ALL IN A PACK OF CARDS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22343, 5 March 1938, Page 21

ALL IN A PACK OF CARDS

Survivals of Ancient Symbolism

(Specially Written for "The Press" by MARGARET JEPSON.)

ACCORDING to one account the reason why we spend so much time playing cards to-day is because a lady named Odette Champdivers introduced them into the French Court to amuse a madman, King Charles VI;. and that from there the gaming habit and the use of a numeral pack spread all over Europe., The main evidence for this is that in 1392 the painter Jacquim Grimgonneur was commissioned to paint three packs for the King; and it is certain that until that period, playing cards were unknown in Europe. Corvelluzo of Viterbo says, however, that "in the year 1379 was brought into Viterbo the game of cards, which comes from the country of the Saracens, and with them is called naib." Another theory is that playing cards were brought by the Moors into Europe via Spain, "naipes" being still the Spanish word for cards; and the fact that the Arabic word for prophet is "nabi" gives extra weight to the belief that the "cards with which we beguile our harmless hours are derived from the original fortune telling pack, the Tarot pack of the gipsies. Where the Tarot pack comes from is doubtful, except that it may have been Asia or Egypt; when it originated no one knows, except that it

was long ago. Instead of the 52 cards we use to-day, there were 78 cards in the Tarot; each of the four suits—cups, pentacles, wands, and swords—contained an extra card, the page or valet; and in addition there were 22 Major Trumps. The gipsies still use the prophetic pack; when I was a child their ornamented caravans and brown faces were often seen in the London streets, terrifying to a child because of the stories of children who were carried away by them. Their whining and begging always seemed to conceal a kind of derision; harried and persecuted, they disguised a dignity not unlike that of the Maoris, which comes of an immemorial tradition* But the gipsy woman is in her element when she lays out her Tarot cards in the form of a cross. She puts down the first card: "This one is you yourself, lady. Cross my palm with silver, and I'll tell you the rest. .. . This one covers you, your house and those about you. This is across you, what you have to beware of. This is above you, as much as you can do; this is below you, what you can use and work with. This is what lies behind you in the past; this one is before you, coming now." Then four more, one below the other, in a row. "This shows you the people about you; this shows what you want; this shows your hopes and fears; this last is what will come, lady." The Magician and the Hanged Man The cards show a curious collection of pictures, each one different, and the most dramatic are the Major Trumps: The ' "Magician," who points with one hand to heaven and the other to earth; the "High Priestess," mysterious, with the crescent moon on.her brow. The "Empress" and the "Emperor"; the "Hierophant" or "Pope"; the "Lovers"; the "Chariot," a warrior drawn by lions, the card of war. "Justice," the "Hermit," the "Wheel of Fortune"; "Strength," prizing open a lion's The "Hanged Man," hanging by one foot, calm' and enigmatic, upside down; "Death" on a white horse with a scythe in his skeleton hand; the stricken "Tower" from which the souls fall headlong into the pit; and so oh, with the "Sun" and the "World," and the "Star," to the last of the twenty-two, "Zero," the "Fool,"' whose card is never numbered. The pictures contain an extraordinary mixture of symbols derived from the various nations through which the gipsy tribes have wandered for centuries; they show thi emblems of India and Babylon, as well as Christian and Egyptian symbols. In some packs "The Lovers" is represented by the Tree and the Serpent in Eden; the "Sun" rains

the /tears of Isis; while "The Judgment" shows an angel with a trumpet blowing.the Last Trump through the clouds.. When the prophetic pack became a playing pack, the pictures gave place to simple signs and numerals, and the page was dropped out of the suits, along with the ; twentytwo Major Trumps. Each Major Trump symbolises an idea which has been forceful in the human mind since., mind was evolved; together they are possibly the most dramatic collection of what Professor Jung would call "archetypes of human imagination" in existence. Probably in the age in which they were left out of the pack, no one would have cared to play games with the Major Trumps; even to-day they would look a little odd on. a bridge table at a Plunket tea. Squinting and gross and swarthy, with the wings of a bat and naked demons chained by the neck at his feet, trump No. 15, "The Devil," when dealt to the Plunket President might cause a little flurry in a mind otherwise devoted to the nutrient ! properties of Karoil. Earliest English Packs The earliest known English playing packs were in the style of the Spanish and Italian cards, and that has given rise to a theory that cards were first brought into England by the soldiers who fought under such free captains as Hawkswood, in the wars of Spain and Italy. Germany had quite another style, though, and the cards we play with to-day show a very mixed descent. The Spade, for instance, takes its appearance from the "leaf" of the

early German playing packs; and i»» name from the Italian "sword," an in the Tarot. The Club takes its appearance from the early German "acorn.'* but its name from the Italian "bastoni," obviously related to the Tarot wand or stave —wands, by the way, having a very ancient use in divination, for Herodotus says; "Scythia has a band of soothsayers who foretold the future by means of willow wands." The Diamond takes its name from the '. French "carreaux," but in appearance shows a relation to the Tarot pentacle—a pentacle, of course, being a frequent basis for the magical circles used in casting spells. The Heart is found in the earliest German packs, as well as in the French, and its connexion with tbj» cup suit of the Tarot is obscure, except for the fact that in the Tarot cups govern everything to do witit the affections; hearts may have appeared in place of cups in some early Europeanised Tarot pack; but it seems unlikely that the Heart is any less fortuitous than the "bell,** th« "acorn," and the 'leaf' of the first German playing cards. These complications of genealogyare nothing to those which -would arise if we were to start to consider the magical symbolism of the cards. To-day we only play with the cards of the Tarot Minor Arcana, which represent more obscure ami personal ideas, and are not so powerful as the Major Trumps; but still, when Mrs Smith trumps our ace of Spades it is only to be expecterff for the ace of Spades is only a new name for a very old card, the Ace ot Swords; and the Ace of Swords produces enmity with sinister consequences in any case. . ..