The Lovers Card

In my class, Symbolism of the Tarot Trumps: Through the Eyes of the Artists, I spent a lot of time on the Lovers card. It seems that this card, in particular, illustrates the profound theme that is found in the trumps. It also illustrates the failure of the occultists who associated the Tarot’s trumps with Hebrew letters and Kabbalistic correspondents to appreciate that theme.

From the time I first became involved in the Tarot in the 1980s, I have been fascinated by this card as it appears in the Tarot of Marseille. The Marseille card depicts a male lover standing between two women, suggesting that he needs to make a choice. In some versions the drawing is crude, and at first, I was not sure the second woman was a woman. The figure might have been a priest performing a marriage. Barbara Walker in her book on the Tarot stated that it was a woman performing a marriage. But after viewing many early decks, especially the Jean Noblet (the earliest example, from 1650) it became clear that the lover must make a choice between a woman with flowers in her hair, representing sensuality or one wearing a laurel wreath representing virtue.

This insight was verified by another historic example. The title page of Triompho di Fortuna, by Fanti, a 1527 Venetian book on divination with dice and astrology, depicts the pope sitting on top of the globe. The signs of the zodiac form a belt around the globe and there are crank handles extending from both sides. On the left an angel, known as Bona Fortuna, tries to turn the handle clockwise, and on the right a devil, known as Mala Fortuna, tries to turn his handle counterclockwise. Two women sit next to the pope with their names written above. On the angel’s side, sits Virtus, Latin for virtue, and on the Devil’s side, sits Voluptas, Latin for pleasure or sensuality. The pope’s fate depends on his choice. 

Further research uncovered that this theme can be traced to the Iliad, in the 8^th century BC. Before the hero of the Iliad, Achilles, could decide on joining the siege of Troy, he asked his mother, the sea nymph Thetis for advice she told him that he had a choice of two fates: either he can die a young and glorious death at Troy and his name will be remembered forever, or he can stay home and live a long sensual but unremarkable life and his name will be forgotten. He goes to Troy.

In Platonic philosophy the human soul is believed to be composed of a hierarchy with three parts: the soul of Eros, which longs for personal pleasure; the soul of Thymos, which takes on challenges or hardships for the sake of ideals; and the soul of Logos, which exhibits greater wisdom and judgement. Achilles’s choice illustrates that he is guided by Thymos not Eros

A similar story was told about the Classical hero Hercules. In Xenophon’s 4^th century BC Greek parable, the young Hercules is offered a choice between a life of vice presented by Kakia, the amoral goddess, or of virtue presented by Arete, the goddess of virtue. In other words, he was offered a life of selfish pleasure or one of hardship and honor. He chose Arete, accomplished his famous twelve labors, and became immortal. The image of the young Hercules standing between the two goddesses became a popular theme in Renaissance art and continued into the 19^th century. Various artists created variations on this theme with an everyman figure standing in for Hercules. The Tarot of Marseille Lovers card is one example. The title page of the Triompho di Fortuna is another. One entertaining version was painted by Joshua Reynolds, in 1760. It depicts the actor David Garrick standing between two women who represent Comedy and Tragedy. An engraved rendering of the painting was used as the title card for one of the first oracle decks, Hooper’s Conversational Cards, for 1775.

Starting with the Eliphes Levi in the 1850s, occultists began associating the twenty-two trump cards in the Tarot with the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet and their Kabbalistic celestial correspondents. Levi started by assigning the first letter aleph to the Magician. So, the Lovers was assigned to the sixth letter vau and the constellation Taurus. Most of his followers followed this assignment, but some chose Sagittarius or Virgo. The Golden Dawn started by assigning aleph to the Fool and the Lovers to the seventh letter zain and the constellation Gemini. Gemini at least represents duality, but none of these associations has anything to do with the actual theme of the card, a theme that has been part of Western philosophy and art for around 2,600 years.