Magistra Poculi - Mistress of the Cup
• Motto, deities, dice, astragali, Greek letter and trigram • Description
• Verse
• Interpretation • Commentary
Motto:
Ne quid nimis. (Nothing in excess.) Deities:
Iris; Hebe, Juventas, Ganymeda. Dice:
2+2 = Virtue + 2.Female/I.Source (Water); 4+1 = Virtue + 1.Source (Fire). Astragali:
Greek Letter = Eta:
Eos = Daybreak, Dawn, Aurora; Hebe = Youth; Henis = yearling. Trigram:
::I Name: Ken = Keeping Still. Image: Mountain. The Third Daughter, associated with stopping, stillness and keeping still. Southwest in the Earlier Heaven.
Description
A rather androgynous-looking, golden-winged young woman holds in her left hand a silver patera (dish) decorated with a lion, in her right a golden oinokhoe (wine jug) decorated with an eagle. She pours a light-colored liquid from the golden oinokhoe into the reddish fumes that rise from the silver patera and spill over its edge.
She is barefoot and stands on the shore of a river with her left foot on land and her right in a river, beside which irises grow. She wears a peplos (gown) of many iridescent colors, and a multicolored headband binds her short hair. It supports a diadem, a golden hexagram with a purple-red gem in the center. On her breast is a round, silver medallion marked with an upright triangle in a square.
In the background is a twin-peaked mountain, and the glow of a sunrise appears between the peaks, over which shines a rainbow. High clouds obscure the top third of the rainbow, but the two ends appear to descend from the clouds above the peaks to the earth on either side. An upward-pointing golden arrow, with an equilateral-triangular arrowhead, is superimposed over the center of the clouds, precisely where the missing third of the rainbow would be.
Verse
The Child Divine is born of Moon and Sun. She tempers wine with water, never done
With mixing, and her rainbow joins the poles, For she's the messenger and guide of souls. Accept her cup, and let the two be one.
Interpretation
In 6.Love, the Mother and Father were united; the Father was consumed by conception and the Mother was consumed by the child in her womb. Thus each met their dissolution, thereby implementing the alchemical Solve. In 7.Temperance the Father's Fire and the Mother's Water find new embodiment in the Divine Child, and thereby implement the complementary alchemical Coagule. Mistress Temperance is simultaneously the Divine Child and the alchemist alter-ego of Mercury the Magician, for she brings
about the fixation of the volatile and the volatilization of the fixed, which engenders the Child. In this way she decants the soul to purify it. The Child comprises all the oppositions of her parents, conscious with unconscious, thought with feeling, intuition with sensation; she is the integrated Self and is destined to undergo the initiation of the remaining trumps.
Commentary
In the Ferrara sequence, 7.Temperance concludes the first group of seven trumps; it is the synthesis of the aspects of the psyche symbolized by the Magician, Empress, Emperor, High Priestess, High Priest and Love.
In 6.Love the Magician Mercury, disguised as Eros, brought the father and mother together. They mingled their seed, the father's semen dissolving in the mother's Water, and the father's Fire coagulating the mother's sexual fluids. The father died in the consummation of love,
dissolved in the mother's corrosive waters or stung with her venom; the entirety of his life poured out in his semen. The child in the mother's womb consumed her substance by its growth; she gave her life to the child. In the end she was destroyed, perhaps wasted away, perhaps
incinerated by a lightning blast, and the child was snatched from her womb and nursed by the Moon, the child has been tempered by Fire to make it immortal. (To "temper" comes from the same root as "temperance," as will be explained later.) The child has assimilated the opposites of its parents; it embodies the Coincidentia Oppositorum, which will lead to redemption
(21.World). (Jung, MC 29-37, 294-5, 314-6, 380)
This alchemical process recalls the birth of Asclepius the Savior, rescued by his father Apollo from the womb of Coronis as she was consumed on her funeral pyre (see 6.Love). When the child was grown he was blasted again by Apollo, but was resurrected as the god of healing. Remember also Dionysos, rescued by Zeus from Semele's womb when she was incinerated by his blazing glory, and sewed into his father's thigh as surrogate womb; later he was dismembered by the Titans, but was resurrected as a god (by Demeter, in some stories; Kerenyi 274). Finally this trump recalls Demeter's attempt to give Triptolemos immortality by tempering him in the fire, and a similar myth in which Isis tried to immortalize the child of Queen Astarte, who comforted her when she was searching for Osiris (Plutarch, Isis & Osiris 15-6).
