Guillaume de Salluste, seigneur Du Bartas (1544-1590) with whom I have been starting this series of posts, says of the Nine (early 16th century translation, online, with spelling modernized):
The sacred note of Nine,
Which comprehends the Triple-Trine.
Indeed, the nine Muses were nine. Extending the point, the Theology identifies the Muse governing this number as Terpsichore (Waterfield, p. 107). From treperin, to turn, and choros, dance, it interprets the name as “like the turning and revolution in a dance,” in this case one leading back to the One, which reappears in Eleven (not in Ten, because the Greeks did not use Arabic numerals; they gave the tenth letter of their alphabet to ten and then the tenth letter plus alpha, the number for one, after that. However, the Theology does describe the Decad as a return to the beginning again.
I am not aware that the Muses were divided into three groups of three, but perhaps somebody did so. Probably Du Bartas is simply pointing out that nine is three squared, just as eight, which he had just mentioned, is 2 squared.
The number Nine in the Theology of Arithmetic
is also associated with Oceanus, the god that governs that which borders our
world:
Hence they call it 'Oceanus' [Translator's note: Oceanus was envisaged as an expanse of water encircling the outer limits of the world] and 'horizon,' because it encompasses both of these locations and has them within itself. [Translator's note: Because all things are made from number and 9 is the furthest limit of number.] (p. 105)
Here I think a metaphor is intended, since by then it was commonly accepted, at least by educated people, that the earth was a sphere. The ocean, meaning primarily the Atlantic Ocean, was what was beyond the known. It is similar to what is beyond the sphere of Fixed Stars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoreanism). The realm beyond the fixed stars is like an ocean that acts as boundary to the land. So it is a super-celestial realm of visions not seen by the light of nature. It is the ninth sphere in order from the earth, the last movable sphere before the Empyrean, in medieval cosmology, which Dante visits at the end of the Divine Comedy. It is thus a super-celestial region leading up to the Neoplatonists' One.
For the Theology, there were also the Curetes, the initiators of Zeus:
Both Orpheus and Pythagoras made a particular point of describing the ennead as 'pertaining to the Curetes,' on the grounds the rites sacred to the Curetes are tripartite [Translator's note: the Curetes were Cretan deities who in myth looked after the infant Zeus], with three rites to each part, or as 'Kore' [Translator's note: Persephone]; both of these titles are appropriate to the triad, and the ennead contains the triad three times. (p. 107)
The number 9, for the Theology,
thus represents the time that Jupiter/Zeus spent growing up in hiding
on Crete, being nursed by the Curetes. The “rites of the Curetes” in
which Zeus was initiated, the Theology
says, had 3 rites of 3 parts each. So Du Bartas's reference to the "triple-trine" would have been more meaningful in connection with the Curetes or the rites of Persphone.
He also would have been equally meaningful if he were referring to to Pseudo-Dionysus's 9 choirs of angels, in the heavenly
realm called the Primum Mobile (first moved), between the fixed stars and God, the 9th sphere of classical astronomy. These were divided into three groups (see Wikipedia on Pseudo-Dionysus's On the Celestial Hierarchy.)
The keywords do not fit the Hermit as we have known him up to now: Traitre and Faux Devout, meaning "Traitor" and "False Devout." And when we look at the word-lists for this card, only the Reverseds correspond to the Hermit we know:
19. TRAITOR—Betrayal, Dissembling, Dissimulation, Hypocrite, Hypocrisy, a Traitor, a Deceiver, Corrupter, Seducer. Cunning, Imposture. Hypocrite, Fanatic, Suborner, Fanaticism. REVERSED: TRAITOR. Hermit, Anchorite, Solitary, Sleepwalker, Hidden, Concealed, Disguised. Political. End. Cunning.In my view what has happened is that Etteilla has deliberately mixed together parts of two cards, the Marseille Hermit and the Marseille Hanged Man. The keywords and the Uprights belong to the Hanged Man, while some of the Reverseds apply to the Hermit.
Etteilla has no Hanged Man card at all. What he has instead is the fourth cardinal virtue, Prudence. He has decided, following de Gebelin, that the person on the card should be seen right side up, but going one step further in claiming that what the Marseille card makers had seen as a rope was actually a snake. Below is the Marseille Hanged Man card on the left, the way de Gebelin saw the card in the center, and on the right Etteilla's Prudence card, which turns the rope into a snake. The snake is a traditional attribute of Prudence, dating at least to Jesus's "Be ye wise as serpents and gentle as doves."
