X La Rove de Fortvne

[jmd]

Excuse my ignorance, catlin, but would you enlighten me as to the meaning of 'topoi'?

With regards to Kabbalistic tradition, Da'at is sometimes said to have 'fallen' when the breaking of the vessels, and when restored, will be (re-) occupied by what is currently Malkut. Other traditions specify particular planets (such as Uranus), the Aristotelian 'twin-Earth', or Vulcan.

Attached is the (recently reconstituted) 1650 Noblet card.

 

[catlin]

Hi jmd,

Sorry but my English lacks here to give the correct English translation. I just wanted to point out that there were several "motives" which appeared in Medieval literature like the rose or Fortuna which were understood by all Medieval humanists.

Fortuna was often depicted with the "Wheel of Fortune" to remember ppl that nothing lasts, that everything will end one day.

 

[Diana]

edited

 

[catboxer]

Diana:

This is one of those cards whose elements changed over time, and as those elements were altered the original meaning was somewhat obscured. On the Visconti-Sforza card a blindfolded Dame Fortune herself sits in the middle of the wheel with her hands on the spokes, turning them. All the figures riding the wheel as well as the one who has fallen off are human. You can't see it on the card that's posted here, but they all have banners coming out of their mouths; the person at the top is saying "I reign," the one on the right says, "I have reigned," the one on the left, "I will reign," and the one who has fallen off at the bottom, "I am without reign." The reigning person has an ass's ears, indicating foolishness, because he (or she) is naive enough to think he has put himself on top, and will stay there permanently. This, and the fact that the banner of the person at the bottom almost goes into the shirt of the person on the left, so that it looks like a tail, are probably what caused later card makers to interpret the figures as animals, or maybe as part human and part animal.

The Cary-Yale card posted here follows the Visconti-Sforza's example, but it's not part of the original Cary-Yale deck. It's one of the replacement cards executed in 1983 by Luigi Scapini.

But the commentary is on the condition of humanity, and in answer to your question of whether we control our own lives, and determine our own destinies, I believe the originators of this card are answering "no." We're all forced to endure life's ups and downs, and fate, as well as luck, are random elements we can never escape. That's one of the reasons I think the wheel was such a popular icon in churches; it underscores the message that, "This is God's world, not ours."

Unfortunately, this is a prime example of the main elements of a card undergoing gradual changes, which in time become so extensive that the original meaning of the picture is supplanted by other, more esoteric interpretations.

(cb)

 

[Diana]

edited

 

[jmd]

It has often been said that the Pythagoreans reduced or restricted their numbers to the decad, but I thought I would add this little extract from the work of Anatolius (3rd century Christian, who was born in Alexandria, who later became a bishop in Syria... and who said that no Egyptian, Greek nor Pythagorean influences could be reflected in the Tarot!):

• note: sections of Anatolia's work were later reproduced in the influential fourth century text Theology of Arithmetic
  
  On the Decad
  
  'The decad is potentially generated by even and odd: for ten is five times two. It is the perimeter and limit of all numbers: for they run their course by wheeling and turning around it as if it were a turning-point in a race. Moreover, it is the limit of the infinitude of numbers, because when we have counted from the monad up to it, we stop and say that eleven and twelve are next.' [my emphasis]
  
  trans. by R. Waterfield, first appearing in Kairos Newsletter for 1987/8, reproduced with minor changes in Alexandria 3 (1995)p181-194

This last sentence doesn't quite render the same as in the original, which would read more like: 'we stop and say that ten&one and ten&two follow'.

Here, again, are further considerations - and for me personally, further adding solace to my pairings of I/X-I, II/X-II, &c.

 

[Baneemy]

So even in those days, an ass would have indicated foolishness. Interesting.

An ass-eared king could also be a reference to King Midas, who was cursed with ass's ears for his arrogance. He tried unsuccessfully to keep his new ears a secret, and when the secret got out he literally died of shame. The ass-eared king's arrogance contains the seeds of its own destruction.

-Baneemy

 

[firemaiden]

TOPOS - TOPOI

Excuse my ignorance, catlin, but would you enlighten me as to the meaning of 'topoi'?

topoi = the plural of topos, from Greek "koinos topos" "common place"

It has meanings for physics and mathematics, meanings for logic, and is a "term of rhetoric" Aristotle wrote about it, and here is a website that explains all about that: http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/gallery/rhetoric/terms/topoi.html

However, the way Caitlin used it, and the way I have used it on this site, (it is the same in french and in english by the way, but she should have said a topos -- singular) = a recurring set of ideas in literature. -- not just a theme, but a whole argument.

The Wheel of Fortune is one of those par excellence. Since until the 19th century about, the point of writing was not particularly to be original, authors would restate in their own creative way the ideas that came before. Hence - the only example I can remember -- in Roman de la Rose, a very long funny speech on the fickleness of women, is the rewriting in 13th century french poetry of an ancient "topos".

 

[firemaiden]

wheel of fortune topos and Boethius

Bye the way, I realise this is a six-months-later resurrected thread...the question was long past, but I just wanted to cross reference the "topoi" discussion that arose in the "Throw [away] the book thing" thread: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11096&perpage=10&highlight=topoi&pagenumber=4

I asked classics scholars "out there" to confirm my memory that the Wheel of Fortune was an ancient topos, I thought it might go back as far as the Greeks.

Minos, incredibly, knew everything. Although Fortuna as a Goddess is as ancient as God, the Wheel part of the Wheel of Fortune he could only trace back as far as Boethius, (c.480-c.525 AD). Or so he said at first. Then he went to sleep and woke up again and quoted mentions from Cicero and Herodotus, Remember?

Now the mentions Diana quotes are much older! Fantastic! Such a fascinating discussion!!

P.S. I feel inadequate to join in on this discussion, but I have a couple of questions...so what the hey:
1. Where does the medieval torture of the RACK fit in here? and
2. These wheels mostly look like they belong on the water wheel of a mill in a mill pond. How old is this particular technology, I wonder??? (I thought it might give a clue to the origin of the cards)

 

[jmd]

The torture by the rack...

I remember this being brought up as discussion only once about eight years ago in a Tarot course, by a student who happened to be doing, concurrently, some graduate research work in Mediaeval literature (more details I cannot remember).

I thought the discussion which emerged quite engaging, and afterwards probably dismissed much of it as an interesting possible interpretation in a specific reading, and for myself reverted back to viewing the card in its more 'natural' sense of the fate of Fortune and its possible astrological 'influences'...

Still, especially the way the animal-like beings are depicted does remind one of the image of the stretched torture machine...