The child is born out of death (trump 7), but before it can reach its destined apotheosis (trump 21), it must mature (trumps 8-11), and as an adult undergo another death (trumps 12-15) and rebirth (trumps 16-20). (That is, the child matures through Fortitude, Victory, Fortune and Experience; he or she is tried through Sacrifice, Death, Temptation, and Destruction; and is reborn through Hope, Instinct, Illumination, Judgement, and Balance to attain Unity.)
Temperance mixes the wine and water by pouring from one vessel into the other, and then back again; her actions represent a periodic reversal of flow. In this case, the sublimation of the parents' energies to produce the child (trumps 1-6) is reversed, with a consequent resurgence of the libido in the child. This energy manifests in many forms (trumps 8-11), which she must learn to control and direct towards growth (trumps 12-20). (Nichols 252-3)
The four cardinal virtues of classical Greece and Rome are usually listed Temperance, Fortitude, Justice and Prudence (which is conspicuously absent from the Tarot, so various commentators have tried to find a place for it among the trumps.) However, the contemporary English meaning of "temperance" gives a misleading impression of this trump. It derives from Latin temperantia, meaning moderation and self-control, which comes from the verb temperare, meaning to observe limits, to control oneself, but also to regulate, to mitigate, to mix properly and to temper. In the list of virtues temperantia translates Greek sophrosune, which means moderation, self-control, soundness of mind, and the harmonia (well-balanced integration) of the soul (Peters s.v.); in Jungian terms it represents the integrated Self. Sophrosune is summed up by the inscription on Apollo's temple at Delphi: Meden agan. "Nothing too much." (Two Latin translations are Ne quid nimis and Ne nimium.)
We will see that all of the foregoing meanings enter into the interpretation of this trump. The central idea is the blending of opposites to achieve a harmonious state, the proper mixture, the solution, which frees us to see the right way. In action it is finding the middle way, taking the right action (which may be inaction). In temperament it is the proper blending of the four humors (fiery choleric, airy sanguine, watery melancholic and earthy bilious).
Such a state of well-balanced integration may be achieved by tempering - trial by fire and water; in this trump the female tempers the male sword in the fire of passion and the water of love. Likewise, the philosopher's stone is attained by an alchemical circulation through the celestial fire and the abyssal water of the reflux condenser. Thus the child begins the rotation of the elements symbolized in 21.World; it is a process of spiritual purification, which she initiates by decanting the wine and water. Temperance is regulation and adjustment, for indeed the Emerald Tablet tells us, "all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation."
(Case 154; Gad 238, 242; Nichols 255, 258-9; Pollack 95, 98; Waite 127; Walker 109; Williams 93)
The child mixes water and wine, for the ability to achieve a proper balance between the two was considered in ancient times a sign of temperance (only an intemperate person drank undiluted wine). Since wine is a symbol of fire and spirit, the child becomes the alchemist who knows how to mix fire and water to create the quintessence, the "damp-fiery-cold spirit" (Jung, MC 44-51). Only the child, who is Sophia, Divine Wisdom (Sophrosune), has the experience and patience to balance the ingredients. (Thus, Crowley calls this trump "Art.") Psychologically, the child mixes feeling with reason, the fiery spirit with divine wisdom. (Case 156; Crowley 101; Gad 241; Nichols 249, 255; Williams 93)
So also ancient statues show Pan as Priapus pouring water on his erect phallus, thereby
representing the use of the passive principle to invigorate the active principle (Knight & Wright 72-3).
In our image the light colored liquid poured from the upper vessel represents water and the principle of fluidity; the effervescing red liquid in the lower vessel represents wine and the principle of volatility. The watery power of the moon is drawn down, and the fiery power of the sun rises upward, for the quintessence combines solar heat with lunar etheric moisture. Thus the
rain couples with the sun to promote the fertility of the earth. (Crowley 103; Nichols 249-50, 252, 255; SB&G 45; Walker 108)
The two fluids meet in the air in a turbulent flux that blends their opposing natures and aerates the mixture. It is an alchemical principal that air (or less frequently earth) is required to reconcile the polarities, fire and water, for fire is hot and dry but water is cold and wet; they are polar opposites. Since air, however, is warm and wet, it has warmth in common with fire and wetness in common with water. Thus it forms a link between the poles and allows them to be joined; it is the harmonizing mean between the extremes. Earth can also be a mediator, since it is cold and dry, but air is the natural mediator since its sphere is between the spheres of water and fire, since its subtlety is intermediate. Thus, on the Emerald Tablet we read, "The sun is its father, the moon its mother, the wind hath carried it in its belly, the earth is its nurse." Fire, water, air and earth - all the elements participate in the quintessence, all the opposites are resolved in the Divine Child. (See also 17.Moon for aeration of the waters.) (Crowley 103)
By Temperance the masculine and feminine fluids are blended. They correspond to the primeval waters of the Babylonian Genesis: Apsu, the sweet, fresh waters of the Abyss (governed by Ea, i.e. Hermes), and Tiamat, the bitter salt waters of the ocean (who is female). (Walker 107) (See 17.Moon for more on the waters and for the salt symbol.)
