The fool, his master, a wheel and a donkey.

[kwaw]

Having replaced the bowl and its contents, he (the fool) proffered his services to his master, who having securely tied the donkey’s legs to the ladder, with the fool’s assistance, raised him on his chin, and held him in equilibrio in the air.
“Ain’t my master clever?” said the Fool, “and yet all the world must see that he’s below an ass”. You laugh – you’re tickled – but there’s a moral in this that none of you see. I’ll expound: That man and that ass are a type of the world as it wags. For how many asses are daily supported by the ability of clever men! The Temperance Society will tell you that asses alone get ‘elevated’. Don’t believe ‘em! Drunkeness may make a beast of a man, but let me tell you everything is good in moderation. They tell you to drink water, and promise you length of years, which is as much as to say that if you drink water, your ears will increase to the length of a donkey’s! – pah! When the spirit is fled the man is dead, and all arguments are weak that are wanting in – spirit! But I must assist my master: the greatest fool can give a man a lift upon occasion.” Having released the conjuror and the donkey, which appeared very stupid and inert, the master stood in the midst of the circle, to take a little breath after his feat.”
“Now, calf, leave the donkey,” said he.
“Calf indeed!” replied the indignant fool, “I’ll show you I can make a little wheel before I’m dead, at any rate;” and casting a hoop adroitly over his master’s head, he exclaimed, “There, now; there’s a little wheel in a jiffy.”
“How do you mean, sirrah?”
“Why, that ‘ere hoop’s the tire, and you’re the knave, to be sure”, replied he.
“But where’s the spokes, man?”
“Why, you’re the spokes-man, everybody must allow,” quickly answered the fool; and his master picking up the hoop and throwing it at him, he caught it, and began trundling it round the area formed by the spectators.
“What are you about, sirrah?”
“Playing at hoop,” replied the fool; “will you hide?”
“I’ll hide you”, said his master, “Come, strike up;” and the buffoon immediately resumed his musical instruments, and began blowing his pipes, and throwing and swinging about his drumsticks, after the most approved mode of the Moorish drummers.

Excertp from The Street-Conjuror by Hal Willis, which appeared in Heads of the People: Portraits of the English by Kenny Meadows, 1840; and was also reprinted in The Cyclopaedia of Wit and Humor by William Evans Burton, 1859.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=v...#PPA273-IA2,M1

[kwaw]

“Why, that ‘ere hoop’s the tire, and you’re the knave, to be sure”, replied he.

“Come, now, ain’t that smart?” addressing his superior, who was adjusting his velvel cap, “and yet you call me a fool.”
“Ay, a great fool.”
“Certainly, or I should not own such a master.”
“How mean you, sirrah?”
“I’ll explain allegorically, metaphorically, categorically and paregorically,” replied the clown, and gradually elevating the cart-wheel, he clasped the nave, and supported it with one hand. “There, that’s it to a tittle! Don’t you see the nave has got the upper hand of the fool? The nave’s you, and I’m me – the fool – by reason of being under you.”

From The Mountebank in Bentley’s Miscellany by By Charles Dickens, William Harrison Ainsworth, Albert Smith (1841) p.390

Available online as published in Phantasmagora of Fun here:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=e...ger+mountebank

[Fire Cat]

How about a little visual representation?



I often see the Minchiate Brisocle as an encoded version of Aristotle's virtues, from Nicomachaen Ethics. An important concept of which is the concept of moderation, or the golden mean.

The text you share here gives me a little more to work with La ruota della fortuna, which I see as Felicitas. On the Nicomachaen Ethics.

[kwaw]

"Fortune's fool possesses no principles: these derive from the perception of sequence, the fit, the immitiagable relation of things...