Thinking the snake is a rope, Etteilla supposes, the card-makers assumed that the man was hanging by one leg and turned the card upside down. Then for the Prudence card, Etteilla used some of the ideas that would normally apply to the Hermit. Here are the words for Etteilla's Prudence, combining two lists, words in de la Salette only in italics, in d'Odoucet only in bold:
12. PRUDENCE. Reserve, Wisdom, Circumspection, Restrained, Discernment, Foresight, Forecast, Presentiment, Prediction, Prognostic, Divination, Prophecy, Prophet. Horoscope . REVERSED: THE PEOPLE. Nation, Sovereign, Legislator, Body Politic, Population, Generation.As you can see, the Uprights fit the Marseille Hermit. So I think that if we take the Prudence uprights and some of the Traitor Reverseds, we will get something like how the cartomantic tradition before Etteilla might have seen the Hermit. In other words, for the Hermit:
Prudence, Reserve, Wisdom, Circumspection, Restrained, Discernment, Foresight, Forecast, Presentiment, Prediction, Prognostic, Divination, Prophecy, Prophet. Horoscope. Hermit, Anchorite, Solitary,Some of the other words then fit the Marseille Hanged Man, i.e.:
Traitor, Betrayal, Dissembling, Dissimulation, a Traitor, a Deceiver, Corrupter, Seducer. Cunning, Imposture.
The words
associated with Prudence's Reverseds, "People," drop out as irrelevant to the Marseille. They were probably added as a reflection of the political situation in France in the 1780s.
In the Lombard lists of the mid-16th century (the earliest known for this region) the Hermit was called Il Vecchio, The Old Man, and was number 11 rather than 9. For the Pythagoreans, eleven was One over again, the beginning of a new series on a higher level. In the luxury deck of the Sforza now divided between New York and Bergamo, as well as in that of the Medici now in Paris, the Vecchio carried an hourglass, but by the time of the 16th century lists it was a lantern. The number 9, as the next to last of a series of 10, might seem more appropriate than the number 1, the beginning of something new. However,, both the lantern and the hourglass suggest looking at oneself in the light of eternity, a reminder to prepare for what comes later in the series, notably Death, the Devil, the Tower (then called Lightning), and the Judgment. If so, 11 is as appropriate as 9, the beginning of a new series as much as the end of an old one.
In Minchiate, card 9 was the Wheel (here). We are ahead of ourselves.
THE NINES: SOLA-BUSCA, ETTEILLA, WAITE
The SB Nine of Batons shows a man crossing a stream carrying a heavy load of sticks. In the Renaissance, the most familiar picture of someone crossing a stream with a load was that of St. Christopher carrying the child Jesus across a swollen river. According to the Golden Legend, he felt like he was carrying the weight of the whole world. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Christopher). The child then told him that not only had he carried the whole world, but also He who made it.
In the Theology, as we have seen, the Ennead is associated with Oceanus, the god that governs that which borders our world and than which nothing further can be conceived, similar to what is beyond the sphere of Fixed Stars. It contains the whole cosmos. However, the "Etteilla" list takes a less cosmic approach.Here it is the Reverseds that fit the SB image directly, and even then not its last three words; they pertain more to Rhea and the Eight. The Uprights convey the idea of a river as something that slows one down. You have to wait for the ferry, or spend a long time finding a place and time to ford it. Spiritually, that may mean a long time between incarnations, or before getting out of Purgatory and into Heaven, or a long time climbing the rungs of Heaven. In terms of the Theology, there is the question, even if the author doesn't ask it: what does one do in the 216 years between incarnations?27. ETTEILLA 9 OF BATONS: DELAY, Waiting Time, Distance, Expulsion [or Return], Postponement, Adjournment, Deferral,Suspension, Drawing Out, Slowness, Slowing Down. REVERSED: TRAVERSES,Obstacle, Difficulty, Contrariety, Disadvantage, Adversity, Pain, Bad Luck, Misfortune, Calamity.
Di Vincenzo in her book Sola-Busca takes a similar approach as Etteilla, seeing the card in terms of obstacles to be overcome. However she adds that the river "separates two existential
conditions" and compares the river crossing to baptism (Sola Busca, p. 108). She mentions that Dante's Divine Comedy had nine infernal regions and nine heavens (p. 107). Another interesting detail she notices is that the person has a white ribbon in his or her hair: white ribbons symbolized purity (as in a recent German movie by that title); the person is undergoing a purification. In that way it is like the nine initiatory rites of the Curetes.