The golden, male jug pours out the white elixir, the camphor drops, which fall into the red elixir, the red sandalwood, in the silver, female dish. In a Tantric text we read (Shaw 158):
In the sacred citadel of the vulva of A superlative, skillful partner, Do the practice of mixing white seed With her ocean of red seed.
These esoteric colors do not derive from the colors of the sexual fluids (or from menstrual fluid), but from their endocrinal content, or, in Ayurvedic physiology, from the foetus getting the red elements (blood, flesh, etc.) from the mother and the white elements (bone, brain etc.) from the father (Shaw 157-8, 249n82). When the nectar resulting from this mixing is reabsorbed, it gathers the spiritual winds into the central channel to engender the Wisdom Wind, which frees us from dualistic thinking (Shaw 161-3).
We find a similar blending of the Waters of Life in the Cabirian Mysteries, in which the
archetypal male and female, Cabirius and Cabiria, were worshipped in the form of vessels filled with water; Cabirius was identified with Dionysos and Cabiria with Demeter (who are lovers in the Orphic tradition; Kerenyi 274). Thus life is renewed by the Waters of Life. (Gad 240; OCD s.v. Cabiri; Waite 124; Walker 108-9)
Temperance also conjoins the opposites by standing with her right foot in the river and her left foot on land. Though her conscious mind is occupied with the archetypal world (right foot in River Styx), her unconscious mind remains grounded in physical reality (left foot on dry ground). Thus she bridges the potential of the archetypes to the actuality of concrete
manifestation. (Case 152, 156; Pollack I.97; Sharman-Burke 70; Waite 125; Walker 107; cf. SB&G 45)
The river is the same one we see in 17.Moon, a trump which is closely related to 7.Temperance (see below). The connection is confirmed by the fact that 7.Temperance and 17.Moon have the same positions (7) in their decads; also note 1+7 = 8, which is the role of Temperance in the first Hendecad (given by its Greek letter, Eta). Case (155) observes that the river in Temperance corresponds to Yesod, the sphere of the Moon, which represents the vital soul (see also Crowley 101).
The Seventh Key of Basil Valentine
The emblem the Child wears on her breast is a symbol for Mercury as embodied in the floorplan of the Sabaean temple of Mercury. The triangle in the square in the circle represents the unity of the spirit in the body; specifically, mind, soul and spirit embodied by the four elements. (Jung, Sp. Merc. 224; Pollack 98)
The hexagram on her head represents, of course, the perfect union of the four elements, since it is a superposition of the symbols for the elements. It also shows that the essence of this union is the conjunction of Fire and Water, the Quintessence. She wears the hexagram on her brow at the location of her "third eye" (Ajna-chakra, the sixth chakra), which is a symbol of her awakening consciousness and, in Jungian terms, her progress toward individuation. It is also a solar symbol, which represents balanced, cyclic alternation, and spiritual gold, the final goal of the Magnum Opus of alchemy. The purple-red gem in the center of the hexagram is a symbol of future growth: the kernel hidden in the fruit and the embryo hidden in the womb. Its color represents the culmination of the alchemical transformation, which "has the power to remove man from this vale of sorrow," in the words of the alchemist Basilius Valentinus. (Burckhardt 184, 191-2; Gad 240; Nichols 251)
Both emblems, the hexagram with its central gem and the triangle in the square, represent seven, the number of Temperance; Temperance blends the natures of the seven metals and the
characters of the seven planets (Case 156). Finally, both emblems emphasize the symmetry and balance of Temperance.
