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The Number One
One, unity, monad, first, beginning, birth, in front, at the head, source and summit [think of it as the peak of the triangle/pyramid of number], the unification of the many, ace [as in best, the greatest, without competition], leader. One and Many, for as the Gnostics said, "this monad is likewise, as it were, a certain musical harmony, which comprises all things in itself.", wholeness.
That which unifies the many into one is called the 'baton bearer' [bateleur], like the conductor of an orchestra for example [to retain the analogy with 'musical harmony']. It is one 'tithe', 'tittle', 'jot', 'bagattelle', smallest unit of the iota. Iota is the tenth Greek letter, value 10, meaning jot, small thing and one is also in a manner the decad, for it is from the power of the one 'tittle' that "the duad, and tetrad, and pentad, and hexad, and heptad, and ogdoad, and ennead, and decad are produced" and to which they return [10=1+0=1] according to the early Christian Gnostics [as related by their Christian opponents for example in Against Heresies by Irenias and Refutation of all heresies by Hippolytus].
Therefore they say that "when Moses mentions that the rod was changeably brandished for the introduction of the plagues throughout Egypt - now these plagues, he says, are allegorical expressed symbols of the creation [in the beginning was the word, and Elohim, it is said, created all that is in 10 sayings] - he did not for more plagues than ten shape the rod. Now this rod constitutes one tittle of the iota, and is both twofold and various.... Conformably with that one tittle, the law of Moses constitutes the series of ten commandments, which expresses allegorically the divine mysteries of those precepts. For all knowledge of the universe is contained in what relates to the succession of the ten plagues and the series of the ten commandments." [Hippolytus].
So the rod of Moses symbolises the monad, the one 'tithe' of the iota, from which the ten 'emanate' in succession. And in the middle ages in both Christian and Jewish literature we may find Moses described as a magician. He taught his disciple in magic by writing letters on pieces of bread which they ate [a common magical formula/technique], a magical technique which perhaps we may relate to the 'cake' on the magicians table in the early painted decks? It may also be relevant that some early writers describe the 'deniers' suit not as coins but loafs of bread. Sort of edible talismans [or pantacles].
We may note that in relation to the correspondence of the symbolism of 'one' with beginnings, birth, that from which all other numbers spring or are 'born', that the name Moses is Egyptian for 'born from', as in the name Rameses [born of the sun, or of Ra]. Moses raises his rod and the waters divide, and his people emerge the other side and in allegorical fashion it is thus he gave birth to a nation. Note again the parallelism with Genesis, when God divided the upper waters from the lower waters in the act of creation. Here we see the Baton Bearer not just as the unifier, but the seperator.
One, the monad, was considered not an `odd' or `even' number, but both; and thus the source in potentia of not just Unification [Love] but of Seperation [Strife]:
"According to the theologians", Plutarch writes, "both prose writers and poets, God is eternal, but yet, under the impulsion of some predestined plan and purpose, he undergoes transformations in his being...When the god is changed and distributed into winds, water, earth, stars, plants and animals, they describe this experience and transformation allegorically by the terms 'rending' and 'dismemberment'. [Wind]
In the symbolism of neoplatonic ritualism the image of dismemberment is used to convey the act of divine creation; the divine being singular and simple, the creation of many from the one is conceived as an act of breaking or division [thus the one becomes two through division]. Pico de Mirandola describing the ascent and descent of the 'ladder' of reason as the steps upon which:
"we shall sometimes descend, with titanic force rending the unity like Osiris into many parts, and we shall sometimes ascend, with the force of Phoebus collecting the parts like the limbs of Osiris into a unity." [Wind]
The division of the One ritualistically or mythologically symbolised as dismemberment is graphically illustrated in the noblet Bateleur, who appears to be holding a dismembered penis:
http://tarot-history.com/Jean-Noblet/pages/ll-bateleur.htmlAmong the neoplatonist of the renaissance another favoured figurement of this was that of the 'mystery ofthe birth of Venus'. Venus Urania, identified with the celestial virgin, is born from the sea foam that was produced from the castration ofUranus:
'being the god of heaven, Uranus conveys to formless matter the seed of ideal forms, according to Pico "and because ideas would not have in themselves variety and diversity if they were not mixed with formless nature, and because without variety there cannot be beauty, so it justly follows that Venus could not be born if the testicles of Uranus did not fall into the waters of the sea". [Wind]
Venus was attributed to the number 6 {Agrippa, Capella}, the highest throw of 6 in dice was known as the Venus throw*. The correspondence of Venus-VI seems an appropriate correspondence with 'The Lover' [TdM], both in subject [love] and the presence of Cupid/Eros. Given the correspondence with Venus perhaps it is possible to interpret the two women of the Tarot 'Love' card as the two aspects of Venus.
