Thank you, Cerulean, for the samples from the booklets, the pictures of various cards in different decks, and the links. Now I have a couple of posts' worth of responses!
BOOKLETS
From your quotes it is obvious that the booklets that go with your Etteilla I decks are from a quite different booklet tradition than the ones for your “Julia Orsini” booklets.
It looks to me like the “Julia Orsini” booklet that goes with your “Lismon”—your B--is an abridged version of the French text in the bilingual Editions Dusserre that we both now have—your A. The French wording is the same in the two, except that your B omits some sentences. Would you agree?
If so, I would want to focus on comparing these four:
The French in A, i.e. the modern bilingual Editions Dusserre booklet.
The English in A, i.e. the modern bilingual Editions Duserre booklet.
Your English translations as posted, which I take it are from your B, the 1890 abridged version of the French in A.
My c. 1838 book, which is in French.
It seems to me that what we have, over time, is:
Originally, my c. 1838 book.
Then, the French text in A, which is an abridgement of the c. 1838.
Next, the French text of B, which is an abridgement of A.
At some point, the English translation of A.
And finally, your English translations of sections of B.
To which will be added as needed: my English translations from the c.1838, as needed.
For now let us ignore the others, which are from a different textual tradition. Including them would be too hard at this point.
I would suggest using the French and English texts of A as a point of departure, since both of us have that, and probably other readers of this Forum as well. I don’t want to go line by line in discussing what is different in the others, but give enough detail so that we can see generally how the texts differ from one another.
I will illustrate what I mean by looking at pp. 2 – 14 of A.
P. 2 begins “INDICATION / des Tarot our cartes qui composent / LE LIVRE DE THOT.” There follows a list of the 56 suit cards, how they differ from the ordinary cards in adding the “cavaliers,” and how the tarot suit-names correspond with the French (batons to carreaux, coupes to coeurs, epees to piques, and deniers to trefles). Then there is an interesting characterization of the trumps. They include the Etteilla or Questionnant, Etteilla or Questionnante, the “six jours de la creation du monde,” the “quatre vertus cardinales,” and “les dix cartes figurant les evenements remarquables de la vie de l’homme,” lisitng cards 13-21 and 78. The accurate English translation of this last has “the ten cards representing the significant events in the life of men.”
The English translation (p. 3) of p. 2 looks accurate to me.
The French of c. 1838 is the same as the French in the booklet, except that it goes on to explain how one can make a deck for oneself using blank sheets of white paper. All you do is draw a rectangle in the middle, put the title of the card in the middle of the rectangle, where the picture would go, and the keywords on top and bottom, as well as the card-number. The book then includes the 78 patterns to follow. In other words, the pictures themselves are inessential.
Naturally the booklet omits this paragraph and the patterns, since the publisher is in the business of selling decks.
P. 4 of the booklet begins the instructions, or “MANIERE DE TIRER LES CARTES / OU TAROTS DU LIVRE DE THOT / EN MOYEN FACILE DE FORMULER LES ORACLES / a la suite des melanges auxquels ces cartes / aurant ete soumises.”
The English translation has only, after the word THOTH (its version of “THOT”): “how to read the cards.”
There follows a routine for shuffling the cards, dealing out 42 of them into six piles of seven cards each, shuffling again, and laying out the piles into six rows, one below the preceding, of seven cards each. This part is the same in French and English, as far as I can determine, and corresponds to what I have in the c. 1838 book. However I inadvertently failed to copy two pages, a page of which was the beginning of these instructions, having to do with the initial shuffling. But the instructions look the same where I have them.
Then comes how to do the reading. You start with the first line and go from right to left. The Questionante (Enquirer) is a young person (“jeune personne”). In that case, you take card 8, the Questionnante, and place it to the right of the first card, outside the line. You apparently fish it out of the undealt cards, or out of the cards already laid down, although the procedure is not specified. So far nothing is different among the English, the French on the other side, or my c. 1838 book.