The gold and silver vessels represent many polarities: sun and moon, conscious and unconscious, male and female, spirit and soul, mind and body. The lower, silver vessel is a patera, a broad, flat ritual dish; it is a womb symbol, the alchemical uterus, and represents the Cauldron of
Regeneration (which we see for example in the legend of Medea the Witch). The upper, golden vessel is an oinokhoe, a narrow, tall wine jug; it is a phallic symbol and fertilizes the womb. (Gad 238, 241; Nichols 249; SB&G 45; Sharman-Burke 70; Walker 108-9)
Tarot decks differ in whether they place the gold or silver vessel higher, and which on the right and which on the left (e.g. Wirth vs. Waite). Our placement reflects the harmonization of
oppositions symbolized by Temperance. Notice that the upper, golden (masculine, solar) vessel, in the right (conscious) hand, pours (feminine, lunar) water, whereas the lower, silver (feminine, lunar) vessel, in the left (unconscious) hand, holds the (masculine, solar) wine (cf. Crowley 102). Thus the silver womb of the unconscious overflows with feeling and fiery spiritual content,
which rises up from it, while the golden ewer of the conscious mind pours out on the lower vessel the clear stream of reason and wisdom.
It is significant that the actual mixing takes place in the lower vessel, the unconscious, for such alchemy is ultimately beyond conscious comprehension. This is why Temperance as alchemist is, though generally androgynous, specifically female; she is at home with the chemistry of the Cauldron of Regeneration. (Nichols 252)
There is an additional meaning to the wine being in the silver vessel and the water in the golden vessel: the male spirit is in the female vessel and the female spirit is in the male vessel. This symbolizes the ritual transvestitism and other forms of androgyny that symbolize the unification of opposites in spiritual initiations in many cultures (Eliade, M&A 111-114). So we may
interpret Temperance as the divine child undertaking her first initiation.
The trumps 7.Temperance and 17.Moon are allied, for they differ by the Decad, and in the Moon trump the silver patera of Temperance expands to cosmic scale as the Abyssal Sea (infused with the salty spirit) in which the soul is reborn. So also the alchemist of Temperance (daughter of the Sun and Moon) corresponds to Circe, the potion-mixing daughter of Helios and Hecate (see 17.Moon). (Walker 108)
Temperance refers to the artful mixture that balances the opposites, which is an alchemical operation, and so the opposites are symbolized by the lion and eagle. The white eagle is a water symbol, but it decorates the golden jug held in the right hand (all associated with fire); the white eagle has become red, though its prior state is reflected in the water in the jug; we see the red eagle in 3.Emperor. Conversely, the red lion is a fire symbol, yet here we find it decorating the silver dish held in the left hand (all associated with water); the red lion has become white (or green), though its prior state is reflected in the red wine in the dish; we see the green lion in 2.Empress. In alchemical terms, the red blood of the lion has been exchanged for the white gluten of the eagle, which effects the reconciliation of opposites and sets the stage for completing the work. (We have already seen the Tantric interpretation of the mixing of the red and white elixirs.) In more mundane terms, the descending water quenches the fiery spirits below, while the ascending fire spiritualizes the flux above. (Case 157; Crowley 102, 228; Nichols 258)
To recap, the mixing accomplished by Temperance creates the green lion who accompanies 2.Empress and the red eagle who accompanies 3.Emperor. Further, the gluten of the eagle is the white sulphur, associated with 4.High Priestess, and the blood of the lion is the red sulphur, associated 5. High Priest (cf. Pollack I.97). Temperance mixes the two sulphurs in the grey Philosophic Egg, which blends the black and white, and is in turn the child born from the silver Orphic Egg, the pneumatos, the "harmony of an intermediate spirit," the quintessence (see 6.Love).
The sulphur-infused water is called hudor theion in Greek, which means both sulphur-water and holy-water. When incubated in the Philosophic Egg this mixture will engender the Philosopher's Stone, the perfect unification of the mercury, sulphur and salt of the alchemists (i.e., spirit, soul and body). The mercury is the fluid principle (associated with the water), the sulphur is the fiery principle (associated with the wine), and the salt is the material principle, the earthly vehicle for
their embodiment. The result, according to Basilius, is alchemical vitriol (or the oil thereof), "that true fluid Gold of Philosophers, which nature drove together from the three principles, wherein is found a spirit, soul and body "
Indeed, Crowley's equivalent of 7.Temperance bears the seven-letter alchemical formula VITRIOL (seen, e.g., in Stolcius' Viridarium Chymicum, 1624), which is said to contain the whole secret of alchemy. It stands for:
Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem
That is, "Visit the interior of the earth and by rectification you will find the hidden stone." The text explains, in words echoing the Emerald Tablet, "The Sun is father to the Stone, wandering Cynthia [the Moon] its mother, Wind bore the child in its womb, Earth gave it food" - fire, water, air and earth