toutefois, s'il cherche à amuser pour mieux envelopper, quelques-uns aussi s'amusent à le voir faire et déployer ses artifices.

http://www.cnrtl.fr/lexicographie/boniment

One has to be careful indeed of the master game player, one may not lose just one's shirt

Ha! s’il me prenoit en mercy
Et qu’il prinst toute ma robille!
Mais, he´ las! perdre la coquille,
Mon Dieu! c’est pour fienter partout.

Ha! If he had mercy on me
and took only my clothing!
But, alas! to lose the cock,
my God! that is to empty (piss) everywhere.

Farce de frere Guillebert 16th century.

One who turns the cock into a hen, is said of one who 'knows the arts of Toledo', and of a card shark:

"Toledo's reputation for black magic was owing to the association of Arabic alphabet and numerals with magical talismans. Because of the association of Arabic learning with astrology and alchemy, Toledo became linked in the popular imagination with magic and anyone studying there was de facto open to the accusation of necromancy. "Michael Scot, for one, who was in Toledo in the twelth century, was never able to shake thereafter the suspicion that he had learned the black arts there. Scot's reputed wizardry, moreover, was of a specifically mathematical cast. There are many references: Caesar of Heisterbach tells two stories of student studying the 'arte nigromantia' 'apud Toletum'. In medieval French, "jouer les arts de Tolede! was a common term for running confidence games or card sharking:

"Il fait d'n coq une poulette
Il jouer les arts de Tolete."

(He turned a rooster into a hen/he knows the arts of Toledo.)

Medieval science, technology and medicine: An Encyclopedia by Thomas F. Glick, Steven John Livesey, Faith Wallis p.481

Our bateleur holds a castrated cock in his hand, he has 'turned a rooster into a hen', he knows the arts of Toledo; He knows how to conjure with cup and ball:

“Sire, il preche un Dieu à Paris
Qui fait tous les mouls et les vauls.
Il va à cheval sans chevauls.
Il fait et defait tout ensemble.
Il vit, il meurt, il sue, il tremble.
Il pleure, il vit, il veille, et dort.
Il est jeune et vieux, foible et forte.
Il fait d’un coq une poulette.
Il joue des arts de roulette,
Ou je ne sçais que ce peut être.”

Sir, he preaches a God at Paris
Who has made mountain and valley.
He goes a horseback without horses.
He does and undoes at once.
He lives, he dies, he sweats, he trembles.
He weeps, he laughs, he wakes and sleeps.
He is young and old, weak and strong.
He turns a cock into a hen.
He knows how to conjure with cup and ball,
Or I do not know who this can be.

From “Mystery of Saint Dennis” in the Duke de la Valliere’s “Bibliothèque du Théâtre François depuis son Origine. Dresde, 1768.”

quoted in "an incrementally-published online presentation of Isaac D’Israeli’s Curiosities of Literature, Mysteris, Moralities, Farces and Sotties: a compilation of book-lore whose first volume was issued in 1791, with further instalments being added in 1793, 1807, 1817 and 1823. Most of the articles were scanned from an undated (but probably 1870s or 1880s) single-volume edition of the work, the text in which was reproduced from an older (1820s) edition." Available online here:

http://www.spamula.net/col/archives/2005/05/mysteries_moralities_farces_an.html

The expression « jouer les arts de Tolede » seems to have been a common French term for conjuror's passes and sleight of hand tricks...

Chapters on Magic in Spanish Literature 1916 by Samuel Montefiore Waxman - Page 22

kwaw

kwaw said:
From “Mystery of Saint Dennis” in the Duke de la Valliere’s “Bibliothèque du Théâtre François depuis son Origine. Dresde, 1768.”

TOLÈDE. Jouer des arts de Tolède.
Attraper, tromper, faire des tours de force. (XVe siècle.)

- Il fait d'un coq une poulette,
He makes of a cock a hen,

- II joue des arts de Toulete. (XVe siècle.)
He plays at the arts of Toledo.

(Mystère de saint Denis. Mystères inédits du XVe siècle, etc., p.116.)

Le livre des proverbes français 1842, By Le Roux de Lincy, Ferdinand Denis:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...blsus9y&sig=HhzY63NvW9QOuovZEXcYNhI4fpw&hl=en

Isaac D’Israeli’s Curiosities of Literature, Mysteris, Moralities, Farces and Sotties:

Reproduction of 7th edition available as a pdf file from google books here:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...IOXfiID&sig=PmB5LV2nhos9OUmcsD2wNlN2mvk&hl=en

TOLEDE. P. jouer des arts de- (attraper, faire des tours de prestidigitateur)
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cJkGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA443&dq=&ie=ISO-8859-1

C'est pendant ce répit que Renart « li rous » apprend « les arts de Tolède ».

Et il est cornart et deceu
Qui de tail creance est meu.
J'a n'ert par les arz de Tolete
Fine amour quise ne parfete.

le dernier avatar de la légende: "Jouer de arts de Tolède: attraper, tromper,
faire des tours de force". On pourrait se croire loin de l'école de magie, ...

Noblet - Atouts: Le Bateleur

kwaw

jmd

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mac22

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mac22

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kwaw