Oswald Wirth, the fleur-de-lis, and Aries

I have unfortunately been unable to get my hands on the original French version of Oswald Wirth's seminal Le Tarot des imagiers du Moyen Âge, and the English translation (available online here) is full of obvious errors -- beginning with the title, in which imagiers ("image-makers") is mistranslated (perhaps under the influence of the German Magiers) as magicians.

On p. 47 of the English version, this "Astronomical Tarot" map or diagram is presented.

As throughout the English text, the errors are numerous and obvious. The Herdsman has been mislabeled as a "Headsman," for example, giving the sickle he carries a rather new and unintended meaning! More confusingly, three different constellations have been labeled with the number 12 (the Hanged Man), when in fact Cancer and Gemini should be 18 and 19 (the Moon and the Sun), respectively. This is made clear in the main text of the book, and in the table that accompanies the diagram.

Note that even this table, even as it corrects the errors in the diagram, contains new errors of its own, such as the misplacement of the astrological symbol for Virgo and the use (repeated throughout the book) of the double-plural arcanas.

I assume that most of these errors are those of the translator, not of Wirth himself. The diagram itself seems to be taken directly from Wirth, though, and his monogram is visible beneath the feet of the Virgin. I assume that the names of the constellations are the only element to have been altered by the translator, and that the numerals (which are not in the same font as the names, and which would do not need translation anyway) are Wirth's own. The thrice-repeated 12, then, may be Wirth's own error.

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My reason for dwelling on these errors or anomalies, and who is responsible for them, is that one particular anomaly -- which I judge to be deliberate, and to be the work of Wirth himself -- caught the eye of one of my readers when I posted a partially corrected version of this diagram on my main blog. (I changed Gemini's number to 19 but hadn't noticed the other errors.) The reader, who goes by Mr. Andrew, wrote, "Is the Ram in 5 holding a fleur-de-lis (Joan of Arc) - or is it a different symbol?"

The flag borne by the Ram is not part of the traditional iconography of Aries (which is supposed to represent Chrysomallus, the winged ram from whom the Golden Fleece was taken), but comes from the Christian symbol known as the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) or the Paschal (Passover) Lamb. This Lamb is usually depicted with a flag or vexillum. Occasionally the banner is blank or has writing on it -- either Agnus Dei or else a longer quotation from the Latin text of John 1:36 -- but much more often it bears the sign of the cross. More often than not, this is a red "St. George" cross on a white field.

This scan from a heraldry book I read many times as a child shows that Wirth's drawing is not a traditional Ram or Fleece but incorporates the symbolism of the Paschal Lamb.

Having looked online at many different instances of Paschal Lamb or Agnus Dei iconography, I cannot find a single example in which the banner bears a fleur-de-lis or any other heraldic charge than the cross.

Wirth must have known this, and the change to a fleur-de-lis must have been deliberate -- but why? If he didn't want to use explicitly Christian symbolism, he could have just portrayed Aries in the conventional way, as an ordinary ram. Instead, he chose to Christianize this pre-Christian symbol by giving it a banner suggestive of the Lamb of God -- only to de-Christianize it again by replacing the cross with another charge.

(I think that Wirth's identification of Aries with the Passover Lamb is obviously correct. According to the information I have been able to find online, the earliest possible Gregorian date for Passover is March 21, and the latest is April 20. This coincides almost perfectly with the portion of the year assigned to Aries in tropical astrology.)

I have already discussed another instance of Wirth's replacing a cross with a fleur-de-lis: his Emperor card. In the Tarot de Marseille, the Emperor's scepter is topped with a globus cruciger (an orb surmounted by a cross), but Wirth replaces this with a fleur-de-lis. This is obviously not because he has anything against the sign of the cross, since he places a globus cruciger in the Emperor's other hand.

Three versions of Oswald Wirth's Emperor card (1889, 1926, 1966)

It is interesting to note that, while Wirth himself associates Aries with the Pope card, and the Emperor with Hercules, A. E. Waite (whose Emperor was clearly influenced by Wirth's) identified the Emperor with Aries -- a link Wirth had indirectly made by connecting both with the fleur-de-lis.

