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Nicolas Conver’s Tarot of Marseilles, 1760. |
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Allegorical themes: Symbols: Interpretive words:
The tree on which the bird perches may perhaps be a fern (PShYTNA) or pila (PYLA), an aromatic plant. Roger Tilley, in his A History of Playing Cards, suggests that this symbol depicts the Peridexion, a mythical tree whose fruit (PRY) nourished the birds in its garden (PRDS). Its branches gave refuge because the tree’s shadow was feared by the dragons who preyed upon these birds. This legend was one of several compiled into the popular Greek bestiary Physiologus which was widely circulated during the Middle Ages. The letter peh also offers many synonyms for ‘vessel’, including wine jar (PTRA), earthen vessel (PYQTNY), pot (PSKTh), and the vial (PK) used for ritual anointment (I Samuel 10:1; II Kings 9:1). There is also the pittus (PYTS), a cask which often held the combined wine from several vineyards, and the puska (PVSQA), a cauldron from which each guest at a banquet must drink until it is emptied. The phiala poterion (PYYLY PVTYRYN) was a vial of medicinal drink taken after bathing; the liquid which the maiden pours may be this poterion (PVTYRYN) or tonic, made from a plant used for the brewing of spice wine. Or perhaps she is dispensing foliatum (PVLYYTVN), an aromatic ointment prepared from the leaves of the spikenard plant. The name of the letter peh (PH) itself means mouth, speech, and orifice; one form of this word even means open vessels (Tosefta T’rumoth V, II). It was also used as a euphemism for orifice of the womb (Sanhedrin Talmud, 100a; Niddah Talmud, 16b), which suggests that the liquid poured from between the maiden’s legs could be seen as an allusion to menses. The shape of the letter peh is reflected in the star formation itself, which closely resembles the letterform turned sideways. The letter resembles a tongue inside a mouth, making a seeming connection to its literal meaning of mouth and speech. Its form also resembles an overturned vessel of liquid, an image which suggests anointment as hinted at previously by the words poterion (PVTYRYN) and foliatum (PVLYYTVN). Alchemical treatises speak of the philtre of the philosophers (PLThR PYLVSVPVS), a universal ointment able to heal wounds (PTzO) and close fissures (PLQA). The two streams of liquid may well allude to the rivers Pishon (PYShVN) and Euphrates (PRTh) which flowed out from the garden (PRDS), since the names of these two Edenic rivers both begin with the letter peh. If this was the intended allusion, then the trees surely represent the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. One passage from the Talmud reads: “Whatever be the divisions (PYLVG) into which the waters of creation parted, they started from under the Tree of Life” (Y’rushalmi B’rakhoth, I, 2). The theme of ‘waters dividing’ is expressed by many words beginning with this letter: to split (PGR); to separate (PRD); to divide (PRSh); distribute, divide (PYS); separate, split (PLG); disperse (PZR); spread out (PSH); spread, scattered (PVTz). The primordial origins of life are also the subject of Genesis; “The river flowed from Eden to water the garden, and from there it divided and became four rivers” (Gen 2:9-14). |
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Grimaud’s Tarot of Marseilles. |
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Medieval illustrations of seven stars typically indicate the constellation Pleiades (PLYDVTh), the “Seven Sisters” of Greek mythology(1). The Pleiades were the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione, and the attendants of Artemis, moon goddess of the hunt. One day, the hunter Orion caught a glimpse of their beauty, and so gave pursuit. The virgin goddesses grew weary from the chase and called out to their matron for help; Artemis—or in some accounts Jupiter—heard their cries and turned the seven sisters into doves or pigeons (PRYDH) which flew off into the sky, becoming the stars of the Pleiades: “You who are set in the sky, bearing the same name as the winged doves” (Greek Lyric IV, Lamprocles Frag. 736). Because of their beauty and astrological significance, these stars were celebrated in the writings of many ancient cultures; at the time of the early Tarot, their mythologies could be found in astrological compendiums, Biblical footnotes, and in the works of classical authors including Euripides, Simonides, Hesiod, and Homer(2). Usually, these Seven were associated with the pigeon or dove, but classical works were not the only sources to associate birds with the Pleiades. G.E. Stechert, in his 1899 work titled Star-Names and Their Meanings, tells us that “Although the many legends of their origin are chiefly from Mediterranean countries, yet the Teutonic nations have a very singular one associated with our Saviour. It says that once, when passing by a baker’s shop, and attracted by the odor of newly baked bread, He asked for a loaf; but being refused by the baker, was secretly supplied by the wife and six daughters standing by. In reward they were placed in the sky as the Seven Stars, while the baker became a cuckoo; and so long as he sings in the spring, from Saint Tiburtuis’s Day, April 14th, to Saint John’s Day, June 24th, his wife and daughters are visible.”(3) Medieval Hebrew writers often referred to these stars as a ‘hen with her chickens’, an association which appears also in Greek and Arab star lore. The first complete English Bible by Miles Coverdale in 1535 added this marginal note to its Book of Job: “these seven stars, the clock henne with her chickens.” French and Italian sources sometimes designated them as Pulsiniere, Poussinière, or as Gallinelle, Riccioli as Gallinella, and Pliny’s translator Holland as the Brood-hen star Virgillae.(4) It may be that the bird represents the legendary Halcyon, which shares its name with the brightest star in the Pleiades formation, Alcyon. Long associated with the Pleiades, the Halcyon was said to lay its eggs near the shores during winter, upon which the sea would immediately become quiet for the two week period known as “Halcyon Days”. Some authors suggest that the yearly arrival of Pleiades into the ancient winter midheaven may have given rise to legends of the nesting Halcyon.(5) Arabic literature gives to this cluster the name Al Najm which literally means “The Star”, the title by which this Trump became known. The 53rd chapter of the Koran is known as The Star and mentions the sidrah, a tree under whose ample shadow people may gather for safety. This same tree is mentioned elsewhere in the Koran (56:28) as one of the trees in Paradise. The large central star on this card might be interpreted as Pleione, mother of the seven Pleiades, or alternately as their matron Artemis. However, the fact that this large star bears sixteen rays suggests it to be the Sun, since this detail matches the Solar iconography on Trump XIX. Moreover, the Sun was commonly associated with this constellation in astrological lore. The Marseilles image, then, likely depicts the Sun as it passes through the Pleiades formation. The stars of the Pleiades are in fact located directly on the ecliptic (the apparent pathway of the Sun), within the constellation of Taurus. In ancient times, the Sun entered Taurus at the annual birth of Spring, and the eastern rising of the Sun-Pleiades conjunction signaled the festival of the Spring equinox. Today—and at the Tarot’s birth in the 1400s—this Sun-Pleiades conjunction occurs later in the Spring season. This renowned ‘conjunction of eight stars’ and its rising in the east at Springtime suggests this card to be a representation of Primavera (PRYMVRA) or Spring. It simultaneously alludes to Paradise (PRDS) or garden which “God planted in the east” (Gen 2:8), the direction from which this Spring conjunction rises. |
