The Hanged Man... death of a Jew in Christian lands?

[Sophie]

No present communion or interpretation is free from historical association; we are not to that extent indulging in historical speculation as much as reflection upon the 'present' interpretation that the image calls to mind and the root of our associations. In the practice of such reflection we may discover more associations that will deepen our ability to call forth 'present' meaning in the future.

That's pretty much the approach I have adopted. Not history for history's sake - though it is fascinating - but history, and other associations!, for the sake of deepening our understanding of a card.

I feel this card deeply and see its associations to torture and lack of choice probably very acutely because of my professional experience and my readings and life encounters long before I got into Tarot. But I am duly reminded by Fulgour and Frank that historical and/or other associations alone will not do to see a card in the round. You have said this here too.

I always took my tarot with me during my missions. I can still remember a huge breakthrough for me when I had spent about a week among political prisoners, soem of whom told me about the "hanging upside down torture" (and in at least two cases I recorded, it was done by one foot). I returned to where I was staying shaken, of course, and needing to evacuate a lot of sadness and anger - but past the first moment, I reached for my Tarot and the card of the Hanged Man.

I recalled one man, who told me: "they did this to me, and I pissed and shat all over myself. And I cried like a baby, and I fainted. But they didn't get to me. They didn't break me or touch my soul. And now I am stronger and see the world differently. Even if I had to die in this rathole (the prison), I hope G-d forgives them." He was a peaceful man, a sage whom others consulted with their worries. Before I left him he wished me a safe trip and thanked me for my visit. Looking at the Hanged Man, I felt a depth of understanding of that lone hanging figure, serene despite his plight, that I had not accessed before. He is unable to move, but his mind has truly risen above and he is beginning to learn things about life he might never have reached otherwise.

But I realise this is one, among other associations, that this mysterious figure might carry for me.

 

[Ross G Caldwell]

So what do people think of Alciato's description of the card as 'Crux' cross, personally I find this description quite intriguing; what do you think?

Kwaw

I find it intriguing too. But there are few clues as to what he meant. "Crux" is sometimes a generic term for "scaffold", which makes sense of the image as we know it, but Alciato capitalizes the word in mid-sentence, which is unusual in his list -
http://www.geocities.com/anytarot/alciato.html (see the top of the lower page, page 73 - hard to read I know, but that's the quality of the PDF) -

so we might think he was making a direct allusion to the cross of Christ. I don't think he was looking at a non-standard deck - the rest of the card names are too familiar to be a "classicised" deck like the Sola Busca or Leber cards - so I tend to think he was giving a kind of free interpretation of cards with no names written on them, and that the Impiccato was the same kind of figure we are familiar with.

I have no problem with thinking that in calling the card "Crux", and emphasizing it with capitalization, Alciato was implying a voluntary martyrdom, like that of Christ - even though the figure has nothing in common with depictions of the crucifixion. Having said that, I haven't settled on an interpretation. I don't know enough to be sure.

 

[kwaw]

so we might think he was making a direct allusion to the cross of Christ. I don't think he was looking at a non-standard deck - the rest of the card names are too familiar to be a "classicised" deck like the Sola Busca or Leber cards - so I tend to think he was giving a kind of free interpretation of cards with no names written on them, and that the Impiccato was the same kind of figure we are familiar with.

I have no problem with thinking that in calling the card "Crux", and emphasizing it with capitalization, Alciato was implying a voluntary martyrdom, like that of Christ - even though the figure has nothing in common with depictions of the crucifixion. Having said that, I haven't settled on an interpretation. I don't know enough to be sure.

We have as you say too little to make any definitive conclusion. There is a possibility that he is comparing the execution of the jews with that of Christ, reminding us that Christ too was a Jew.
We do know that Alciato was interested in language and symbolism and I think he would have used a word like 'Crux' in full consciousness of its double meaning and possibly with full intent to make a play between 'scaffold' and 'cross'.

Kwaw

 

[kwaw]

The woodcuts illustrated in the 'Jews in Christian Art:
an illustrated history' by Heinz Schreckenberg can be found online here:


Jewish Execution
http://www.geocities.com/cartedatrionfi/Misc/JewishExecution.html

See image 2b. This image is of relevance not only in regards to the similarity with the Geoffroy 'hanged man', but in the fact that it is from a series of 12 woodcuts illustrating an anti-jewish poem by Thomas Murner. The Franciscan Thomas Murner was a Christian Hebraist and initially a humanist, but when it took on more radical form he became a satyrical defender of the faith against the reformers. The startling similarity of this image to the Geoffroy becomes even more intriguing in light of the connection with Murner, who used games such as chess, backgammon and playing cards as didactic tools:

Murner and playing cards as didactic tools:
http://www.wopc.co.uk/germany/murner.html
http://www.geocities.com/tarocchi7/murner.html

The woodcuts illustrating his poem are modeled upon a series commissioned by the later to be Emperor Maximilian I for the Fransiscan Church at Colmar in 1477. This choice of model may be far from accidental, as the date of the woodcuts, 1515 places them in the context of the great Reuchlin / Pfefferkorn debacle.