Then comes the reading. The English gives each of the seven cards by number and the corresponding keyword. In one case, the French is different. While the English has, for card 77, “perfect contentment,” the French has “Bonheur, parfait contentement, felicite.” At first glance, it would seem that the English is merely correcting the French, since in French the keyword is “parfait contentement” only. But that is not so. The French wording is an attempt to simplify something that is in my c. 1838 book more complex. The c. 1738 book has for this card in the reading, “Bonheur,” but with a footnote: “Voyez les synonymes de cette carte qui signifie
parfait contentement, felicite, bonheur, etc. etc.” In other words, you are not merely to use the keyword on the card, but consult the lists of synonyms given elsewhere in the book. The relevant page of c. 1738 is p. 44. Here is my scan. I include p. 45 because I need to talk about it, too.
Since the Editions Dusserre booklet does not contain these lists, the editor had to make a change in the text. This change omits the reference in the original to the “synonyms”—and not only the three given but all the rest, the “etc., etc.” In other words, we have already in the booklet a distortion of how the deck is intended to be used: reference to the lists of synonyms is required. The point is to make a sensible prediction out of the cards dealt. The other cards predict a marriage to a brown-haired man who is rich, from which there will be children. “Parfaite contentement” is a little strong; “bonheur,” happiness, would be better. You have to pick and choose.
Then the instructions say that if card 8 happens to be in the first line, and you are reading for a woman, you take it out of the line, put it to the right on the side (as alerady said) and put another card from the unused pack in its place (which was not said). The same is true if you are reading for a man and card 1 is in the line. This instruction is the same in English and French, and also the same as in the c. 1838.
The only difference is in one sentence at the end of this part: “Seule la carte de la personne consultee ne peur etre deplacee.” The c. 1838 sentence here is similar to that of the Duserre’s French: “Il convient de faire remarquer qu’il n’ya que la carte de la personne pour qui on consulte qui doive etre deplacee.” But the English has, “The Enquirer’s card cannot be moved in isolation.” A correct translation, I think, would be “Only the card of the person consulted can be displaced.”
Then there is the question of what to do with the other six rows. Here the English and the French are again different. The English has,
Quote:
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If the meaning of the first line is unclear, translate the other lines in succession, and then come back to the first line.
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Here is the French.
Quote:
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Si vous n’avez pas trouve a former avec cetter 1er ligne en assemblage quie puisse etre explique clairement, vous expliquerez la seconde ligne et ainsi de suite, jusuqu’a que vous ayes pu formuler un oracle sans contre-sens.
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There is nothing here about coming back to the first line.
In the c. 1838 text, the relevant passage is the last paragraph on p. 45, which I posted along with p. 44 above.
The French text gives an example: suppose instead of “homme brun,” the card in that position said “femme de campagne.” Then one cannot make sense of the reading. In that case, you go to the next line of cards. But still, how is one to understand this instruction? Is the total reading a combination of all the rows, including the first (as the English suggests), or is it just the reading for the line at which you first got a reading that makes good sense, using all the cards of that row? I don’t know. But after looking at 42 cards, I can’t imagine that anything very definite would come out. So it seems to me that the c. 1838 book is probably saying that you just focus on the line that does make sense.
I think this procedure with the six rows is important. Even using the whole of the word-lists, the meanings are so specific that it may be impossible to come up with a reading that makes sense on the first try. So you go to the next line, and so on, as the French texts say. As to whether you are merely clarifying the first line, or abandoning it and trying something different, perhaps others have an opinion.
Next the booklet, in both French and English, describes how to do a reading with the remaining 35 cards, if one chooses. Unfortunately I failed to copy the first part of this description, including part of the list of interpretations of pairs, triples, etc. Two pages stuck together. What I have for c. 1838 looks the same as in the booklet, with one exception: the clause "only the rogue cards count” in the English has no counterpart in either the French of that booklet or in the c. 1838 text.
Then on p. 14 of the booklet there is a note in smaller print giving yet another way of reading the cards. This section is not in the c. 1838 book at all. [ Note added April 4: It's there, exactly as in the Dusserre booklet; I just didn't see it.] I see no difference in the booklet between the French and the English here.
Now we are ready for the more detailed interpretations of each card, starting with 1 (p. 16 and 17 of the Duserre booklet) and discussing your translations. To be continued in another post (at some point, not today).
My Grimaud Grand Etteilla 1900-1910--I thought it was Etteilla II