MikeH
I finally got around to reading Wirth’s 1927 tarot masterpiece, Tarot des Imagiers des Moyen Age, in the English translation (Tarot of the Magicians, and I was quite impressed with what I saw. People know his deck more than what he says about it, most of which could apply to any Marseille-based deck.
Weiser deserves our thanks for reissuing the classic, and Mary Greer for putting her prestige and thought behind it with an introduction. However that edition is also something of a disappointment, for several reasons. One is that certain definite errors that existed in the 1985 translation have not been corrected [I originally had 1980, but now I see that it is 1985, thanks to Abrac]. Secondly, some new errors have been introduced in the footnotes, caused by the different pagination of the two editions. Another thing is that the illustrations, which were not high quality in 1985 compared to the original or the French reprints, are if anything more poorly reproduced in 2013 than in 1985—while repeating at least one error that got introduced into the French version of one major illustration). And finally, while the 1927 original and the 1985 translation had an index, the 2013 version and the later French editions do not.
There is also one other category of error: errors in the original edition that have been corrected in either the later French editions or the English translation. I have found what I think is one example of this type. This error seems to me a counter-example to the conventional wisdom that when discrepancies exist between editions, one should always take the first edition as expressing the author’s intention.
Most of the gross translation errors are in the Conclusion. However there are a couple early on, ones so obvious they perhaps doesn’t count as errors as opposed to a choice. First, of course, is the title, “Imagiers” is not “Magicians”. It means “image-makers”, an appropriately broad term that includes sculptors, painters of frescoes, illuminators, perhaps even writers who describe a painting, imaginary or real. To put after “imagiers” the phrase “des moyen age” means that the tarot he is concerned with is that based on medieval images. Whether there was an earlier sequence of images corresponding to the tarot before the late Middle Ages is an issue he wishes to set aside.
Then very soon comes another error that is surely another choice. It is in the translation of Wirth’s “Papesse”, a French word he was careful to put at the bottom of his card, visible even in the English translation of his book. The translation of “Papesse” is not “Priestess”, but “Popess”. “Papesse” is a term that first occurs in connection to the tarot, first documented as “Papessa” in a late 15th century Italy list of the special cards. The corresponding English term, by analogy, is “Popess.”
One error the English translation does not fall into is an egregious one in the 1966 Tchou French edition and all subsequent French editions and reprints, or at least ones with the introduction by Roger Caillois—even as late as October 2014. The Tchou/Caillois switches the divinatory meanings for the Popess and the Pope. So the Popess, card 2, gets Gevurah and strictness, while the Pope, card 5, gets Hochmah and wisdom. Such a switch is manifestly absurd, given Wirth’s Kabbalistic framework, in which card 2 corresponds to sefira 2, card 5 to sefira 5, and so on for all the cards up to 10. It also contradicts what said in the chapter on each of these cards before the part on “divinatory meanings”, which is the chapter’s end and conclusion. In making the switch, however, Tchou failed to switch the footnotes, which are grouped by chapter. There is a footnote indication (the small “1”) in the Popess meanings but no such footnote for that page in the back of the book. Instead, the footnote is listed in the group for the Pope card, for the page with the divinatory meanings.
Here are the relevant pages: first, the Papesse divinatory meanings in the original edition:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4SLxpm0Azd4/VqFRUqL8gLI/AAAAAAAAH1Q/s_xCZrIgfuw/s1600/wirthPapesse1927.tif
And then in the Tchou edition (I used the 2014):
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ppE_u4IP4RI/VqFRF1zvNYI/AAAAAAAAH1I/ex5Vumx4ccI/s1600/WirthPapessa2014.tif
You can see how it is Hochmah in the original and Geburah in the reprint.
And here is the divinatory meanings section of the reprint's "Pope" section (after which "L'Amoureux" follows. You can see how the Hochmah meanings ended up here.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8gCbGjM-8nM/VqFPxz78hJI/AAAAAAAAH1A/dN0qCwHL-9E/s1600/WirthPapa1.tif
It might be argued that the switch was inadvertent, owing to the fact that in both cases there is nothing on the reprint's page except the divinatory meanings, and there is no page number at the bottom of the page. Possibly, but the switch, which started in 1966, continues to this day. With no page numbers on the pages to be switched, it would be an easy error to fix.
