In the diagram above, the cards are laid out in 11 columns corresponding to the 11 possible values of a roll of two dice (from 2 to 12). Where two or more rolls have the same value, they are ranked according to the higher of the two numbers rolled. (Thus, for example, in the third column, the roll 1-3 outranks 2-2 and is placed above it in the diagram.)
The cards in the bottom row of the diagram correspond to the six doubles, from "snake eyes" on the left to double sixes on the right. These six trumps, then, indicate the basic meaning or character to be associated with each of the six faces of the dice; and the 15 remaining trumps represent combinations of these six basic elements.
For any trump in the diagram, following the two diagonal paths down to the bottom row will lead us to the two "root trumps" whose meanings it combines. Take, for example, the 8th trump, called Justice, corresponding to the roll 2-4. Following the diagonal path down and to the left leads us to 2-2, the Empress; following the other diagonal down and to the right leads us to 4-4, the trump with no name ("Death"). Justice, corresponding to a roll that combines 2 and 4, should represent some combination of the symbols and ideas found on the Empress and Death cards -- and such proves to be the case. Like the Empress, Justice depicts a woman seated on a high-backed throne, the shape of which is suggestive of a pair of wings; unlike the Empress, though, this woman is armed with a sword -- a deadly weapon corresponding to the Grim Reaper's scythe. In fact, it turns out that all three of the trumps that depict deadly weapons (the other two being the Lover and the Wheel of Fortune) are arranged in a diagonal line leading to Death. Likewise, all the trumps featuring crowned males are connected to the Chariot.
Many other such connections are evident.
The Hermit card depicts an old man carrying a lantern, and the dice connect it to the Magician and the Moon. The hermit is a wizardly figure -- another type of "magician" -- and his lantern indicates that he is traveling by night. The only person who ever carried a lantern by day was Diogenes the Cynic, known as "the Dog." Either way, the Moon card, with its night scene featuring dogs, is indicated.
The Wheel of Fortune is connected to the Chariot and Death. A chariot of course has wheels, and the charioteer wears a crown like the sphinx on the wheel. The sphinx's sword matches the Reaper's scythe, and in a broader sense both the Wheel and Death represent the ultimate futility of everything, and how people rise only to fall in the end.
The Tower -- which depicts a tower being destroyed and people falling to their deaths -- connects to Death and the Moon. The Moon card features towers.
Strength (a woman controlling a wild animal) connects to the Empress (a woman in control) and the Moon (wild animals).
The Pope has a crown and scepter (ferula) like the charioteer, and the two monks in front of him are in the same positions as the charioteer's horses. Like the empress (but unlike the charioteer and the emperor), he holds his scepter in his left hand.
The Hanged Man occupies a special position, at the apex of the triangle, and is linked to its two other corners, the Magician and the World. He is dressed in motley, as is the magician. His legs are in the same position as those of the dancer of the World, and like her he is surrounded by a stylized representation of the zodiac.
The ease with which these and other connections jump out at me from the diagram, suggests that the Air Hexactys constitutes a meaningful arrangement of the trumps and will repay further contemplation.
2 comments:
Very interesting post and impressive research about the relation of the tarot to dice.
Do you find any qualitative significance in the cards arranged by sum (the columns of the Hexactys), possibly related to the fact that certain sums will occur more frequently than others?
The tarot is analyzes rolls of dice according to pure quality, i.e., each distinct roll is given a particular card. Yet, if one strips away quality and focuses only upon quantity, i.e., the sum of the dice, then as the number of dice grows larger and larger, if dice are grouped according to sum, the shape approaches a bell curve.
It seems significant in some way that the normal distribution, the symbol of our modern belief in quantification and itself used in "divination" of a sort, can arise from the representative of the old qualitative thinking, the tarot.
Interesting thoughts, NLR.
While pre-modern astragalomancy (divination by dice) appears to have been mainly qualitative, with each roll given its own interpretation, Opsopaus does present one quantitative form (see here), where five tali (5d4) are cast and each of the 24 possible totals is assigned to a letter of the Greek alphabet. The respective probabilities of the different letters would then approximate a bell curve.
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