In 1509 Pfferkorn, a converso working with the Dominicans of Cologne, obtained permission from the Emperor Maximilian I to confiscate and destroy Jewish books. It was complained that the Emperor had overstepped in jurisprudence an imperial commision was set up which included Reuchlin, who was the only member to oppose Pfefferkorn. In 1910 the Emperor dropped the initiative, however Reuchlin had been accused by Pfefferkorn and the Dominicans of 'Judaizing', and the charge was taken up by the Inquisition and the debacle was to go on for the next 10 years, and was to become the turning point in the split between humanists and scholastics. It was a period in which anti-jewish polemical pamphlets such as that of Murner increased, which may account for the spread of the image across the 'holy roman empire'.

One of the central points of this whole affair, which was an internation cause celebre, was the need to study Hebrew for the study of the scriptures in their original language. It led directly to the printing of the Talmud for the first time under Pope Leo in 1521 and paved the way for the coalition of supporters who were able to win funding for Professoral seats for the study and teaching of Hebrew at a number of universities across Europe.

For more information on Reuchlin there is a lot on the web, for example the basic overview here:

http://opera.prohosting.com/sarir/reuchlin.html


In terms of Alciato's description of the hanged man as 'Crux' it may be relevant that as a humanist and being in the legal profession he would have been familiar with this case; all the more so through his acquaintance with the Visconti-Sforza's and the Emperor Maximilian [Maximilians wife was a Sforza]. Although I don't know if he knew Reuchlin directly they certainly had mutual friends [such as Conrad Peutinger, the Humanist, legal reformer and imperial councillor to the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I]. Alciato's book of emblems was dedicated to Maximilian the Duke of Milan and to Peutinger. It was probably Peutinger who first had published the 1531 edition of the Emblemata.

Perhaps in describing the hanged man as Crux, Alciato reflected a sympathy with his fellow humanist and Jurist Reuchlin, who got into trouble with the inquisition for such statements as 'The Jew is of our Lord's as well as I am."

Another possibility in view of a possible relation to the persecution of Reuchlin as a proponent of the study of Hebrew, Alciato's description of the hanged man card as 'Crux' brings to mind the medieval latin phrase 'crux interpretum', meaning 'the torment of the interpreters'.

Kwaw

 

[Fulgour]

The Hanged Man... death of a Jew in Christian lands?

And the answer is, nobody has died, so there is no death,
and there is niether christian or jew depicted on the card
which isn't about geography anyway, so no "lands" either.

 

[Fulgour]

And the answer is, nobody has died, so there is no death,
and there is niether christian or jew depicted on the card
which isn't about geography anyway, so no "lands" either.

Yes, this is true. "Death" (though unnamed) is the next card,
and even so we don't see anybody dying, or even very sad.

 

[kwaw]

Another possibility in view of a possible relation to the persecution of Reuchlin as a proponent of the study of Hebrew, Alciato's description of the hanged man card as 'Crux' brings to mind the medieval latin phrase 'crux interpretum', meaning 'the torment of the interpreters'.

Kwaw

"In poetry, diversity among languages became a metaphore for other complexities. The little circle around Charles d'Orleans at Blois in the mid-fifteenth century exercised its wit on the notion of the truchement, or interpreter, written trichement in some manuscripts that used paronomasia to bend the word into trickery. The old play on the words traduire/trahir (translate/betray) had a number of variations."

Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet The Color of Melancholy p.14

We also have the Italian proverb tradurre e tradire, exact translation not being possible, translation is a form of betrayal, il traduttore e un traditore, 'the translator is a traitor'.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...ig=pRJ9f5iv44NPkMPMBOGZtjuKNf8&hl=en#PPA55,M1

Et qui n'a pas langaige en lui
Pour parler selon son desir,
Ung truchement lui fault querir;
Ainsi, ou par la ou par cy,
A trompeur (trompeur et demi).

(And anyone who does not himself possess a language for speaking as he wishes must seek out an interpreter; and so, in one way or another, for the trickster there's a trickster and a half.)

(Charles d'Orleans quoted by Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet in The Color of Melancholy p.14., translated by Lydia G. Cochrane)

 

[jmd]

great stuff (yet again), kwaw - must admit that it reminds me of Quine's 'Indeterminacy of Translation' (from his masterly Word and Object).

With the translation (how appropriate given the verse!), the term 'trompeur' rendered as 'trickster' is not totally apt - but then, the whole verse says as much.

'Trompeur' also has the connotation of 'liar' and 'deceiver'. So in the description of the Satan as 'Deceiver', a word used in French would be 'Trompeur' (or even 'maitre-trompeur' - as in 'master deceiver').