Waite copies Ettteilla on the meanings of the card.Divinatory Meanings: The card signifies strength in opposition. If attacked, the person will meet an onslaught boldly; and his build shews, that he may prove a formidable antagonist. With this main significance there are all its possible adjuncts--delay, suspension, adjournment. Reversed: Obstacles, adversity, calamity.But the card omits the SB's river. The result is that we see no obstacles. He says, "The figure leans upon his staff and has an expectant look, as if
awaiting an enemy." But that rather trivializes the cosmic metaphor we see in the SB card, one appropriate to the number seen in the Pythagorean way.Let us move on to Swords. I see very much the same Neopythagorean world-view as in the case of Batons. The container is the large vessel containing 8 swords, perhaps corresponding to the 8 spheres between the earth and the void. But the man is not in that vessel. He, and the 9th sword, are mostly outside. Only his hand is inside. It isn't clear what that hand is doing. Di Vincenzo says he is taking swords out of a well (p. 135). It is perhaps a container of some kind. We don't actually see his left hand. Maybe he is feeling the bottom, to see if it is on terra firma--corresponding to one Neopythagorean interpretation of the 9th sphere, that it is the earth itself, counting from the sphere of the fixed stars as number one. But what I think is that he is standing in our world and reaching into the supercelestial world, where the infants swallowed by Saturn are. The figure is like a person who lives in the world, but who is focused on the other world. Or as the "Etteilla" Uprights have it:
Di Vincenzo makes an interesting point about the putto and what she takes to be a key hanging from the wall. She says that the putto is a beneficent angel that is helping him to unlock the red ribbon (the color of the rubedo, completion of the work) that ties the swords together. In that way the card is about learning to be conscious of the whole, and the need for divine guidance. At the same time the Reverseds lend justifiable caution to the procedure: when one has one foot in the unseen realm, one's view of it may be simply a projection of what one already has seen, and a more considered view is needed.53. 9 of SWORDS: ECCLESIASTIC, Apostle, Pope, Cardinal, Archbishop, Bishop, Abbot, Priest,, Monk, Hermit, Religious Person, Temple, Church, Monastery, Convent, Hermitage, Sanctuary. Unmarried Person [Celibat, Celibate], Virginity, Puberty. Cult, Religion, Piety, Devotion, Rite, Ceremony, Ritual. Recluse, Anchorite, Vestal Virgin. REVERSED: JUSTIFIED DISTRUST. Well-founded Suspicion, Reasonable Fear, Misgiving, Doubt, Conjecture.—Scruple, Troubled Conscience, Innocent, Timidity, Propriety, Shame.
That point is indeed consistent with the Theology. Wisdom is in part to know and discriminate among the spheres, and what goes with what. However I still do not see any action implied in the card; it is about knowledge, not action, perhaps including musical knowledge, listening to the harmony of the spheres, for the Ennead, the Theology proclaims, it:
brings numbers together and makes them play in concert, it is is called 'concord' and 'limitation,' and also 'sun,' in the sense that it gathers things together.[Translator's note: Helios (sun) is linked with halizein (gather together)] (p. 106).
One seated on her couch in lamentation, with the swords over her. She is as one who knows no sorrow which is like unto hers. It is a card of utter desolation. Divinatory Meanings: Death, failure, miscarriage, delay, deception, disappointment, despair. Reversed: Imprisonment, suspicion, doubt, reasonable fear, shame.This is taking misfortune much too far, in my opinion. Nine is a number of transcendence, even of venturing forth beyond the limits of the cosmos itself.
On to Cups (below right). Di
Vincenzo says that the sea-creature is a Triton. The figure may have
been copied from a an Italian engraving of the late 15th century,
according to Hind (Early Italian Engraving,
vol 2, Pl 149) done in the North of Italy but derived from a Florentine
original. I reproduce here the relevant detail of the engraving, its
central image. The circle containing the Triton is flanked by winged
putti along with a man on the left offering a ring and a woman on the
right offering a wreath.
"Triton"
was a generic term denoting a class of sea-demigods with the above
appearance. It also denoted a particular demigod, the son of
Poseidon and Amphitrite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triton_(mythology).A complication is that Poseidon had another son, Proteus, by the goddess Tethys, who was represented in the same way. Proteus had a special ability that makes him a more attractive candidate for the sea-creature on the card (and here I am agreeing with http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Cups_Sola_Busca). He could change his shape at will, thereby making him a candidate for the alchemists' elusive Mercurius. The legend was that whoever caught
him, despite these changes, would be able to make him prophesy. At right is
how Alciato depicted him in his Emblemata of 1551 (http://www.mun.ca/alciato/e183.html). (And yes, I know that he is shown with horse's legs; but that doesn't differentiate him from Triton; Triton, too, was sometimes shown that way; see http://www.theoi.com/Pontios/Triton.html.)Alciato's text (first published 1531) below the image reads:
O Proteus, old man of Pallene, with the form of an actor, who at one moment takes the limbs of a man, at another those of a beast, come tell us why you turn into all shapes, so that, forever changing, you have no fixed form?