Wirth explains the meaning of the fleur-de-lis in his article on the Emperor in Le Tarot (pp. 76-77). He uses a somewhat unconventional, stylized version of that symbol.

This emblem is based on the upturned triangle, which represents Water or Soul. A simple cross surmounting this triangle would form the sign of the Great Work (Supreme Glorification of the Soul), but in the fleur-de-lys this cross shape is made more complicated with two foliated scrolls which lead into the horizontal line, while the vertical line is thrust up towards the sky like a plant shoot.

The whole design alludes to a force which comes from the soul both to rise and spread at the same time, as the scrolls show. At work are the highest aspirations which open to give the flower of idealism, to assure it of an irresistible power in the high spheres of human thought.

The Emperor is not a despot who imposes his will in an arbitrary way; there is nothing brutal about his reign: for it is inspired by a great deal of kindness which is symbolized by the Hermetic ideogram from which the connoisseurs of heraldry have taken their fleur-de-lys. It is regrettable that this emblem has not remained the emblem of the French nation . . . . No other sign expresses better nobility of soul, and true generosity which forms the basis of our national character. Removed as we are from all coarse imperialism, it falls to us to rule through the intelligence and with the heart. Let us be the first to understand everything and to be the most sincere in our affection towards others; in this way we will have the right to set up the fleur-de-lys.

Wirth saw the fleur-de-lis as a symbol based on the cross -- an elaboration of the cross, showing its tendency "to rise and spread at the same time."

And what does Wirth say about his identification of Aries (and thus the Lamb of God and the fleur-de-lis) with the Pope? I have considered the connection before, writing, "The Pope, with his shepherd's staff, makes sense as the ram -- the leader of a flock of sheep" -- but Wirth's rationale is entirely different.

No symbol in the sky could be directly linked to the Hierophant, but he makes you think of the high priest of Jupiter-Ammon, the god with the ram's head. We think therefore that we can make arcana 5 correspond to the Aries of the Zodiac which marks the spring equinox, the sign of Fire and the exaltation of the Sun. The fire with which we are concerned here is the fire of life and intelligence, the ancient Agni which came down from heaven to burn in the centre of the vedic cross, called the Swastika, when the rites are being performed. 'Agni' became 'Agnis' and it is thus that the 'agneau pascal', the Pascal Lamb, brings us to the mysteries of a prodigious antiquity.

We would more naturally associate Jupiter with the Emperor, but Wirth was Swiss and was influenced by the Swiss Tarot, which (presumably as a concession to the differing religious sensitivities of its users) replaces the Papess and Pope with Juno and Jupiter, and shows Jupiter with a thunderbolt in each hand. Wirth explicitly acknowledges this influence: "The Jupiter which the Tarot of Besançon puts in the place of the Pope is the master of the celestial Fire . . . . The character of this god is therefore in harmony with arcana 5."

Connecting Aries with the Paschal Lamb and Agnus Dei is clever. Connecting Agnus (and French agneau) with Agni, the Hindu god of fire, is doubly clever (Aries being a fire sign), though it is of course without etymological foundation. I am a bit surprised that the connection was not made by Alexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydre in his Mission des juifs, given the mileage this latter writer gets out of various equally spurious ovine etymologies. Saint-Yves postulates the existence of an ancient ruler called the Ram and identifies him with Ram or Rama, the seventh avatar of Vishnu; some of the Ram's enemies derisively nicknamed him the Lamb, and this is said to be the origin of the Tibetan title lama. Abraham's name -- originally Ab-ram, "father of Ram" -- is given a similar etymology. (Interestingly, in the story of the binding of Isaac, a ram actually takes the place of Abraham's son!) Saint-Yves also maintains that the Indo-Iranian demonym Aryan is derived from Aries and is a reference to this same Ram. Given all these links, most of them derived from English words, it is a wonder that Saint-Yves did not make the connection between the agneau of his native language and the god Agni.