Arrangement:


Double loop in the Zodiac


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XII

ם Le Pendu
Enforced sacrifice, punishment, loss, fatal or voluntary, suffering, defeat, failure, death.
ם

ATU XII

Le Pendu

The Spirit of the Mighty Waters

Prudence is numbered among the four cardinal virtues: could the Egyptians forget it in this painting of human life? However, one does not find it in this game. One sees in its place under number XII, between Fortitude and Temperance, a man hanging by the feet: but why is he hung like this? It is the work of a bad and presumptuous card maker who, not understanding the beauty of the allegory contained upon this card, took on himself to correct it, and thereby has entirely disfigured it.

Prudence can only be represented in a way sensible to the eyes by a man upright, who having one foot set, advances the other, and holds it suspended while looking for the place where he will be able to safely place it. The title of this card was thus the Man with A Raised Foot, or the Suspended Foot: the card maker, not knowing what this signified, made of it a man hung by the feet.

Then one asked, why a hanged man in this game? and another did not fail to say, it is a fit punishment for the inventor of the game, to have represented a female pope.
But placed between Fortitude, Temperance and the Justice, who does not see that it is Prudence that is lacking and that must have been originally represented?