According to the interpretation of neo-platonic love in the renaissance, Love is the Desire for the Beautiful [which ultimately is the 'good', which is 'god']. The love of the beatiful 'object' [as represented by the girl with the crown of flowers in some Marseille decks, the earthly Venus, on his left, the side of the relatively imperfect and mutable] is converted by reason [represented by the girl with a crown of laurels or flames, the celestial Venus, on his right, the side of the relatively perfect and immutable] to the love of the beauty inherent in all things, and from thence to its return to the 'invisible' and thus 'unseen' source and ultimate object and source of love, God.
This neo-platonic triadic process of emanation, conversion and return was related the three graces, who were neo-platonic symbols of the 'unfolding' of the triadic union 'infolded' in venus. These three aspects or graces one could also relate to the three ranks of seven cards, the first seven to emanation, the second to conversion and third to the return.
Six is the baseline of the triangular number 21 [1+2+3+4+5+6=21] in which we can see the triumph of the celestial Venus [the Cosmos comes from the Greek for order and beauty] revealed [nakedness being a symbol of revelation]. The celestial venus and the earthly venus can also be taken asbeingrepresented by card II, the Papesse and card III, the Empress. The lover as card I, the 'bateleur' [the number 1 is attibutedto eros].
"Why is love called a magician?" asked Ficino. Because it unites the lower with the higher, the terrestial with the celestial, man with the divine. So we have I+II+III=VI. According to Agrippa the Pythagorean name for One is Cupid/Eros. In regards to which what Diotina says to Socrates in regard to Love being the child of Poverty and Reason [Zeus] may be relevant:
"And as his parentage is, so also are his fortunes. In the firstplace he is always poor, and anything but tender and fair, as the many imagine him; and he is rough and squalid, and has no shoes, nor a house to dwell in; on the bare earth exposed he lies under the openheaven, in-the streets, or at the doors of houses, taking his rest; and like his mother he is always in distress.
"Like his father too, whom he also partly resembles, he is always plotting against the fair and good; he is bold, enterprising, strong, a mighty hunter, always weaving some intrigue or other, keen in thepursuit of wisdom, fertile in resources; a philosopher at all times, terrible as an magician, wizard, sophist. He is by nature neither mortal nor immortal, but alive and flourishing at one moment when heis in plenty, and dead at another moment, and again alive by reasonof his father's nature. But that which is always flowing in is alwaysflowing out, and so he is never in want and never in wealth; and, further, he is in a mean between ignorance and knowledge." end quote from Symposium by Plato.
We may see an allusion I think to both the fool/madman and to the magician. 'Poverty' represents the soul as lover, always in need, wanting and seeking for the beauty and goodness of the beloved' and in relation to the fool or madman we may see him as representing the soul as a pilgrim of love. 'Why is Love called a Magus?', asked Ficino, "Because" he replied, "all the power of magic consists in love." And what is this magician `love'? The mediating power uniting heaven and earth, gods and men. Or as Diotima replied to Socrates question [in Plato's Symposium]:
"And what is he [love]?" : "He is a great spirit, and like all spirits he is intermediate between the divine and the mortal." "And what is his power?" asked Socrates. "He interprets," she replied, "between gods and men, conveying and taking across to the gods the prayers and sacrifices of men, and to men the commands and replies of the gods; he is the mediator who spans the chasm which divides them, and therefore in him all is bound together, and through him the arts of the prophet and the priest, their sacrifices and mysteries and charms, and all, prophecy and incantation, find their way. For God mingles not with man; but through Love."