The motto, above the image, reads: "All that is most ancient is a lie." That's quite a statement for someone like Alciati, who makes his living concocting emblems based on ancient mythology. However it fits in with Proteus's answer in the text, that the earliest myths, like dreams, are just wish-fulfillment fantasies.I bring forth symbols of antiquity and a primaeval age, of which each man dreams, according to his wishes.
Here is an alchemical reference to Proteus as a form of Mercurius, by Heinrich Khunruth (1560-1605) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteus):
The SB character, whoever he is, has five cups in the air. while he holds onto four with ropes. He is like an accomplished juggler. But it seems to me that the upper cups may also be balloons, held down by similar ropes as hold the lower ones. Then is the character an impostor? Or would that be to jump to unwarranted conclusions?our Catholick Mercury, by virtue of his universal fiery spark of the light of nature, is beyond doubt Proteus, the sea god of the ancient pagan sages, who hath the key to the sea and …power over all things, son of Oceanos and Tethys. (From Von hylealischen Chaos p. 54f, as quoted in Carl Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionus p. 56.).
Di Vincenzo's comments that the creature "represents the end of a course, the completion of a cycle, and the beginning of a new life." For in the Nines, besides completing something, as befitting 3x3 (3 as the number of beginnings, middles, and ends), we are starting a return to the Source. She sees the creature as a representative of "Primitive energies preserved by the water," yet in a merely personal way, as "hereditary components, aspects of the personality present in the individual even before birth" (p.51).
The perspective of the Theology is similar, but also grander. We see the similarity in some of the names it gives the Ennead. One is
Similarly, it is'finishing post,' because it has been organized as the goal and, as it were, turning-point of advancement.
Both as Proteus and as number, it is the origin of everything, the beginning that contains, like St. Christopher's Christ-child, all the spheres of being.'Terpsichore,' because the recurrence of the principles and their convergence on it as if from an end to a mid-point and to the beginning is like the turning and revolution of a dance. [Translator's note: Terpsichore, one of the Muses, is assimilated to trepein (to turn) and chorus (dance); in fact, her name means 'delighter in dance.'] (p. 107)
Di Vincenzo shows some awareness of this cosmic aspect of the card when she comments that nine
Similarly the Theology says:...is the number of the angelic choirs, and of the infernal circles, the number of Muses, the parts of the universe in the Orphean philosophy...It is also that of the days and nights required for the creation in Hesiod's Theogony as well as the months required for the completion of the human fetus in the maternal womb, followed by the actual birth. (p. 50.)
Etteilla and his school seem to express the Theology's cosmic perspective in the Uprights, and aspects of the Triton in his Reverseds: its freedom and also the primitiveness that Di Vincenzo describesThe Ennead is the first square based on an odd number. It too is called 'that which brings completion,' and it completes nine-month children, moreover it is called 'perfect,' because it is arises out of 3, which is a perfect number.
41. ETTEILLA 9 OF CUPS: VICTORY, Success, Attainment, Advantage, Profit. Pomp, Triumph, Trophy, Pre-Eminence, Superiority, Majesty. Spectacle, Pageantry, Paraphernalia. REVERSED: SINCERITY, Truth, Reality, Loyalty, Good Faith, Frankness, Artlessness, Naivete, Candor, Romantic Overture, Unaffectedness. Liberty, License, Freedom, Familiarity, Boldness, Ease, Licentiousness.
Waite's corresponding image has much of the energy and fantasy of the
SB 9 of Cups, but without any of the specific mythology. He comments:
A goodly personage has feasted to his heart's content, and abundant refreshment of wine is on the arched counter behind him, seeming to indicate that the future is also assured. The picture offers the material side only, but there are other aspects. Divinatory Meanings: Concord, contentment, physical bien-être; also victory, success, advantage; satisfaction for the Querent or person for whom the consultation is made. Reversed: Truth, loyalty, liberty; but the readings vary and include mistakes, imperfections, etc.
The only thing Pythagorean here is the idea of the goal attained, the great achievement of reaching the 9th sphere, and perhaps the "there are other aspects." The reference to the ocean--and hence to the 9th sphere above the stars--and the protean character at home in it has no specific equivalent, unless one imagines that perhaps the person is some kind of sorcerer, if only one whose tools are words, gestures, talismans, and wands.
