"You either have these very shallow ones or these rampantly esoteric ones with so many signs and symbols on them you can barely make them out,"says Matthews. "I bought my first tarot pack, which was the Tarot de Marseille published by Grimaud in 1969, and I recently came right around back to it after not using it for a while." Presumably originating in the 17th century, the Tarot de Marseille is one of the most common types of tarot deck ever produced. Marseille decks were generally printed with woodblocks and later colored by hand using basic stencils.
“你会发现一副牌显示出如此多的信息,或强或弱,搞得你根本无法作出解读,”Matthews说。“我得到的第一副塔罗牌是1969年法国B.P.格利莫公司的马赛塔罗牌,我已经很长时间没有碰过它了,直到最近我又把它找了出来。”马赛塔罗牌起源于十七世纪,是最流行的塔罗牌之一,一般使用木版印刷,再用孔版上色。
Top: A selection of trump cards (top row) and pip cards (bottom row) from the first edition of the Rider-Waite deck, circa 1909. Via the World of Playing Cards. Above: Cards from a Tarot de Marseille deck made by François Gassmann, circa 1870. Photo courtesy Bill Wolf.
上:几张1909年印制的初版伟特塔罗牌
下:1870年Fran?ois Gassmann印制的马赛塔罗牌
However, using cards for playful divination probably goes back even further, to the 14th century, likely originating with Mamluk game cards brought to Western Europe from Turkey. By the 1500s, the Italian aristocracy was enjoying a game known as "tarocchi appropriati," in which players were dealt random cards and used thematic associations with these cards to write poetic verses about one another—somewhat like the popular childhood game “MASH.” These predictive cards were referred to as "sortes," meaning destinies or lots.
然而用纸牌进行有趣占卜的历史大概更加久远,上溯至十四世纪,有很大可能性是由土耳其的马木留克骑兵传入欧洲。到了1500年代,意大利贵族中流行一种叫做“tarocchi appropriati”的游戏,人们选出随机的牌,对应上面的主题为别人写下诗句,有点像现在流行的儿童游戏“MASH”.这种卡牌预言的方式在拉丁语里被称作“sortes”,意思是命运或者抓阄。