So we see in the symbolism of the number One, and of the tarot trump I_Il Bateleur, as being both odd and even, the source in potentia of both Love and Strife [the forces of unification and of seperation, of the principle of the whole and the part]. Remembering that the arrows of cupid enflame not only love, but when dipped in lead, enmity.
Reference:
Wind, Edgar. "Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance"
Plato "Symposium"
Agrippa, Cornelius. "Three Books of Occult Philosophy" Volume II.
Hippolytus. "Refutation of all Heresies"
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The myth of the castration of Saturn is thus seen as an allegory of the old testament and its covenant replaced by the new. The riegn of Saturn as being one of Justice; Jupiters castration of Saturn results in the birth of Venus, was thus seen as an allegory of the legalism of of Judaism is contrasted with the Love of Christianity.
The Lover in the Romance of the Rose accuses Reason of being lewd for using the term coilles (testicles) in the telling of the tale of Saturns castration. He tells her he does not consider her 'courtly' for having pronounced the word 'testicles' to him. Reason replies:
"Beaus amis, je puis bien nomer,
Senz mei faire mal renomer,
Apertement, par propre non,
Chose qui n'est se bone non"
(Dear friend, I may surely name,
Without causing evil to rebound to me
Openly, and by its proper term,
Something, that if it is not good, is nothing)
Dolores Warwick-Frese comments "Reason's self defense is worth our close attention, for it furnishes a series of observations on the present fusion of poetic and philosophical truth. The first ....connects the abscence of a proper noun ("propre non") to the concept of existential nullity ("chose qui n'est")", another connection with our fool who is worth nothing and unnumbered (Nulla, as the Steele Sermon describes him).
In the fool or nothingness to which the bateleur gazes we have both the 'things' (circumcised cock and balls) and symbolic representation (pilgrims staff and purse). So in both the fool and the bateleur we have the elements of a discourse between love and reason upon the nature of 'things' and their representation or 'symbols', and between existence and nullity.
Reference:
An Ars Legendi for Chaucer's Canterbury Tales by Dolores Warwick Frese, p.29 -
The penis in place of a wand reminds me of Reasons use of the real names of things, as opposed to euphenism, in the Romance of the Rose.
The Lover in the Romance of the Rose objects to Reasons plain speaking of cock and balls, and considers that ribaldry be avoided by polite euphenism: his own favoured euphenism for cock and balls is of the pilgrims 'staff and purse', of which see front cover image:
http://books.google.com/books?id=NFB-NgrsYqcC&pg=PA50&lpg=PA50&dq=well+narcissus+romance+ros e&source=web&ots=-yVHyO1RLP&sig=STv1AaoTPbrwznxnar-D5p0yO Ys#PPP1,M1 -
The dismembered penis in the hand of the Noblet ‘Bateleur’ is a ‘handy’ mnemonic hook on which to hang the motif of Jupiter's castration of Saturn, tracing the influence and interpretation of the myth from Ovid's metamorphosis through the medieval period in texts such as the French romances and Fabliaux and the Tales of Chaucer to the neo-platonic interpretations of such renaissance figures as Ficino.
In his dice on the table and his purse too, taken as puns and emphenisms may serve as mnemonic hooks for intertextual references. Euphenisms used in chaucer for cock or balls for example include 'knocking stick', 'marrow bone', 'relics', 'purse' (so if you read the pardoners tale, think too of the possible double entendres made in connection with 'relics', 'knocking the marrow out of the bone', 'unbuckle your purse', etc).