There is one place where a discrepancy between versions is clearly deliberate rather than inadvertent, this time in the English translation rather than in the French editions. In the chapter on Temperance, in the part on divinatory meanings, the English translation reads “mysteries of water and fire”, whereas the original (repeated in the French editions) has “mystères de l’eau et du froid”, i.e. mysteries of water and cold. Did the French typesetter inadvertently introduce a word different from that in Wirth’s manuscript, or did Wirth really mean “cold”?
It might help to look at the context. The surrounding text has:
[quoteTransmutation of a vital order. Psychic Alchemy. Regeneration. Mysteries of water and fire. Miracles. The fountain of youth.)[/quote]
There is no way that "froid", which means "cold", can be translated as "fire". So which is right?
Earlier in the chapter, Wirth had given an alchemical analysis of the Temperance lady’s two jugs:
And the published English translation:
From this passage one would think that the “de l’eau et du froid” (“water and cold”) later should have been “de l’eau et du feu”, i.e. “water and fire”.
Earlier he had discussed the two jugs, the lower one of gold, the upper of silver. Gold is associated with the sun and the warmth of day, silver with the moon and the cold of night. In that case it could be “mysteries of hot and cold” or even “mysteries of fire and cold”, since fire is hot. Since the moon is associated with water as well as the cold of night, it could also be “mysteries of water and fire”. But not “mysteries of water and cold”.
I can find nothing at all in the preceding narrative that talks about “froid”, cold, specifically. There is one passage in which he says of the “angel” in relation to the flower that “it [the angel] waters it [the flower] or condenses the morning dew on it so as to allow it to resist the heat of the day”. But this is not about cold specifically; it is about the tendency of heat to dry out something.
I conclude that in this passage the English translation has correctly changed the meaning of Wirth’s printed text. I only wish that the translator had given a footnote explaining this choice.
In a later post I will deal with serious translation errors in the Conclusion of the English translation. I will hold off on footnote and illustration errors until after that.
Weiser deserves our thanks for reissuing the classic, and Mary Greer for putting her prestige and thought behind it with an introduction. However that edition is also something of a disappointment, for several reasons. One is that certain definite errors that existed in the 1985 translation have not been corrected [I originally had 1980, but now I see that it is 1985, thanks to Abrac]. Secondly, some new errors have been introduced in the footnotes, caused by the different pagination of the two editions. Another thing is that the illustrations, which were not high quality in 1985 compared to the original or the French reprints, are if anything more poorly reproduced in 2013 than in 1985—while repeating at least one error that got introduced into the French version of one major illustration). And finally, while the 1927 original and the 1985 translation had an index, the 2013 version and the later French editions do not.
There is also one other category of error: errors in the original edition that have been corrected in either the later French editions or the English translation. I have found what I think is one example of this type. This error seems to me a counter-example to the conventional wisdom that when discrepancies exist between editions, one should always take the first edition as expressing the author’s intention.
Most of the gross translation errors are in the Conclusion. However there are a couple early on, ones so obvious they perhaps doesn’t count as errors as opposed to a choice. First, of course, is the title, “Imagiers” is not “Magicians”. It means “image-makers”, an appropriately broad term that includes sculptors, painters of frescoes, illuminators, perhaps even writers who describe a painting, imaginary or real. To put after “imagiers” the phrase “des moyen age” means that the tarot he is concerned with is that based on medieval images. Whether there was an earlier sequence of images corresponding to the tarot before the late Middle Ages is an issue he wishes to set aside.
Then very soon comes another error that is surely another choice. It is in the translation of Wirth’s “Papesse”, a French word he was careful to put at the bottom of his card, visible even in the English translation of his book. The translation of “Papesse” is not “Priestess”, but “Popess”. “Papesse” is a term that first occurs in connection to the tarot, first documented as “Papessa” in a late 15th century Italy list of the special cards. The corresponding English term, by analogy, is “Popess.”
One error the English translation does not fall into is an egregious one in the 1966 Tchou French edition and all subsequent French editions and reprints, or at least ones with the introduction by Roger Caillois—even as late as October 2014. The Tchou/Caillois switches the divinatory meanings for the Popess and the Pope. So the Popess, card 2, gets Gevurah and strictness, while the Pope, card 5, gets Hochmah and wisdom. Such a switch is manifestly absurd, given Wirth’s Kabbalistic framework, in which card 2 corresponds to sefira 2, card 5 to sefira 5, and so on for all the cards up to 10. It also contradicts what said in the chapter on each of these cards before the part on “divinatory meanings”, which is the chapter’s end and conclusion. In making the switch, however, Tchou failed to switch the footnotes, which are grouped by chapter. There is a footnote indication (the small “1”) in the Popess meanings but no such footnote for that page in the back of the book. Instead, the footnote is listed in the group for the Pope card, for the page with the divinatory meanings.