The last of our Nines is Coins (SB near right), a man face down in the fire that heats the discs above him. This is the SB's equivalent of Waite's 9 of Swords, the one permeated by death and despair. But there is a difference.
If the 8 of Coins was a Mortificatio, the 9 looks even more so. A human-identified figure in a fire is not that uncommon in alchemy, for example in Emblem 23 of Michael Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens, where the figure on the fire is Antimony, an agent of transformation, symbolized by the wolf (far right). The fire destroys the wolf, so that the result is a return to the form the substance had in the beginning, but now re-vivified.
In the SB image, the discs above the fire have the appearance of the triangular Hexad, one of the "perfect" numbers; but there are actually seven. Besides them, there is one above and one below, suggesting the goal, heaven, and the starting-point, earth. The realm of soul is in between. The next perfect number, in fact the most perfect, is the Decad.
In alchemy, the result is a return to the beginning in purified form, like the King who walks away in Meier's image. . That was one of the roles of Proteus, whom we met in Cups. The discs above the fire are like the dead king, which will emerge purified and perfected in the decad.
In the Theology, one deity associated with the Ennead, we have seen, is Terpsichore, which it says means "turning around." Nine is the number which begins the return to the Monad on a higher level, actualized and purified by its ascension through the numbers. Another deity that the Theology associates with the Ennead is Haephestus, whose Roman name was Vulcan:
Thus we see the ninth disc at the very top of the pile, perhaps corresponding to "evaporation" in the Theology. The discs in the container are like the Rebus. The man on the fire is like Mercurius, the agent of transformation. The alchemist participates in all of this.They used to call it 'Hephaestus,' because the way up to it is, as it were, by smelting and evaporation...[Translator's note: Haephestus was the metallurgical god; perhaps the image is supposed to suggest that 'smelting' is the fusion of monads into the sequence of numbers, but the monad is not exhausted--some part of it evaporates,' in the sense that it can continue the sequence.] (p. 106)
That the fire, however painful, burns to a good end is reflected in the "Etteilla" Uprights. The Reverseds, it seems to me, describe the false alchemist, the deceiver or "puffer," as other alchemists called them, who claimed to be able to turn base metals into gold--and even gave demonstrations if pressed enough.
The Reverseds perhaps also owe something to Alciato, for whom Proteus was a symbol of primordial wish-fulfillment.No. 69. 9 OF COINS: EFFECT, Sequel, Consequence, Result, Consequence, Evidence, Accomplishment. Evidence, Conviction, Conclusion. Event, Execution, Achievement, Perfection, Goods, Furniture [Meubles], Real Estate [Immeubles]. REVERSED: TRICKERY, Deceit, Surprise, Error, Deception Hour [Heure Supercherie], Snare, Fraud, Cheat, Ruse, Deception, Sleight of Hand, Swindle, Infidelity.
A woman, with a bird upon her wrist, stands amidst a great abundance of grapevines in the garden of a manorial house. It is a wide domain, suggesting plenty in all things. Possibly it is her own possession and testifies to material well-being. Divinatory Meanings: Prudence, safety, success, accomplishment, certitude, discernment. Reversed: Roguery, deception, voided project, bad faith.All that from a Pythagorean perspective is admirable here is the arrangement of the discs, in three groups of three, like the Curetes or, in a different setting, the choirs of angels of pseudo-Dionysius.
CONCLUSION
To sum up, in Etteilla and in the SB, all the 9s reflect the theme of transcendence of the sensible world into the angelic or supersensible world, which is also the main theme, I believe, of the Marseille-style Hermit. This Pythagorean sense of the 9s, the ecstatic dance of Terpsicore and the Curetes, which we see in different ways in all four SB 9s, has been captured in two of Smith's designs. One that does not fit is Swords, which has a weeping young lady in a bed with nine swords above her. The other is Batons, where a man uses the 9th baton to lean on while waiting for an adversary. Only one of the Smith cards seems to owe anything to the SB, namely, Cups, so: 25%.
For his part, Waite has largely stuck to Etteilla's divinatory meanings, except those for the Uprights in Swords. Also, he has added comments pertaining to the meaning of the individual suits: misfortune in Swords, feasting in Cups, material well-being in Coins, strength (?) in Batons. So 95% for 3, 45% for 1, average 83%.
It is the about the same percentage for Waite's Pythagorean content--well, perhaps less, because Waite's "Strength in opposition" in Batons/Wands is expressed in a personal rather than impersonal way, hence cosmic sense. Etteilla avoids this pitfall. So around 75% for Waite and Smith, 90% for Etteilla for conformity to Pythagoreanism.
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