Dice were the gamblers 'relics' like holy relics but made of animal bones not the saints, a gambler may 'kiss' his dice, his relics, invoking lady luck; as a catholic kissed the relics of the saints; so the invite of the pardoner for the pilgrims to kiss his 'relics' or unbuckle their purse is full of double entendre, which is also part of the reason his fellow pilgrim and host Harry Bailey threatens to cut his ballocks off and throw them into the pigs turd (an allusion possibly also to alchemy) when the pardoner asks his fellow pilgrims to come forward to kiss his relics. Most if not all these same euphenisms existed in French too:
Les apele ne sai coment:
Bourse, harneis, riens, piches, pines,
Ausine con ce fussent espines.
I don’t know how they refer to them:
Purses, harness, things, pricks, torches,
As if they were made of thorns.
Coilles reliques apelasse
E reliques coilles clamasse,
Had I named testicles 'relics'
And called relics 'testicles'. -
Taking the Fool card as reference to Saturn in connection with its similarity to pictures of the Wandering Jew, and in medieval astrology Saturn was the significator of Judaism as Jupiter was that of Christianity, perhaps in the dismembered penis we have reference to the classical myth of Jupiter’s castration of his father Saturn.
Jupiter, as first mover and father of the gods (the name Jupiter is latin Dieue Pater) is attributed to the number 1 in number symbolism (for example see Agrippa).
According to Ficino in his Platonic Theology we are currently living in the circuit of Jupiter, which began with Jupiter’s castration of his father Saturn.
The Visconti card is similar to representations of the figure of the planet Jupiter in age of man representations. But the gesture of our bateleur too could be read in reference to images of the god Jupiter. See fig.14 here:
http://www.google.co.uk/books?id=HM-1Q59H2kwC&pg=PA59&dq=saturn&as_brr=1&sig=dqnH6zFcTe1DciRGnse8q4Qeq 1Y#PPA50,M1"]http://www.google.co.uk/books ?id=HM-1Q59H2...4Qeq1Y#PPA50,M1
An antique statue in the vatican museum of the Emperor Claudius holding aloft the sceptre of Jupiter (the castrator of Saturn).
(The whole chapter is of interest for its description of the concept of Jupiter and Saturn in the renaissance and among neo-platonists).
Here is an article on a treatment of this theme by Chaucer that may be of interest to some:
http://www.freewebs.com/middleagesmike/chaucerknight.htm
Quote:
… the myth of Saturn's castration in the thirteenth-century Roman de la Rose has been termed by John V. Fleming "a major idea" in Jean de Meun's continuation, and, according to David F. Hult, the ugliness of the "body dis-membered" in the myth is said to be made beautiful "through the story re-membered" (literally, 'put back together'), meaning the discarded material parts, or language itself (Hult 1992: 126).
End
17/12/07 23:49
…No beard had he, nor ever should he have,
For smooth his face as he'd just had a shave;
I think he was a gelding or a mare.”
The character of the Pardoner is said to be based to an extent upon that of ‘False Seeming’ from ‘Roman de la Rose’ (in which the myth of Saturn's castration also appears):
But what care I? I'm none the worse,
With silver have I stored my purse
And goods have heaped; so well I've striven,
That foolish folk have freely given
Abundance, and I lead my life
In ease, all undisturbed by strife,
Thanks to the easy prelates who
Fear to say aught whate'er I do.
Not one of them dares make essay
Against me, or he'd roundly pay.
And thus I live as pleaseth me
By fraud, deceit, and trickery.
Who even dressed as a woman when it took his fancy:
I show me, company to keep
With her from whom I joyance reap,
(She hight Constrainèd-Abstinence)
'Neath many a guilement and pretence,
Her fickle fancies to fulfil,
And work her every wish and will
Sometimes a woman's robe I wear,
As matron staid or damsel fair,
And oft assume religious dress,
As anchorite or prioress,
An abbess who with life hath done,
Or novice who would fain be nun
As through the world I walk about,
I turn each credence inside out,
And whatsoever may be their law,
I take the grain and leave the straw;
For I but live to cozen folk,
And laugh at all beneath my cloak.
What more to tell? In suchlike way
As serves me best I play my play.
http://www.courses.fas.harvar