Here are the relevant pages: first, the Papesse divinatory meanings in the original edition:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4SLxpm0Azd4/VqFRUqL8gLI/AAAAAAAAH1Q/s_xCZrIgfuw/s1600/wirthPapesse1927.tif
And then in the Tchou edition (I used the 2014):
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ppE_u4IP4RI/VqFRF1zvNYI/AAAAAAAAH1I/ex5Vumx4ccI/s1600/WirthPapessa2014.tif
You can see how it is Hochmah in the original and Geburah in the reprint.
And here is the divinatory meanings section of the reprint's "Pope" section (after which "L'Amoureux" follows. You can see how the Hochmah meanings ended up here.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8gCbGjM-8nM/VqFPxz78hJI/AAAAAAAAH1A/dN0qCwHL-9E/s1600/WirthPapa1.tif
It might be argued that the switch was inadvertent, owing to the fact that in both cases there is nothing on the reprint's page except the divinatory meanings, and there is no page number at the bottom of the page. Possibly, but the switch, which started in 1966, continues to this day. With no page numbers on the pages to be switched, it would be an easy error to fix.
There is one place where a discrepancy between versions is clearly deliberate rather than inadvertent, this time in the English translation rather than in the French editions. In the chapter on Temperance, in the part on divinatory meanings, the English translation reads “mysteries of water and fire”, whereas the original (repeated in the French editions) has “mystères de l’eau et du froid”, i.e. mysteries of water and cold. Did the French typesetter inadvertently introduce a word different from that in Wirth’s manuscript, or did Wirth really mean “cold”?
It might help to look at the context. The surrounding text has:
The English translation, however, says:Transmutations d'ordre vital. Alchimie psychique. Régénération. Mystères de l'eau et du froid. Miracles. Fontaine de Jouvence.
[quoteTransmutation of a vital order. Psychic Alchemy. Regeneration. Mysteries of water and fire. Miracles. The fountain of youth.)[/quote]
There is no way that "froid", which means "cold", can be translated as "fire". So which is right?
Earlier in the chapter, Wirth had given an alchemical analysis of the Temperance lady’s two jugs:
En Alchimie le sujet, noirci à souhait, donc mort et purifié, est soumis à l'ablution. Cette opération utilise les pluies successives provenant de la condensation des vapeurs, qui se dégagent du cadavre sous l'action d'un feu extérieur modéré, alternativement activé puis ralenti. De ces pluies réiterés résulte le lavage progressif de la matière, qui, du noir passe au gris et finalement au blanc.
And the published English translation:
There are some minor errors here, but nothing that the reader could not figure out by himself or herself: “blackened as much as he wishes” should be “blackened as much as wished”; “constant” should be “continual”; and the “who” in the last sentence should be “which”.In Alchemy the subject, blackened as much as he wishes, hence dead and purified, then undergoes ablution. This operation uses the constant waters formed through condensation of vapours which emanate from the corpse by means of moderate fire outside, which is, in turn, allowed to flare up and die down. From this repeated action of making water results the cleansing of the subject who turns from black to grey, then finally to white.
From this passage one would think that the “de l’eau et du froid” (“water and cold”) later should have been “de l’eau et du feu”, i.e. “water and fire”.
Earlier he had discussed the two jugs, the lower one of gold, the upper of silver. Gold is associated with the sun and the warmth of day, silver with the moon and the cold of night. In that case it could be “mysteries of hot and cold” or even “mysteries of fire and cold”, since fire is hot. Since the moon is associated with water as well as the cold of night, it could also be “mysteries of water and fire”. But not “mysteries of water and cold”.
I can find nothing at all in the preceding narrative that talks about “froid”, cold, specifically. There is one passage in which he says of the “angel” in relation to the flower that “it [the angel] waters it [the flower] or condenses the morning dew on it so as to allow it to resist the heat of the day”. But this is not about cold specifically; it is about the tendency of heat to dry out something.
I conclude that in this passage the English translation has correctly changed the meaning of Wirth’s printed text. I only wish that the translator had given a footnote explaining this choice.
In a later post I will deal with serious translation errors in the Conclusion of the English translation. I will hold off on footnote and illustration errors until after that.