"...To say, blandly:

Now then, we'll use
His countenance for this battle,

or

That eyeless head of thine was first fram'd flesh
To raise my fortunes,

or

All with me's meet that I can fashion fit,

to say, in effect, that human beings are so many ciphers, their sum a point d'appui 'To raise my fortunes', is to make a cipher of oneself. For if a man cannot percieve the operation of sequence, if he miscalls it flux presided over by a blind and whimsical goddess, what is he then but a prisoner in flux.

The wise man for his part perceives that chance and caprice are only the facade of things. So perceiving, he turns hsi back on Fortune. He understands, with Plutarch, that 'as for the power of Fortune... it bringeth downe those men that of their owne nature are cowards, fearfull and of small courage'. He knows that, in all last things, Fortune's power is conditional."

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2...FAs3g#PPA46,M1

[kwaw]

“I’ll explain allegorically, metaphorically, categorically and paregorically,” replied the clown, and gradually elevating the cart-wheel, he clasped the nave, and supported it with one hand. “There, that’s it to a tittle! Don’t you see the nave has got the upper hand of the fool? The nave’s you, and I’m me – the fool – by reason of being under you.”

Of the 22 ladies of the Ferrarese Court of Isabelle d'Este that are associated with the tarot trumps:

http://www.tarock.info/bertoni.htm

Signora Riminaldi, designated the 'Il Matto' card with the
legend `worth nought is the beauty without madness' (Nulla val la
beltà senza pazzia), is the subject of a verse according to Vitalli where she as Matto is also 'set under or beneath' (supposta) the 'smooth talker' (Barattino):

Original text:

"Par che l'angel, la stella, il sol, la luna
Col mondo, et chi con lui di viver brama,
Odiano la beltà, che il cielo aduna
Nel viso altier de la signora Mama.
Forsi per esser tra le Dee queste una
Che lor spogli del ben, che 'l valor ama,
O pur, per che ne morte, o ria fortuna
Dal fermo suo voler maj la richiama:
però dee creder fermamente ognuno
Ch'un spirtito malvagio habbia costej
Supposta solamente al Barattino*
Per poter dire i buoni tarocchi mej
Saran, s'avien ch'io giuochi, et questi uno
Vo trare il Matto ch'è cervel divino.

"It appears that the angel, star, sun, and moon
With the world, whom all covet to live with her,
Hate the beauty that the firmament assembles
In the haughty visage of Lady Mother.
Maybe to be one among these Goddesses
She is stripped of the good, of things to love,
Or because neither death nor guilty fortune
From her own firm will can ever recall her:
Everybody must firmly believe
That a wicked spirit has this woman;
Alone set under the smooth talker*
So able to say "this tarot most apt shall be
for myself, to play as I please, and I draw
this the Mad One that is the brain divine."

(Published in Berti and Vitali "Le carte di corte. I tarocchi" 1987 p.107-108, and discussed on Ltarot forum - where Vitalli translates it somewhat differently to mine above, corrections welcomed.)

*Supposta solamente al Barattino

'beneath alone the Baratinno' ',
Barattino= bagattino, the smallest sum, smooth talker, windbag.

Supposta - I am reading as to set under, a disciple or follower as in
the French `un suppost du divell' - a limb (that is, a follower) of
the devil.

Her wicked nature is also alluded to in that she is 'stripped of the
good, of values to love', an allusion to the concept of a privation
of substance (emptiness) being made comparitive to evil being a
privation of good.

Also perhaps we may see an allusion to her and Matto's `nothingness'
(Nulla) to her as being the empty space of heaven's face in which
the `things' (thus having positive existence and value) of heaven
exist.

More prosaically in the context of the game perhaps it was just meant
to refer to her having lost a lot at gambling, the other ladies
taking her for all she gambled!

Kwaw

[kwaw]

Originally Posted by kilts_knave

I often see the Minchiate Brisocle as an encoded version of Aristotle's virtues, from Nicomachaen Ethics. An important concept of which is the concept of moderation, or the golden mean.

Here is included an interesting and informative overview of the iconographic developments of the cardinal virtues:

http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/....cgi?id=dv4-49