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Early Italian Tarots
Pip and Court Cards of the Cup Suit

37 Seven of Cups
38 Eight of Cups
39 Nine of Cups		 40 Ten of Cups
41 Knave of Cups
42 Cavalier of Cups

VII. IL CARRO (The Chariot)

This is one of the most mystic of cards, its number being one that was regarded as occult by the ancients. It displays a picture of a king or a conqueror, in his car drawn by beasts, precisely as Nebo was frequently represented in the texts, “when the gilt chariot never marks the way.” Sometimes the car is drawn by horses, frequently by oxen, sometimes by lions, and occasionally by black and white sphinxes. This car typifies Mars, the god of war mentioned in Babylonian mythology and in the Bible, “when every nation made gods of their own and the men of Cuth made Neral (Mars).” (2 Kings xvii:30.) As has been mentioned, Nebo bore a sword and was regarded as accompanying warriors, although he generally represents the pestilence that follows in the wake of war. The Hebrew letter of the seventh Atout is Zain, that expresses an arrow, thus suggesting a weapon as well as a soldier, so it denotes victory, a ruling power, triumph, protection, a domineering character. “The arrows of divination” are frequently referred to in the Bible, for instance, when “the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way at the head of the two ways to use divination. He made his arrows bright, he consulted with images, he looked at the liver.” The tablets found at Nippur frequently refer to all the arts of divination, as when a text in cuneiform characters says: “the arrows were marked Yes and No,” or, “the king had shaken the arrows, questioned the house gods, and looked into the liver.” Mr. Culin, in his “Korean Games,” considers that divination by arrows is one of the most primitive forms, and it is still kept up in Korea, China, Japan, etc. The sticks used for the purpose in China are in the form of arrows, and are kept in a cube-shaped box resembling a quiver. They are shaken in a peculiar way until one jumps out, when the design on it, and the direction in which it points to the shrine, are considered to have replied to the inquirer.

The Chariot of the Atouts was, under certain conditions, supposed to represent Osiris. It was also called “the chariot of Mercury,” in the sense that he was the messenger of Mars when war was to be proclaimed, or when his caduceus was used as a flag of truce. Seven was always considered by the Egyptian savants a mystical number, so this card played an important part in occult science. Count Emiliano di Parravicino, in his essay published in the Burlington Magazine, December, 1903 (page 238), says: “Mgr. Antonio Dragoni (1814) suggests that the Atouts, numbering twenty-one [not counting the Joker (Fou), which has no number], represent the Egyptian doctrine beloved by Pythagoras, of the perfect number Three and the mythical number Seven. Hence, Thoth, the Mercury of the Egyptians, forms with the pack of pip cards his book or picture of the creation of three classes of images, which symbolize the first three ages of the world—i. e., the golden, the silver, and the bronze. Each of these three classes is to represent in its seven divisions a greater reference or mysticism, a mysterious book of the highest value in the art of divination, since this book of unbound leaves contained the key to all mysteries, although its contents were undecipherable to all but those taught in the temples of Thoth.” This proves that other thinkers besides Papus and de Gebelin had come to the same conclusions from their study of the Tarot pack, although without having the benefit of exchanging views on the subject.

The Babylonians believed in seven evil spirits, as the following prayer, translated from a cuneiform tablet, will prove:

Seven are they. They are seven,
The same in the mighty deep;
And Seven are they in heaven,
’Though in water, sometimes they sleep.
They are neither male, nor female,
These awful spirits that fly,
But like destructive whirlwinds,
They swirl across the sky.
Without a home or offspring,
Compassion and mercy are nil,
Since prayers or supplications,
They neither hear nor feel.
Like wild beasts bred in the mountains,
They defy both gods and men,
Polluting even the fountains
The rivers, the marshes, the fen.
Evil are they, strangely evil,
In temples, in cities, in homes;
For Seven are they, cruel Seven,
With weird and terrible forms.

Mr. Willshire, in his “Catalogue of the Playing Cards in the British Museum,” says: “It hardly requires a reference to the Bible to notice the frequency with which the number Seven is mentioned. Not only was the Seventh day to be kept holy, but, then, there was the mystery of the Seven stars, of which Nebo (Mercury) was one, the latter being the most rapid and brilliant. Also of the Seven golden candlesticks, and, in Zachariah iii:9, we find that on the stone laid before Joshua there were Seven eyes. Mercury invented the lyre, according to the Egyptians, in the year of the world two thousand. At first it had only three strings, but in the hands of the Muses, Seven were adopted. Then also the Seven virtues were called the Seven cords of the human lyre, having their analogies in the Seven colours of the prismatic spectrum. Then there were Seven precious stones, namely: Carbuncle (garnet), Crystal, Diamond, Agate, Emerald, Sapphire, and Onyx, besides the Seven chief metals.” The emerald was considered the stone of Thoth, we may infer, since one of his books was entitled “The Emerald Tablet.” Among the Berber tribes, of North Africa, the women put seven marks on their foreheads, to protect them from the evil eye; this is also done among some of the Negro tribes. When consulting the pip cards, the Sevens have peculiar and occult values, marking the boundaries between those lower and higher. They also make combinations that influence the consideration of other cards.